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All right, so can we start with your name and position on campus? Yeah, my name is Blake Harris and I'm an academic program assistant at the School of Communications. And do I have permission to record this conversation today? Yes.

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Today is Monday, March 20th, 2023, and I am Gabriella Folsom here with Blake on the quad at American University. It's around one o'clock and we are conducting an oral history interview for the Preserving the Ticket Line AU Staff Union Archive. Thanks again for joining us here today. We'll start with how would you describe your involvement in the union or in the strike? I think it was more involvement than I planned for. I did not anticipate honestly staying in my job through when we would have been on strike or when we did go on strike rather. And I remember I was on a phone call with Chadwick talking to him and I told them that And they encouraged me to stick around anyways, because I also expressed, you know, pretty fervent support for the Union and for labor rights. And so I ended up as a strike captain actually for some of my co-workers in SOC. I organized different people there. And so I ended up definitely more involved than I anticipated being originally. Could you walk me through what the week of the strike was like for you? Yeah, it was, I think it was really fascinating to me because I never really envisioned myself as being in a position where that would happen. You know, the first day I was kind of nervous, excited. You know, also trying to figure out who else was going to be there, trying to, because I was trying to coordinate with coworkers and trying to encourage people to come out and join us. And so it was, it was an interesting first day. And then as things progressed, you know, we got more and more people to come out and join. And so it was just kind of building on that excitement. But altogether, it was a very strange experience. I was kind of nervous throughout. Uncomfortable, definitely. Yeah.

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And were you on campus the whole week for the strike or virtual some of it? I was on campus the whole week. And what was the day-to-day kind of like? So I would show up in the morning, meet up with the group. Since I was a strike captain, we met up earlier. Just kind of got a brief overview of what to expect. And then we would walk around. So the first day we walked around the campus of WCL. And then, this is longer ago than I thought, I'm having trouble remembering exactly. But then the other days we came here to the main campus and just kind of, you know, walked around carrying signs, picketing. And then we chose locations to just kind of hang out, have people talk, try to engage with students where we could. And then I think most days I stuck around until things kind of dissipated. And then I guess the last day we ended with, I was in the meeting where we were basically negotiating with the AU admin.

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Wow. That was like the last bargaining session on the Friday? That's right. Wow. Great. What do you think was the most memorable part of the strike for you? I think the most memorable part for me was when we were, it was move-in day, we were over at Anderson and Letts and not blocking the entrances, people were still getting in and out, but when we were all kind of in that courtyard, that stands out to me as, you know, very memorable being there with everyone.

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And you spoke a little bit about that last bargaining session. I'm curious what it was like in comparison to others, what the morale was like for either the AU folks or the Union folks. I mean, morale for us was great. I mean, we'd had a very successful week. You know, we got a lot of people out, and we were getting a lot of student support, which was huge for us. I mean, going back to memorable moments as well, that day when we were down outside Bender, And they were, I forget what the, whatever ceremony that was, and all the, yeah, convocation, and all the first year students came out to join us. That was incredible. And so just kind of building on all of that and seeing that support among students and among other members of the community was fantastic. And so our morale was high going into it. And I remember, you know, we sat down, we started the meeting, and, you know, one of the first things that they said on the other side of the negotiations, I just remember thinking in my head, oh, like, we did it. I don't remember what exactly was said, but it was just a very, like, oh, we got something. This was all worth it. This achieved something. And so that was a really incredible feeling. And what would you consider to be the main effects or legacy of the strike, if any? You know it's funny, in my office there are a lot of attempts to do team building and things like that but nothing built the team like going on strike. I mean I started going out with my co-workers every other week for drinks after work. That was something that we never did before And so I think it built just a lot of camaraderie within the office. I got to know co-workers who otherwise I would only email with. And so for me that's been the most impactful legacy of it, was just that increased connection with the people that I work with. I think there's also something valuable to be seen from the way that, you know, the AU admin reacted to the strike and certainly diminished in my eyes their, I'm not sure what word I'm looking for there, ability to govern a school? Yeah.

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And is there anything else you'd like to talk about that I haven't asked? Nothing comes to mind, no. Well, thank you so much again for joining us. We really appreciate your contribution. Yeah. If you think of anything else later that you'd like to add, you can always record another, submit some extra stuff, whatever you prefer. And just so you know, next steps will be processing this interview in the coming weeks and transcribing the recording. So we'll share a copy of the transcription with you once we get there. Great. And you can make any changes at that time. We're collecting these videos on behalf of the AU Staff Union and the collection will then be turned over to the AU archive to be digitized and made publicly accessible. If there are any materials that the union would like to maintain privately, we might keep some materials there. So if you'd like this to not become publicly accessible, we can also help with that. Your contribution was incredibly helpful. Again, Thank you so much. We really appreciate it. Yeah, thanks for doing this. This is great. Yeah. All right.