Raiyan Kalam:
Thank you so much for joining us today, Senator Smallwood Cuevas. It is truly an honor to have you as a feature on the Policy Chats podcast. The United States is currently experiencing a significant increase in spending within the construction and manufacturing sectors. With this large increase in spending, it is so important that these projects give back to and support local underserved and historically marginalized communities, helping working-class families prosper. which is why we are so grateful to have California State Senator Lola Smallwood Cuevas as a principal joint author of the groundbreaking California State Senate Bill 150. Here with us today to discuss the bill and the precedence it sets for a more equitable workforce. Getting right into it, I'll pass it off to my colleague Dinara for the first question.

Dinara Godage:
Thank you again for joining us Senator Smallwood-Cuevas – could you please tell us about yourself and your background prior to being elected to the 28th Senate District, and how has that affected your legislative priorities?

Lola Smallwood-Cuevas:
Well, thank you so much for the invitation to be with both of you today. It is a real honor to be on your podcast and to be engaging and spending time with the UCR community. I have a history with your campus in my previous life. Before I became a state senator, I was a community and labor organizer And I spent close to two decades working in South LA, LA County, parts of the Inland Empire, San Diego, and other areas building power for workers to build unions, to be able to earn wages and benefits to support their families, knowing that when workers do well, our communities do well.And I had the great honor while working at the UCLA Labor Center through our Center for the Advancement for Racial Equity at Work of working with the UCR Center for Innovation and your Labor Studies program with Professor Ellen Reese and with the Director of the Center of Social Innovation Karthik Ramakanian, really wonderful, wonderful group of scholars who helped us tell the story of work in the Inland Empire and how we have to ensure that our communities that are most impacted by underemployment and unemployment, most impacted by the criminal justice system, most impacted by lack of access to quality work in their communities, that we center them in good careers, in family sustaining opportunities, in jobs that will actually build our neighborhoods and communities. So we did that work together and helped to build the Inland Empire Black Worker Center in the process. I'm very proud of that work. And I want to say it's that work, my work with Black Worker Centers, my work with unions, my work with labor education and research that really were the building blocks to this senatorial seat. My ability to be here in the state Senate is an evolution of movement, of working people, of people of color, of workers courageously fighting for good jobs and telling the stories that so many of our communities have - which is, in order for California to thrive, our working families need to thrive. Far too many of our families are living in poverty, far too many of our families are facing homelessness, food insecurity, and the only way we can transform that is through quality work and particularly working with our union partners and our education partners. So it's a real honor to be here. I feel that the work continues here at the State Senate and of the values showing up in the policy. And we still have much more work to do on that bill. And I look forward to talking with you more about it this afternoon.

Raiyan Kalam:
Thank you so much for your response. And like I said earlier, we cannot express how honored we are to have you on the Policy Chats podcast. And I just think this is such a great opportunity for students like myself and Dinara to get some insight from a professional such as yourself. And you mentioned it a little bit earlier already, but could you tell us a little bit more about the 28th district and how you see the 28th district from your perspective as a state senator.

Lola Smallwood-Cuevas:
So the 28th district is, I say, the most beautiful district in all of California. It is one of the most diverse. We stretch from Mar Vista which is sort of on the eastern edge of Santa Monica through Culver City down into the richness of south central Los Angeles all the way east to our industrial corridors just on the east side of downtown. It covers communities like Arlington Heights, Baldwin Hills, Ladera Heights, South-Central Los Angeles, as I mentioned, Playa Vista, University Park, West Adams, and we have one of the most racially ethnically diverse communities, really the heart and soul of LA County. We have some of the wealthiest zip codes and we have some of the most impoverished zip codes. And so our district is where we really come to build solutions that help our economies grow together. It's where we have just such a robust nonprofit network that is fighting and building creative community benefits that help our communities to grow. And I think the 28th has a lot to teach the rest of California in terms of, you know, how do we take every investment and turn it into a force multiplier for our communities? And I will say, just in terms of region, you might think the 28th is worlds away from your campus. You see Riverside, but in the last 15 years, about 300,000 South Central residents have picked up and moved into Riverside and San Bernardino counties. So when we think about the connectivity, when we think about some of the similar challenges, but also opportunities in terms of the 28th District and where your campus is located, there is a real possibility of us doing work together and particularly through this bill, SB 150, that will lift all of our communities. And I'm very excited about that and recognizing the connectivity of families. 
We can't let these borders erase the fact that we are connected in Southern California and what happens in my district certainly affects yours and vice versa.

