Bethany Khan, Ken Liu, and Zachary Poppel (Culinary Union) oral history interview conducted by Elia Del Carmen Solano-Patricio: transcript

An Interview with Bethany Khan, Ken Liu, and Zachary Poppel

Perspectives from the COVID-19 Pandemic: Leadership and Learning in Nevada

Produced by:

The University of Nevada Las Vegas The Lincy Institute
2024

Principal Researchers:
Magdalena Martinez, Ph.D. and Kelliann Beavers, Ph.D.

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The following interview was a part of the “Perspectives from the COVID-19 Pandemic: Leadership and Learning in Nevada” research project. The recorded interview and transcript were made possible through the generosity of The Lincy Institute at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The goal of the project was to understand and document how Nevada organizations and leaders responded to the myriad challenges that the pandemic engendered. The interviewees thank The Lincy Institute and their supporters for the opportunity to reflect on their roles throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. The researchers also acknowledge the following individuals who contributed to the conceptualization, data collection, and analysis of the project: Dr. John Hudak, Dr. Makada Henry-Nickie, Elia Del Carmen Solano-Patricio, Taylor Cummings, Peter Grema, Kristian Thymianos, Saha Salahi, Madison Frazee, and Katie Lim.

Each interviewee had the opportunity to review their transcript. All measures have been taken to preserve the style and language of the interviewee. This interview features Bethany Khan, Ken Liu, and Zachary Poppel, Spokeswoman and Director of Communications and Digital Strategy for Culinary Union, Research Director for Culinary Union, and Researcher for Culinary Union Local 226, and was conducted on 12/13/22 by Elia Del Carmen Solano-Patricio. This interview covers topics including reflections on leadership, organizational challenges, and opportunities for collaboration.

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Interview with Bethany Khan, Ken Liu, & Zachary Poppel Date: 12-13-2022

Carmen Solano-Patricio [00:03]
Okay. Bethany, over at the Culinary Union. We also have Ken Liu here, and probably, Zach might be joining, right? I just wanted to double-check that you had a chance to go over our one-page consent form, which you don't have to sign. But it basically states that you give your permission to record this interview; to create a transcript, which we will send back to you for review. And then we will submit it to the Library's repository of records. Do you consent?

Ken Liu [00:35] Yes.

Bethany Khan [00:36] Yes.

Carmen Solano-Patricio [00:38]
Okay, thank you. So I'll start with Bethany, and then, Ken, feel free to answer with your perspective or any kind of additions. It can be back and forth. You don't have to wait for either of us to stop talking or anything like that. Feel free to chime in at any point.

So the first question is very generic, and we ask it of all of our interviewees. If you could just describe your role as an individual, throughout the pandemic, and the role of your organization, the Culinary Union.

Bethany Khan [01:10] Okay, yeah. So – gosh.

Carmen Solano-Patricio [01:17]
Think back to any time – take your time – make a timeline.

Bethany Khan [01:21]
Yeah, okay. So I think no organization was able to do what the Culinary Union was able to do during the pandemic. And in reflecting back over the last three years, it's amazing to see what the union had accomplished, to protect workers and their families, to make sure that workers weren't left behind, in a very comprehensive way. From food assistance workers being safe on the job, passing historic bills, to keep workers safe from the spread of COVID in the workplace, ensuring that workers have the right to their jobs, unemployment assistance, housing assistance. The work that the union did in the decades previously, really ensured that we were set up to be the most successful during the pandemic by having a Democratic governor who would sign our bills, by having an almost-entirely Democratic delegation who could deliver something as huge as 100% COBRA. Which is what the Culinary Union asked for our federal delegation, to make sure workers didn't lose their healthcare during the pandemic.

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There were so many other things that I'm sure we'll get into. And so that's why I can confidently say that I'm so glad that the Culinary Union is as robust and as strong as we are. It really made a big impact on workers' lives to keep people alive, keep people safe, keep people – protect their jobs, keep people in their homes, and keep workers fed. It's a very – the union was in complete crisis mode and crisis response mode for maybe two years, starting in March 2020. And the entire union staff was in some – every single member of the staff was, in some way, supporting the efforts. And guys, if you have anything to add, jump in.

Carmen Solano-Patricio [03:30]
Yeah. I'd like to add – take this chance, Zachary. If I could just have you verbally consent to having this interview recorded. We will send you the transcript for your review. And then submit it to the UNLV library repository.

Zachary Poppel [03:46]
I consent to it being recorded.

