Why do you support this? This would be, as Bernie Sanders says, historic, the billionaire wealth tax.

Well, look, when Trump passed H.R. one, we know that they cut our health care.

Working people are going to pay for that to give billionaires a tax break.

So when health care workers started gathering signatures and said one time five percent tax on billionaires could actually backfill that till we get a new president.

It makes sense.

It's simple.

And it's past time that billionaires pay their fair share.

And Lorena Gonzalez, could you talk about, especially given Trump's so-called big, beautiful bill, what the impact on California, especially in terms of health care, would be if you're not able to get new revenues from something like this billionaires tax?

Why do you support this? This would be, as Bernie Sanders says, historic, the billionaire wealth tax.

Well, look, when Trump passed H.R. one, we know that they cut our health care.

Working people are going to pay for that to give billionaires a tax break.

So when health care workers started gathering signatures and said one time five percent tax on billionaires could actually backfill that till we get a new president.

It makes sense.

It's simple.

And it's past time that billionaires pay their fair share.

And Lorena Gonzalez, could you talk about, especially given Trump's so-called big, beautiful bill, what the impact on California, especially in terms of health care, would be if you're not able to get new revenues from something like this billionaires tax?

Why do you support this? This would be, as Bernie Sanders says, historic, the billionaire wealth tax.

Well, look, when Trump passed H.R. one, we know that they cut our health care.

Working people are going to pay for that to give billionaires a tax break.

So when health care workers started gathering signatures and said one time five percent tax on billionaires could actually backfill that till we get a new president.

It makes sense.

It's simple.

And it's past time that billionaires pay their fair share.

And Lorena Gonzalez, could you talk about, especially given Trump's so-called big, beautiful bill, what the impact on California, especially in terms of health care, would be if you're not able to get new revenues from something like this billionaire's tax?

Why do you support this? This would be, as Bernie Sanders says, historic, the billionaire wealth tax.

Well, look, when, um, Trump passed H.R.1, we know that they cut, uh, our healthcare, working people are going to pay for that, to give billionaires a tax break.

So when w- w- healthcare workers started gathering signatures and said one time 5% tax on billionaires could actually backfill that till we get a new president, it makes sense, it's simple, and it, it's past time that billionaires pay their fair share.

So, um, you know, our, our federation, the AFL-CIO in California, all 2.3 million, um, working people, two-thirds of our unions and a, a vast majority of our union members support ensuring that we do this one-time tax to backfill, uh, healthcare so people don't lose their healthcare, so we don't lose hospitals, and healthcare workers don't leave, lose their jobs.

And Lorena Gonzalez, could you talk about, especially given, uh, Trump's so-called Big Beautiful Bill, what the impact on California, especially in terms of healthcare, would be, uh, if, uh, if you, you're not able to get new revenues from something like this, uh, billionaire's tax?

Well, we are, we're already seeing it.

Obviously, after the midterms, we know the Medi-Cal, what we call it in California, Medicaid, but, uh, cuts will become, uh, more fulfilled.

But already 89 hospitals are at risk of losing services or closing down.

So can you talk a little bit about what Prop 40 is, um, and, and, and how it got started? I know you've been, y- y- y- uh, y- you and your peers have been involved in this, um, you know, pretty much from the beginning.

Well, Prop 40, um, really came about from our, uh, uh union of healthcare workers, and the reason it came about is quite simple.

Um, you know, in Trump's big BS bill, uh, he cut, uh, Medicaid.

And in California, that's, we call it Medi-Cal.

But, um, we're talking $100 billion of cuts.

And although most of those cuts we will not realize until after the midterms, very, uh, interestingly distributed, um, we know they're coming.

And so in that same bill, he offered billionaires additional tax breaks, you know, loopholes.

I think there's still a plurality of support for the, for the measure, right?

... it's not

... look, um, our, our federation is, um, the umbrella organization for almost every union in California, two point three million workers, thirteen hundred local unions, and it was overwhelming.

We have to get a two-thirds vote in order to endorse something.

And so I would say yes, they, you know, Governor Newsom, um, in his opposition to, uh, taxing billionaires, um, and a number, a, a couple of unions have, um, decided to, to oppose it.

Um, but I think when you look at the rank and file, when we've done the polling, when we've talked to, um, active members, we know that unions understand and union members understand that this tax is necessary.

Um, we can't continue to allow Californians to suffer because billionaires wanna hoard their wealth.

And although I do understand everybody has to make a decision, a political decision, and there's a lot of political decisions being made, when it comes down to it, we have to right-size our economy, and we have to ensure that there's healthcare, not only for the healthcare jobs that could be lost as a result of these cuts, but because of straight-out deaths that could occur or access that could occur for those of us who pay for health insurance Um, this makes sense.

So why should I believe your side over the billionaires also making threats of, of dire consequences?

Then when you got on the political stage, what, what did you do there to help in that regard?

Well, you know, um, I, I kind of...

It was interesting because after law school I worked for, uh, California's lieutenant governor very briefly, um, as a...

I did actually his environmental law.

A lot of people always th- think that I was a labor lawyer.

I'm, in fact, um, trained environmental law.

And what we found is that, um, there were always ways within the law to, uh, help workers, and the environmental issues are often worker issues as well.

What do you say to that?

How do you, as an advocate for working people,

sort of see this moment? Well, you know, it's a great question because it's kind of changed, right? We started talking about AI three or four years ago, probably before a lot of other folks because of its implementation in the workforce.

Algorithms, for example, you know, we saw them not only in the gig companies, but also the warehouses, Amazon warehouses, and how that kind of would Control, speed up, disengage workers.

And so we started early on trying to get bills passed and really staying in our lane about working people, about jobs.

And the more we've been in it, we do kind of battle with that same question.

We know that AI can't replace people.

There's so many jobs that should not be done by AI that can't be done by AI.

Like, isn't that already illegal?

The women took their fight and their stories of abuse to the California State House.

You realize that they're facing so many vulnerabilities in their job and in such a vulnerable position and that this is happening made me so angry.

The fact that th- these are people among us that we just don't look at, we don't think about, we don't, we don't take the time to say like, "What kind of working conditions are you in and what kind of vulnerabilities might you experience?" And so, um, I was sad, I was angered, um, and I wanted to do what we could do from the state to be able to protect these women.

[cheering] [clapping]

I think we're at a time where things are changing now, and luckily there are a lot of women coming forward, uh, being able to tell their stories.

And so if we don't take this moment in history and use it to protect the very, uh, the most vulnerable workers among us, that we don't take the opportunity, uh, for this movement to embrace low-wage service workers, hourly workers, women who are barely getting by, those who might be undocumented, um, then we're letting a moment pass.