Dinara Godage:
Thank you. I like the way that you have said that. I know California is really known as one of the more diverse states but the 28th district really amplifies that and embodies that kind of pulling towards SB 150. Could you go further and explain what SB 150 is and how it relates to the governor's infrastructure trailer bills?

Lola Smallwood-Cuevas:
Sure. So last spring, the governor introduced a series of trailer bills and really the bills were outlining the way in which California would be investing the federal dollars and prioritizing infrastructure projects that are helping to build our new climate resilient economy. And, you know, we expect as low as $3 billion, which we already have committed, upwards of $150 billion in building out green infrastructure. And, you know, when we talk about what green infrastructure is, you know, we're talking about offshore wind and those enormous turbines that turn the offshore wind infrastructure. When we talk about green jobs, we're talking about the microgrids and how do you make sure that as we move into an EV society that we have the infrastructure to support our new electric vehicle priorities. When we talk about green jobs, we're talking about the 21st century new economy that we want to ensure that all Californians get an opportunity to participate in. And so as those bills proposed by the governor came to the Senate, we had a fairly robust work group and strike team to look at those bills to ensure that as we build this new green economy for the 21st century, we're not doing it making the same mistakes that we did in building our infrastructure in the 20th century. And by that, I mean excluding whole populations like women, for example, looking at underrepresented populations like the API community and black community that are severely underrepresented when you look at the infrastructure sector and thinking about you know how we ensure that these are good family sustaining jobs we want to make sure that as we bring these new job classifications the new training the new apprenticeship and the new unions right that will hold these these positions, we want to make sure that these are good jobs. I was unfortunate part of in my previous time before joining the Senate, part of the fight for the 15 for fast food workers, part of so many organizing efforts in private security and home care and in janitorial services, where these are jobs that people do every day, but it's not enough to make ends meet. And so we've been spending years trying to raise standards. Well, here we are building a whole new economy, a whole new job workforce and classification and sector. We don't want to start with these jobs being low wage jobs. We want them to have good jobs that support their families. And so SB 150 was an effort to do that. Our bill ensures that every project that we are building through these climate resiliency funds are built with community benefits agreements and project labor agreements and that is ensuring that all of the construction projects that are going to be funded through these dollars. We are now working with a team of stakeholders to make recommendations not just for the construction But can we also ensure that these standards in terms of equity, in terms of labor, in terms of community benefits agreements, that they also apply to the actual manufacturing side? So it's not enough that we have electricians who are unionized, who will manage our microgrids, for example. We want to make sure those are good, high standard, well-paying, and equitable jobs, building the components that go into the microgrid. So we are now very excited to have an SB150 that focuses on construction, but our intention is that all of the work, including the manufacturing, will also be supported by this policy and ensuring that communities benefit from these dollars, that we are calling in too many of our communities that have been left behind in the past due to infrastructure projects and making sure that we are building a green economy that can really support Californians. Because at the end of the day, our state only does well when all of the workers in our state are doing well.

Raiyan Kalam:
Thank you so much again for your response. And you have spoken very powerful sentiments to how this policy would address many issues as far as jobs and manufacturing, as well as climate change and construction. So could you tell me, and as well as the viewers listening, What are some of the benefits of addressing multiple issues within one policy as opposed to focusing on just one?