Carmen Solano-Patricio [03:47]
Great, thank you. Do you have any thoughts, with regard to this question, which is, could you describe your role throughout the pandemic.

Zachary Poppel [04:00]
I guess Bethany listed it out there, right? The question of whether people were going to be evicted for not being able to pay rent. Whether or not they're going to be able to make their mortgage payments. Or the huge one, how they would acquire rental or mortgage assistance if they were, say, elderly, and didn't know how to apply for that with a smartphone. I just remember speaking to someone desperate for someone to show them how to apply for rental assistance, and they were in their driveway trying to find a neighbor to come help them. And the best thing was that we were able to direct them right to some union resources for rent assistance, for housing funding. Because over the years, right, the unions fought for housing funds that are funded by employers – thought to have a network of unions that support workers in times of crisis, and then can really deliver immediate assistance to people.

There were times when we had, particularly in 2020, spreadsheets upon spreadsheets of people seeking rental assistance. And we were tracking their applications and supporting them, but they needed technological assistance to navigate some of the portals. This was paramount: they needed language assistance because the text was only in English, or they needed something translated into, say, Amharic, right? They needed to be able to speak with a translator to get assistance. We worked extremely hard to make that happen, and to get people the support so they could access the funds that were out there, so I think that's what I would add.

Then, in the fall of 2020, right y'all, is an election, it was a fight for democracy amidst a pandemic, and the Union and the Hall became an epicenter of that fight. So that's the middle of the pandemic, the height of it, to some extent, pre-vaccine.

Carmen Solano-Patricio [06:46] Yeah.

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Zachary Poppel [06:49]
So that was a huge part, and really, making that about the fight to recover and to come back was such a huge piece. There were hundreds of workers coming in and out of the parking lot because they weren't coming inside Union Hall. All the time, it was a huge, logistical operation; it was also statewide, and it was here and then up north as well. So those were just a couple of things that I would add.

Carmen Solano-Patricio [07:18] Thank you so much, Zach.

Bethany, you touched on being prepared with the work that the union had been doing 10 years prior to this crisis. Which is actually really interesting to me because I'm an urban studies major. Can you hear me okay, Bethany?

Bethany Khan [07:36]
I think it's cutting out, right?

Carmen Solano-Patricio [07:37]
Okay. You mentioned something about [audio drops out 07:42] Can you hear me?

Bethany Khan [07:45] Yes.

Carmen Solano-Patricio [07:46]
Okay. Urban resilience: you talked about being prepared 10 years in advance for this crisis, which is interesting, but not something that you could have foreseen, right? So my question is – first of all, I want to clarify something. Do you normally go out into the field to observe the groups that you work with, or is it exclusively that they come to you?

Bethany Khan [08:11]
No, we go out into the field.

Carmen Solano-Patricio [08:14]
What does that look like on an everyday-

Bethany Khan [08:15]
It depends on what you’re doing. Essentially, we're organizers [over talking 08:19]

Ken Liu [08:22]
Just for the questioner, right? Kelliann is your name?

Carmen Solano-Patricio [08:25] I'm Carmen.

Ken Liu [08:26]
Carmen, I'm sorry. Are you familiar with labor unions at all?

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Carmen Solano-Patricio [08:34]
I mean, generally, but no, please educate me.

Ken Liu [08:37]
Yeah. Bethany, I'm just organizing work – the resiliency we're talking about is the fact that we have an organization that's very active in rates of membership organization-

Carmen Solano-Patricio [08:50] Nods (affirmative).

Ken Liu [08:54]
-that is very active on a day-to-day basis, in talking to our members, and to engage them in the workplace, and very often, in political activities at the time where it comes.

Carmen Solano-Patricio [09:07] Mm-hmm.

Ken Liu [09:10]
So it was a matter of having that organization in place when the pandemic hit; that we're able to continue to have that network of 60,000 members of the Culinary Union, with their family members as part of that overall network. That we were able to turn the union towards relief efforts, and assistance, pretty much immediately, at the time, right? We were not able to enforce any contracts because of the casino shutdown. There were no workplace issues anymore.

Carmen Solano-Patricio [09:48] Right.

Ken Liu [09:50]
People had other things to worry about. They lost their livelihoods through no fault of their own. And so we had to very quickly, as an organization, come up with responses to make sure our members had food, they can put food on the table. And as Zach said, right, keep a roof over their heads.

Carmen Solano-Patricio [10:12] Yeah.

