Priya Sundareshan Interview Transcript

"Hi, I’m Priya Sundareshan and I am running for re-election to the State Senate in LD 18, I’m a proud member of United Campus Workers which is a part of CWA, CWA Local 7065. 

Well, why am I a member of UCW is because I think when UCW was first getting started I had some friends who were actually part of the founding of it. It’s definitely an important thing to have a group of people who are organizing to make sure that university workers are represented in decision-making and have that sense of solidarity amongst each other, not just faculty but staff across the university to be able to fight for better working conditions that they may not have that power individually.

I think it’s really important for pro-labor candidates to be in the state legislature, especially candidates who are fighting for the working class. People who are everyday regular people. Very few of us are the owner class. This is the class struggle that has existed throughout history. Very few of us are actually billionaires. Right now we see it reflected in the billionaires that are having an outsized impact on our politics. So I think it’s really important that our pro-labor candidates are there, are fighting for the people, and are fighting for regular working class people because we are the majority. This is the majority of the United States. We are all working class people and we need to unite in that struggle to make sure that our policies that we fight for at the state legislature are reflective of the working class and working families and are not just catering to the wealthiest and the corporate interests and the billionaires. 

I think higher education workers can and absolutely need to come together and organize within a group such as your union, UCW, because that is how we build power by joining together and fighting together in solidarity for better outcomes. I think this is something that especially higher education workers need to realize is that the facts and the science and everything that we work with on a daily basis does not defend itself. The science we are seeing is under threat as we see the impacts of people without expertise being put in these high level positions that are now leading to anti-vax rhetoric becoming very widespread. That’s one critical and very obvious example but we still see that everywhere and so what we need is for academics and higher education workers to recognize that just because we know something's true doesn’t mean that your policymakers know it’s true. So you need to get engaged. We all need to come together under the form of our union, that’s where we find our power, so that we can be able to advocate for the benefit of higher education and academic standards which are under attack from the Trump administration right now."