Lola Smallwood-Cuevas:
Well, that's a really good question. And I think historically policies Have often been one at a time and I think what we have learned and this is the great thing about evolution of policymaking is that these dots are connected so that one issue doesn't stand alone. It's intersectional, and it's connected to other issues. And so if we are trying to solve an issue, but we're only focusing on one aspect, then we aren't going to sufficiently address that issue. We have to zoom out. We've got to look at where the dots are connected, and we have to figure out the policies that help to bring those different various points together in a cohesive way so that when communities begin to implement, when they begin to implement these policies, that they can be implemented and they can be implemented in a way that delivers the intention of the legislature. I like to say we are beginning with the end in mind and that's really what this kind of sort of dynamic policymaking, I'll call it, does and that's what's exciting about SB 150 that it's taking on a lot of issues in one bill and our hope is that then it will solve a lot of problems in this one investment. I think whether it's dealing with wildfire crossings, expanding train routes, making sure that we have real transportation, diverse dynamic transportation along the I-15 corridor, we know that our communities need these infrastructure changes, but we also know our communities need quality jobs. and we also know our communities need clean air and clean water and we also know that our most disadvantaged communities need to be intentionally called in and so that's what we're doing. I really appreciate the question because the more we begin to move in this direction we will be able to also bring all of the different individual agencies that are supporting this work within our state government together to again have a strategic and comprehensive approach and how we track and monitor and make sure that our intention of bringing transformative change happens on the ground. So it's complex. It's not easy. We have to bring the entire legislature, not just the Senate, but also the assembly and then our third branch of government, our governor and administration, along and that's what democracy is. It's real people work, people work who come from different experiences and vantage points, but we see in one holistic project a solution and I feel that you know there's been great cooperation across all of the levels of government on this bill. I'm expecting there will continue to be as we move forward with these kinds of transformative solutions. And I also want to thank our advisory stakeholders who have been instrumental in following this through the end. I want to thank our UC labor centers for the analysis and the research to help us understand how we can accomplish so much more in this policy and why it's important to have real data-driven solutions. I want to thank groups like the labor community and our environmental community together to solve the problems that are facing our communities as we're dealing with you know our climate resiliency but also the need to build quality work in California. I want to thank the labor movement itself for being at the table and in working in collaboration and cooperation on these issues. So you know it is touching multiple things and it brings a diverse set of stakeholders together to make this happen. And I'm very grateful for all of the efforts that have been put into this work so far.

Dinara Godage:
Well, that's really interesting. The amount of intersectionality, not only within the government, but including how a policy can be so diverse in targeting such a diverse population, and understanding everyone's intersectionality is extremely important in getting there. And I like the way you have described that. Kind of on the topic of intersectionality and equity, given the emphasis on equity specifically, there may be concerns about the impact on the pace of large scale infrastructure projects. How would you address such concerns and advocate for the importance of prioritizing equity in these initiatives?

Lola Smallwood-Cuevas:
That's such a great question. And, and I want to say that was from the very beginning, we were always fighting the clock. And you know, we do have time limits on how long it will take for the money to be released for these projects, how long they have to build the projects, how long, you know, our climate can go without these projects, you know, so we're under so many deadlines and concerns, but we can do it on time and get it right. I think it's important that we get it right. We're in a moment, unfortunately, where our state is in a deficit. We are facing upwards of a $60 billion deficit in this year's budget process. And so every dollar that we have, we have to ensure that those dollars are going to be a multiplier. We have to ensure that those dollars are going to have an impact, not just on the climate, not just on finishing the project on time, but helping to uplift our communities, particularly our most vulnerable communities. And, you know, I want to say, we live in a region where the 28th District and so many of our constituents have been part of doing the experimentation that allows us to take these proven steps and now scale them into practice. You know, I remember 10, 15 years ago, I was part of a coalition as the new founder of this new organization called the LA Black Workers Center, where we built the first community agreement, project a labor agreement at a major metropolitan transit organization, the first in the nation. That was 15 years ago. And believe me, that model has been sharpened. It has been improved, not just in terms of how to do the contracting, how to build the coalition of unions, how to build the community partners, to build workforce pathways, how to do the compliance so we can really monitor and ensure that these dollars are having the impact that we intend to have. We have been experimenting and practicing for so many years on these things, and this is why I'm so honored to represent the 28th District because we have been working on these models, and I think we have a lot to learn from my district, from places in Northern California that have worked in this area. The Inland Empire is also experimenting with some of these practices, and so I think we have learned enough to now be able to take those things that are proven and scale them. And certainly the time is now. The time is now where we are facing this climate crisis as we're also facing an economic crisis. This is the time when we have to do things right and I think we've learned enough to deal with the deadlines to be able to meet them and to be able to end up with the results that we need here in the state of California. So I appreciate that but there's very little that California can't do. Our governor says California has no peers in this country and I absolutely believe that and it starts with the smart folks that we have, the courageous folks who were thinking out of the box years ago and have set up a situation now where we're ready to take it to scale.

Dinara Godage:
Thank you so much again and obviously taking it to scale can be quite difficult in some instances and one of the great aspects about SB 150 is that it is so momentous that it involves such collaborations between multiple different agencies in order to achieve its goals. So my follow-up question to this notion is, what role do legislators play in efficiently facilitating these large collaborations, like these, to push the progress of the policy forward? And why is that necessary?