Ken Liu [10:14]
And there was unemployment assistance available, theoretically. But at the same time, right, thanks to the union, most of our members had job security where they worked. And I think a large percentage of them had never had to deal with unemployment or filing for assistance, and that also became a big part of what we had to do to resolve – to respond to people – you lose your paycheck, right? You've been counting on a steady paycheck; every other week, something comes in. Now, all of a sudden, that's gone away.

So three areas, and then I think a fourth one we also did – not so much through the union, but you've seen the union, right? We have good union healthcare. Most members and their families

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are in the union healthcare plan, which is the best in the city, if not in the state. And when the pandemic hit, there was a healthcare crisis, and our health funders had to respond as well in figuring out ways to get people tested, working with public agencies and others, to make sure that people were protected, and also to get the healthcare they needed when they became sick. We did have a lot of members and their families who got COVID. Probably not as much as the worst-case scenario that was projected because we also quickly took many protective measures and made sure they were stable. That workers were protected when they went back to work.

Yeah, it was the organization that had existed for – Bethany, how many years? Eighty-seven years? I think that's right, and they were able to respond quickly to the crisis.

Carmen Solano-Patricio [12:17]
It sounds like the capacity to unionize is really a measure of urban resilience. And it sounds like you were able to quickly shift, if not embrace, the scope of your mission as an organization, right? Because it sounds like you might have expected some of these types of things, so long as you had boots on the ground, right?

So my next question – and feel free, any of you who can answer this. Were there any specific policies that the state or the federal government implemented, that you noticed impacted people the most, whether that be negatively or positively?

Bethany Khan [12:59]
Yeah. I think the context of that being an 87-year-old organization is we saw what happened to the state during the Great Recession, and how the banks got bailed out, and companies got all this money, but workers were left behind. Nevada was hardest hit during the foreclosure crisis; stores were abandoned, and small businesses were destroyed. Workers lost their homes. And we said that during this pandemic, we do not want that to happen again, and we wouldn't allow it to happen again. And we were really militant about ensuring that we had a president who would protect us – and that was, to Zach's point, the reason why the union ran the largest political effort in the state: to knock on 650,000 doors, including half of the Black and Latino voters in Nevada, to deliver the state for Biden.

And we also reelected Democrats up and down the ballot, to ensure that the landscape that the workers faced was transformed. That's been something our union's been doing in our 87 years is really, with our organizing, we have been transforming the landscape that workers are facing. Sometimes it's small and incremental, and sometimes it's monumental. But it always is just pushing things forward, so workers have a more hospitable environment, so that they can thrive.

When we looked at – and we've had this infrastructure – we can do polling in-house; we can do this – we have an incredible research department; we were able to put forth policy papers that they will tell you about. We were able to do a lot of that completely in-house in a very responsive way because we're always communicating and hearing directly from workers. So we have 60,000 members, and we can hear from thousands in just a couple of hours if needed, and tens of thousands over a longer period of time.

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So that was really instrumental in figuring out priorities, where we needed to go, and what we needed to do. And then, Zach and Ken on policies –

Zachary Poppel [15:14]
Just as an example, to get at what Bethany was saying – the Supreme Court of Nevada was having a hearing about evictions. And the people that were going to be speaking were lobbyists, lawyers, and landlords. And then there were union members who were telling their eviction stories and how they were fighting their evictions. And this is both from – and then non-union members that are organizing right now as well. They were a part of that testimony.

So, essentially, it was the ability of workers and working families to have their stories and voices heard by the Supreme Court of Nevada to determine a policy. This was a policy about eviction reform, that would, basically, give renters some more rights in the pandemic to slow or stop an eviction proceeding, and to actually be involved in ways that they were not previously allowed to be involved, so that was extremely important and consequential because it became the examples that the Supreme Court Justices in the State were referenced when they were discussing the merits of the policy before them. So it's really – and those workers were speaking about their story, but also talking about their co-workers and their neighbors, right? That's what unions do: they give power to workers to represent themselves, their neighbors, their families, and other workers at the highest court in the state.

In terms of policies, really, the two big ones are Senate Bill 4, and the Adolfo Fernandez Bill, which was about protecting workers on the job from COVID and pushing employers to adopt really important public health measures. And similar to the eviction testimony, that was not just for union hotels and union casinos. That was statewide, right? That's for workers, up and down, throughout the industry. So unions really do – in the case of eviction reform, or safety on the job, they set the standard for all workers, and you even see that during the crisis of the pandemic.

Then the other big piece of policy is, right, to return to your job. So that was a huge fight to when – I don’t know, Ken or Bethany, if you want to lay out the stakes of that one.

