Laila Dalton Labor from p 15 my children,” Garcia said. She paused. “But it just doesn’t work like that.” After a few years teaching in San Francisco, Garcia moved back to the Valley, where she had gone to elementary school and junior high. She taught middle school history for the Isaac School District, a small district in west Phoenix. There, she recalled, she witnessed “the most abject poverty I had ever seen in my life.” Some of her students had no running water or air conditioning at home. At the time — the late 2000s — Joe Arpaio was in power, heading up the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. “My students could not tell you who the vice president was, but they could tell you everything about Sheriff Joe,” Garcia said. Immigration raids led by Arpaio kept students from leaving school, she noted. Families in the district were split apart. Garcia was frustrated by the district administration’s response. Meanwhile, when she enrolled her own son in kinder- garten, she was a single mother and quali- fied for free-and-reduced lunch on her teacher’s salary. That infuriated her. It did not take long before Garcia was back to organizing. After joining the union, Garcia slowly moved up through the ranks. She served as president of the Isaac School District’s local union, and ultimately was elected vice president of AEA in 2016. She ran unopposed for president in May, and took office July 7. She’s the first woman of color to head the organization after nearly two decades of white male leadership. The change is a meaningful — and needed — one, she said. Garcia identifies as Chicana. Her grand- parents, who were farmers in Fruita, Colorado, were forced to be sharecroppers on land they once owned. “Almost every room I enter, I’m the only woman of color,” she said. “Even labor leadership rooms.” She hopes to bring a lens of racial and social justice to the union’s top office. Garcia also has promised to grow the 16 teachers union, with an “aspirational” goal of doubling membership in three to six Laila Dalton protests Starbucks’ union- busting tactics. years. And she is adamant about pushing back on conservative conceptions of unions in Arizona. After #RedForEd, invoking the “teachers’ union” has become a cheap shot from the right. Garcia has no tolerance for this. “There’s no secret person running this place,” she said. “It’s all of us. If you don’t like unions, you don’t like your kinder- garten teacher who’s helping your child open their applesauce. If you don’t like unions, you don’t like the bus driver who brings your child to school.” She knows all too well that, in the wake of the #RedForEd backlash, and in a state like Arizona, which has one of the worst funded public school systems in the country, the work will not be easy. But it doesn’t faze her. “We’ll get there,” she said. “We have no choice.” Laila Dalton on Surviving Starbucks’ Union-Busting Tactics In winter 2021, Starbucks faced a crush of labor organizing across the country. It began with a store in Buffalo, New York, that voted to unionize in December — becoming the first U.S. union for the coffee giant. By spring, the movement had taken root at Starbucks locations across the Valley, including stores in Mesa and Avondale. At that time, Laila Dalton, an Arizona State University student, watched the union activity from the Starbucks on Scottsdale Road and Mayo Boulevard where she worked. She was 19 years old. She turned 20 this summer. Dalton joined Starbucks without even knowing what a cappuccino was. She had just moved to the East Valley from Florida, where she grew up. By the beginning of 2022, though, Dalton had worked her way up through the ranks to become a supervisor. It hadn’t been an easy journey. During her time at Starbucks, Dalton worked in stores with serious under- staffing and management problems, she said. “I saw a lack of communication,” she told New Times. “I saw no support.” When a coworker told Dalton >> p 18 SEPT 8TH–SEPT 14TH, 2022 PHOENIX NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | FILM | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | FEATURE | NEWS | OPINION | FEEDBACK | CONTENTS | phoenixnewtimes.com
