Ep. 10: a Texas-Sized Chat w/Gina & Crystal from the Texas Service Industry Coalition

An hour and forty (!!!!)  blew by with two of the leaders of the Texas Service Industry Coalition, Gina Dvorak (Insta/Twitter) and Crystal Maher (Insta/Twitter)  - both based in Austin. Follow TSIC on Instagram and Twitter. 

We spend some time hearing about how things have gone down in the Lone Star state where they started to allow indoor dining back in May (WTF), reminding us that truly, we live in different worlds in this pandemic. 

Austin, with a reputation for being a little different from the rest of the notoriously red state, has had some particular ups and downs, like being sued by the Texas Attorney General for restaurant restrictions over the New Year's Holiday. Fun times! 

Mostly we discuss Texas during the pandemic, what led our guests to get active about workers' issues in their city and how they're trying to lend support to workers across the state. Including  UNITEHERE Local 23 and  local DSA chapters, TSIC has organized around pushing for UI bonus extensions, and generally have tried to keep workers' issues in people's faces during this whole crisis. 

We touch on vaccines for hospitality workers, some of whom top the list for risky jobs during this pandemic. (Can you guess who? Of course it's cooks!).  

Lush Life and Portland Cocktail Week came up with an amaaaazing document, updated constantly, with state-by-state info on vaccines for hospitality workers. 

CA news is that  Gov. Newsom has opened the state for outdoor dining again, announced changes to the vaccine tiers, keeping food workers high priority but dropping other "essential" workers. Why the shuffle? Some logistical reasons. And why reopen now? Some are upset about it, and speculate that maybe it's his recall campaign. Of course we commiserate about our states' unemployment systems, everyone's favorite pastime.