Lola Smallwood-Cuevas:
Well, it's necessary because there are so many things that are coming to our state at one time, you know, we're talking about how do we innovate and modernize our energy infrastructure, our transit infrastructure and systems. our transit infrastructure and systems. You know, we're also looking at how do we end homelessness? How do we ensure everyone has health care? How do we ensure that our educational system is growing the best and brightest for our future? Is growing the best and brightest for our future? And so the role of the legislature is to make sure where we're prioritizing the right things. It's making sure that all of these things that are converging on us at once, that we're addressing them in a way that helps us end with a positive solution and to really usher and muster all of the capacity.We have tremendous state agencies that have tremendous resources, some of the most creative minds in this state. And our job [as legislators] is to make sure that we are bringing them to the table, and we're breaking down their silos so that they can come together, share information, maximize their capacity, and do the work that the people of California needs them to do. So, you know, I think that our role is a pivotal role in taking the information from our constituents, from our communities, that helps the state better prioritize, and then also making sure that these silos are broken down and that we are maximizing our ability to get all of these priorities addressed and met. The other thing we have to do is to really make sure that we are thinking about ways for progressive resources. We need to increase the resources here in our state. I think our job is to monitor where we make investments and to evaluate as much as we can evaluate with state agencies to ensure that those dollars are held accountable to the goals that the people of California have set. It's an enormous task but it is one that I think my colleagues take very seriously and I want to give a shout out to the colleagues who worked with me on SB 150, my great friend Senator Maria Leonard de Rosso, who is my joint author on the bill, Senator Lena Gonzalez from Long Beach, who's working very intently and focusing on the offshore work, and Senator Dave Cortese, who chairs the Labor Committee. I think together we have worked very hard with our new pro-tem designee, Senator Mike Maguire, to make this issue a priority because it has so much impact on not just what's happening now, but what's going to happen 30 years from now. So we've got to get it right. We've got to do our jobs of facilitating and coordinating and overseeing and prioritizing because we know your futures depend on it. We don't want to be in our armchairs and see you all with your family saying, what did you all do? We want to make sure that in our time that we are doing the efforts that are necessary to get our planet and our state in the position for the brightest future possible. 

Dinara Godage:
You kind of touched on this with this breaking silos and then also holding like where the money is going and making sure that's an account like an accountable situation. accountable situation. What are some other common barriers to implementing legislation when it goes to agencies for implementation? How are you and your colleagues playing an active role to address that?

Lola Smallwood-Cuevas:
Implementation is critical and currently we are working with agencies on a process for understanding the ways in which the agency will not only structure community benefits agreements but provide a compliance rubric that will go along with it. If we can't, implementation only happens if we are able to have compliance with our community benefit goals and guidelines with our labor Standards goals and guidelines so compliance is an integral part of the conversation In terms of how do you develop labor and equity standards for green infrastructure both construction and manufacturing? What does it look like? We cannot have a situation where we have upwards of a hundred and fifty billion dollars potentially coming to the state of California and we don't have a compliance model to show that those dollars went to those communities that we intended them to go to, that those projects that are happening in those communities are not built in a way that again helps to uplift everyone in those communities and address our climate issues and concerns. So compliance is a huge part of it and as I mentioned we have a long track record of how we do that in our region and I think we will ensure as long as I am a part of this team, we will be ensuring that there is a compliance effort that runs along with the equity and the labor effort. If not, we don't know what and how our resources are truly being used and we can't afford that. We cannot afford that to be an outcome. So compliance is a critical piece of it and when I say compliance what I mean by that is tracking and monitoring the resources, tracking and monitoring the workforce that we're developing and who is being called into those jobs, tracking and monitoring who gets access to those work opportunities and tracking and monitoring how much or what share of the resources do they get to collect. All of these things help us tell the real story of our investment. And I think the people of California are counting on hearing from them a report on how those dollars were spent.

Dinara Godage:
Thank you again for your response. And I think it is a very important sentiment to have that level of accountability as well as upholding that integrity standard. And something I really wanted to talk about as well just briefly is the employment standards within SB 150 and how they haven't been implemented at such a large scale before. So what are some of the barriers that you potentially foresee with the implementation of such a groundbreaking new policy?