Ken Liu [18:21]
Yeah. SB386 – that came in the second year of the pandemic in the 2021 Special Session, where it was becoming clear that the casinos had reopened, they were attracting a lot of visitors, and they were making record profits. But at the same time, there was a question that was unsettled, as to whether they would bring back the workers because they were doing quite well without bringing everybody back. So we made sure that workers would have the right to return to their old jobs because they got laid off and lost their livelihood, through no fault of their own. I think that was a very basic idea that the elected, from the governor down, were able to come behind that idea. It was a once-in-a-lifetime crisis, literally, and people should have the right to go back to what they were doing without being permanently displaced.

That was a big fight, and we were very glad that we were able to – this is why I think Zach referenced this, right, mobilized and spent our resources in the Fall of 2020, to elect, right? We believed that the political leaders would understand where we stood on issues like that, and we were proven right. So, at the state level, that was very important.

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At the federal level, I think it was really important for our members to get the extra unemployment benefits that came in through the CARES Act, a little bit, through the second ARPA – two sets of additional income that came in. So, at the federal level, it was great, and I guess I'm speaking on record here – I will say, right? But at the state level, in terms of execution; in terms of really getting the money and funds to the people who needed them, things were not necessarily done to the best of the bureaucracy's abilities, right?

We advocated for our members to try to expedite the receiving of benefits, to make sure they were not going to get caught up in investigations that were just – some very "gotcha" technicalities – that people were getting demand letters for tens of thousands of dollars back. We advocated for our members, working with the Legal Aid Center and other groups, to make sure that Dieter understood, right? They should not be going after people while the whole state is in crisis. They should prioritize getting the benefits out to the people who are in need.

It was a tremendous struggle, back and forth, but I think that's something we're proud of. We helped our members process tens of thousands of phone calls because people couldn't get through to Dieter. They called us, our members, and then we helped them to the best of our ability. We turned, maybe, dozens of our staff members into unemployment assistance specialists. We trained them, and we made sure that they understood what they could do to help people. But even with that dedication, ultimately, Dieter did not always do the right thing, from my perspective, right, in getting people the assistance they needed at the height of the crisis. So people were waiting for months and months for money that – unemployment benefits are earned benefits. It's money that you and your employer put into the system. It's there for you in times like these.

Bethany Khan [23:01] Mm-hmm.

Ken Liu [23:06]
And it was very challenging how Dieter responded to the crisis, in spite of what the governor tried to provide him, in terms of resources, and all of the support that they could have asked for. The agency did not, necessarily, do the best they could have done.

Carmen Solano-Patricio [23:27]
I'm glad that you brought that up, Ken because I was just about to ask you, is there anything that you wish the government, at any level, could have done differently? And what came to mind was that there are still some unemployment claims left unpaid, right?

Ken Liu [23:42] Right.

Carmen Solano-Patricio [23:44]
I'll direct this next question to you, Bethany, and then, maybe, we can go around. Can you give-

Ken Liu [23:49]
You're still kind of fading in and out a little bit.

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Carmen Solano-Patricio [23:50]
Oh, no. Okay. How about now? Testing...1, 2, 3.

Bethany Khan [23:52] Yeah.

Ken Liu [23:55] Probably closer, yeah.

Carmen Solano-Patricio [23:56]
So I just need to stand really close to- [over talking 23:57] Okay, thank you for asking that question. It anticipates my questions.

Bethany, can you give me examples of partnerships with organizations, outside of the union, if any?

Bethany Khan [24:12]
Yeah, definitely. So we have many great community partnerships, like the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada. We worked with them quite a bit. We also, at many tables, had the Nevada Immigrant Coalition and the Nevada Housing Justice Alliance. We have partnerships at UNLV; there are official archivists. And then there are so many of us on staff, who have different boards and capacities, that we serve on boards. So yeah, the union's a major stakeholder in Nevada. It's the largest union and the largest organization of immigrants – a large organization of Black, Latino, and Asian workers of Nevada, and the largest organization of women.

So, as a stakeholder, the union is really well-suited to advocating [a win] for workers and our communities, and with the Culinary Union, workers have a real seat at the table. So, yes, we operated during the pandemic, with many progressive partners, and worked in a coalition to monitor eviction courts. We sent a letter to the Select Hearing Committee's Act on the Siegel Suites Eviction – their practices during the pandemic. I'll try to find the title of that. It was a select hearing that the Culinary Union and our partners of the Nevada Housing Justice Alliance – we submitted a letter pointing out the many different ways that Siegel Suites violated the law during the pandemic, and the Select Committee, I think, held them accountable.