Lola Smallwood-Cuevas:
Well, there's always anything, whether big or small, there's always the challenge, right, of how do you sequence, phase out, how do you forecast adequately what the needs are and then make sure that the resources are there to address those needs. You know, what I find the number one thing is making sure you have the right folks around the table who deeply understand these issues and concerns, who are charged and required to track and to monitor these systems in a way that informs the legislature on those outcomes and making sure that we're engaging our communities. We're in Sacramento. And so if we are doing the work of building the policies, building the rubric for the labor standards and the equity standards, and we come up with these recommendations and they get codified, we're gonna need the community to be out there. We're gonna need you to go to the local hearings where these projects are being built and engage in the process. We can do all of the oversight and get all of the reports, but it really is the taxpayer who is going in the voter, who is going to have to be on the ground, making sure that our collective vision for what these projects should be actually are realized on the ground. And so this democracy is busy work and it requires all of us to get involved. This is a once in a generation investment. We talked about our state deficit. We see the uncertainty that's in Washington. And so California has to lean into these resources and ensure that this vision for labor and equity standards is realized and met. you know so some of these projects they won't really materialize we're planning now this could be if this is five years this is over the next five ten years fifteen years so this is this is a long time game but in the end our communities are going to be transformed if we do it right so you know my answer to that is let's all roll up our sleeves certainly my colleagues in the state capital understand what is at stake. And those who don't, we are working hard to raise their awareness and to build and gain their support. But we need local communities to stand in. We need local organizations, particularly those that care about the environment, that care about workers, that care about marginalized communities, that care about building up a strong economy for all of our residents. We need them to pay attention to this SB 150 effort that will be happening in Sacramento, but also to pay attention when those projects begin the planning phase at the local level. We're all in this together.

Dinara Godage:
I really love the way you put that. We've kind of been mentioning it this whole time, how much intersectionality there is and how important it is to consider not just who's making the policy, but who we're making policy for. And you kind of touched on all of that with that one question. Just one more question for tonight. This bill was truly a unison of politics and policy in a now seemingly increasingly divisive political climate. How was that possible and what sets California apart in its implementation of the Biden administration's climate investments?

Lola Smallwood-Cuevas: 
Well, I always say I'm so grateful I live in California, because I think Californians understand innovation, they understand progress, and they understand the future. And we have grown to understand the urgency of our climate crisis. And I think we're beginning to, we're growing given all of the hot labor summer and activities and the 70% support of workers who are on strike. I think now all of California really has come to understand the need for workers to earn fair and decent wages and have real working conditions. And so I don't think we face the same division as an aggregate as a state. I think we all understand what is at stake when it comes to our communities as we fight homelessness and some of the other as we fight preventable diseases, things like asthma and cancers. We all understand what's at stake when we have to deal with our environment and when we have to deal with quality jobs and the need for them and the need for intervention. I do think outside of California where you see the most vicious and deep division to the point of paralysis where things are not moving forward, I think we have to be the example. I think California, this is the time where we have to show that a state that does have vision and a state that does believe in progress. This is where we have to really show up and we have to put in place models that work. And I see SB 150 as an example of a model that works. Just last week I was called from the city of Pittsburgh that is trying to build out a labor and equity workforce framework and they were really excited and wanted to talk with their state legislators about SB 150. So it's really important that California do this and that we do it right and we do it well because it's a model for the state and for the country and and I believe that it's it's a model that we have tested and worked in other parts of our state like the 28th district where we've seen the results. In the project that I mentioned when I was at the Los Angeles Black Workers Center we went from two and a half percent black worker participation on large-scale infrastructure projects in the region to 25% in one project. And so with the right partners, with the deepest of collaboration, and with robust oversight and compliance, we can show that this is a model that works. And I think once people see that we don't have expansion, 13 rail lines all at once. There was a lot of division, but when folks saw that it worked, it became a project that was deeply supported and voters decided to do another round of sales tax to support the development expansion of our rail projects. So I want to say that we have a lesson, I think, to teach the rest of the country. and we deal with division by showing that things can work and to share in the benefits of that across our state, across the diversity of all of our communities and I think SB 150 is going to be one of those examples as we work together with the support of course of the governor. We will need the governor's support on this and we're going to need the support of our Assembly and Senate members to make sure that it happens.

Dinara Godage:
Thank you so much. All of what you've mentioned and throughout the podcast, it's been a lot of how California has really set some foundations. And now we're really building on that. And senators like you and your colleagues are really pushing that and really getting us further and setting us as an example, as you've mentioned, for the rest of the country. And I think that's a really great stride. and really ensuring that constituents are being heard and being made aware that their voices are worthwhile and worth something in our country, in our state. I think that's really impactful and very inspirational. Thank you again so much for all of your answers and speaking with us. I know Raiyan and I learned so much today. Thank you for joining us on the podcast policy chats. I hope you have a wonderful evening and thank you again.

Lola Smallwood-Cuevas:
Well, thank you for those great questions, wonderful questions, and for providing this information for your listeners. It's been a pleasure.