Zachary Poppel [26:17]
Yeah. So there are two things – just on the Siegel Suites, and then back to the original question. We sent out, I believe, the only comprehensive eviction protection mailer to the entire – every room in Siegel Suite's property, which was a tremendous effort. And we gave information about how, even if you’re in a "monthly," as they're called, you have rights to protect yourself, and in many ways, families living in Siegel Suites from wrongful evictions, and from some of the worst practices in the housing market.

So those lessons learned were from workers fighting for themselves, fighting alongside legal aid, and with the unions, the lessons learned, then were passed onto the wider community, and then passed onto Congress. This is a kind of a "bad actors" union, to be going after.

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There's another way – the employers that we have contracts with, they're not partners in the sense of a coalition. But in some ways, having a contract lets you have a dialogue and pushes these huge powers in the State to do the right thing. To leverage a contract; to leverage a relationship and say to the workers to tell their company "You need to back us up, big-time." So workers with a contract were able to push their company, their employer, to do the right thing. In some ways, that's just similar, but a little different than, say, building a Progressive Alliance. These are workers pushing their boss to stand up and get things done on their behalf.

Ken Liu [28:20]
Yeah, and maybe I can add to that. I think having a longstanding union relationship with some of the largest employers on the strip downtown and in the state, right? What that means is the union has set up, with the employers, some very large benefit funds, Taft-Hawley funds, for multiemployer trust funds, that cover the worker's healthcare. Pension, housing benefits, legal services. What am I missing?

Bethany Khan [29:08] Citizenship.

Ken Liu [29:10]
Citizen – oh, training, right? So those benefits that come from the union contract and are part of the union's relationship with their employers are all governed by joint boards, consisting of trustees from both the employer's side and the union's side. So those longstanding relationships became quite important in the midst of a crisis like this; where the union and management trustees were able to agree to extend healthcare coverage for the union workers at a great cost through the fund. We were able to extend patient benefits and allowed workers to recover some of the pension credits that they had lost for not working for a couple of months. The housing fund was instrumental as an entity in helping with worker's rentals. Also, as homeowners, they had issues with their mortgages, and training centers became a physical site for, I think, Bethany – were we the largest food bank around for a while?

Bethany Khan [30:33]
I think so. I would say that we – let me pull it up – I had in my notes, we, in a year, from 2020 to 2021, we had provided almost 300,000 packages of food. That's 11 million pounds of food, to workers, and I think it's 2,000 workers a day, came through the Helping Hand Food Assistance for a year. And that wasn't just Culinary Union members [over talking 31:04] Yeah, it was open to the public.

Ken Liu [31:07]
Yeah. Because the funding was public. The money came from the CARES Act and through the Department of Agriculture. Then the county had some money available at their discretion, so it all went into this very important food bank operation that went on for many, many months.

So I think this is another aspect of what I was talking about earlier, in terms of having the organization in place. This is another part of the organization, this relationship with the employers, with their industry being a highly organized union industry. It allowed us to, again,

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right, have the organization wherewithal and the resources to mount a response that would directly address the crisis facing our members and their families in different ways.

Carmen Solano-Patricio [32:04]
That's the epitome of a public-private partnership, to cut through all the slowness of providing those services. I had no idea that the union engaged in funds outside of healthcare, pension funds, housing, and food – all of that is new information to me. So that sounds really interesting.

Bethany Khan [32:24]
Yeah. The only thing I'll add to that is the direct impact that partnership and collaboration had on Nevada at a time when everything was completely overwhelmed. The unemployment, as Zach and Ken were talking about, we were able to keep about 150,000 Nevadans off of Medicare and Medicaid because they were on the Culinary Health Fund Insurance. The system would have been completely swamped – there's just no way you could have even been able to dream to accommodate 150,000 people needing immediate healthcare coverage. The union was able to keep members on the Culinary Health Fund and also secure 100% COBRA, to keep workers on their healthcare. And 100% COBRA, which has never been done before, was a huge lift and a huge fight that cost billions of dollars for the whole country, for workers to have 100% healthcare COBRA. And so, it was an incredible feat.

Carmen Solano-Patricio [33:35]
Thank you so much, Bethany. I have one, final question for you all, faced towards the future. And then if you want to ask me any questions, great.

Given the changes happening in the industry right now – entertainment is kind of blowing up a bit more than just hospitality. What do you expect the union to look like? What do you expect Southern Nevada and the rest of the state to look like in comparison? I'm just curious to know what you’re expecting, and how we can prepare for any future crises.

Ken Liu [34:16]
So it's kind of a two – are you asking two questions?

Carmen Solano-Patricio [34:19]
Yes. I think I am. So the first one, what do you expect for the union in the future? The second one is, how can we prepare, from this experience-

Ken Liu [34:31] Yes, two questions.

Carmen Solano-Patricio [34:33]
-for other crises, right? Let's say climate change, for example.

Ken Liu [34:41]
Well, I can talk about – I think the union will continue to organize our members, and we will continue to advance their interests; to get everybody higher wages, better benefits, and more rights and respect on the job. We will enforce our contract language and we will continue to

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bring more workers into that fold. There are new resources being built up and down the strip and around the strip. We will continue to organize the new ones being built and opening up. We will organize more restaurants, arenas, and stadiums being built.

Those are the types of workers we organize in hospitality, food services, and restaurants, and the union will continue to engage, organize, and bring more people into the union world. So we will continue to have this organization only get bigger and bigger, as their economy and industry grows. So that's what I think the union will do and look like.

Carmen Solano-Patricio [36:03]
Okay, great. So the work continues. And how can we use this COVID experience to prepare for future crises?

Bethany Khan [36:16]
Well, I think I'd just like to say that looking back, we did lose workers to the pandemic, and not anywhere as near as was projected. I think we lost 191 members and members of their families, and I think a little over 1,800 were hospitalized during the critical periods between 2020 and 2022. And it's still too many – every person who we lost is like someone – we knew a lot of those members. But we had political leaders in office who were courageous and not afraid to make the hard decisions.

I think Governor Sisolak did the right thing and shut the economy down and put people's lives over profits and business and money, and that saved all of our lives. It's a price that he – he didn't get re-elected, but he did the right thing, and he was courageous. And we need more political leaders like that, who will do the right thing, no matter the consequences, and who will continue to put us first. And as a union, we're going to continue prioritizing workers, we're going to continue to organize, we're going to continue to elect leaders who will put workers first and be really unapologetic about it.

Carmen Solano-Patricio [37:54]
That's a really good note to end on. Thank you, Bethany. Did anybody have any other thoughts, before I stop recording here?

Ken Liu [38:01]
Well, in terms of resiliency, I think I am fully confident that our union – our organization – can meet any challenges that come our way because we do have the organizational infrastructure to do a lot of different things, and we can pivot to new tasks and new challenges that come our way. I think it will be important for the local governments and state agencies to also do the same kind of conversation and thinking we are doing here to really take a hard look at what they did well – everybody, right, and what they did not do well. And figure out ways to improve and be ready for the next crisis. It could be a pandemic or climate, right? I think there are working groups focused on climate resiliency for the whole community. What will really be important – that process is to make sure they can undertake the process in the same way we organize our members. They have to talk to the people, they have to talk to the residents, and to really, I think, understand what's important to everybody in the community, rather than just follow any preconceived notions of what's crucial and important to the structure here.

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Carmen Solano-Patricio [39:50]
Ken, thank you. The other half of our data are interviews with frontline workers. Many of them are your members. And so I just want to thank you for showing up to work every day, and for continuing to do this sort of thing. My sister is a member of the union, and I know that her health has really, finally, been able to be taken care of. So I just want to thank you on a personal note.

Bethany Khan [40:15]
Thank you. Let us know if you need help with finding members – I don't think we were involved in getting members to the study, so I'm not sure how members were facilitated or found.

Carmen Solano-Patricio [40:28] Oh, gotcha, yeah.

Bethany Khan [40:31]
[40:32] needed – that's usually the protocol if we do that.

Carmen Solano-Patricio [40:39]
Great. I will bring that up with my boss, absolutely, because I'm sure she's not going to say no to more data. And I will absolutely follow up with you all, with your transcript, with opportunities to connect for other programs or projects. If you need anything from me, please let me know. One of my main jobs here is to produce fact sheets, specifically in the category of economic development. So we are happy to share any of that with you. You can click our links and go to the data help for any of that, or you can make suggestions, and we'll research a topic that – if it needs to be out there, right, especially with the upcoming session. Sometimes we submit them as exhibits, as testimony, and in a way, I lobby as well. The main thing is getting the research out there vigorously. So thank you again for your time, and we'll be in touch.

Ken Liu [41:32] Thank you.

Zachary Poppel [41:34] Take care, thanks.

Carmen Solano-Patricio [41:35] Bye.

End of audio: 41:45

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