Councilmember Betty Guardado spoke about her journey from hotel housekeeper to city council in downtown Phoenix after a workers union screening of the documentary “Councilwoman” on Thursday night. The union screening event was run by Central Arizonans for a Sustainable Economy and Unite Here Local 11.
Phoenix Councilmember Guardado was one among many Unite Here Local 11 union members who watched the screening of “Councilwoman”, a story about Carmen Castillo, a hotel housekeeper who sits on the Providence, Rhode Island, City Council and fights for the rights of workers.
Amid cheers from the room filled with Phoenix union members, Guardado took the stage along with organizing director for Unite Here Danna Schneider and campaign canvasser Adrian Demoss for the panel following the documentary.
“I think the union taught me how to fight, the union taught me how to struggle and the union taught me how to believe in myself,” Guardado said. “That it didn’t matter that I didn’t have a degree, that it didn’t matter that I didn’t go to university or that I only had a high school diploma from the Los Angeles school district. That I could still become someone.”
Guardado worked as a hotel housekeeper in Beverly Hills, California, for three years before joining Unite Here in 1998 and taking a 20-year leave of absence to work as a union organizer in California and, subsequently, Arizona when she moved in 2007.
“I think the best thing that I was able to do was mentor a lot of young women and men that they could believe in themselves and that the sky was the limit,” Guardado said about her time in the union.
Around the time Guardado was considering retiring as an organizer, she was asked to run for office. She said the proposition seemed unbelievable.
“What got me to do it was the fact that we had to fight tooth and nail for every little single thing,” Guardado said. “I know what it’s like to organize hotels and the fear that companies instill into the workers. And if there was something I could do to fight for my community, to fight for my children, and to fight for working class families, then I was committed to doing that.”
Guardado said it wouldn’t have been possible for her to get sworn into office in 2019 without the support of the union and the hard work of all its members.
Despite Guardado’s story being a point of focus, encouraging people to vote was also emphasized. Schneider, who works as the organizing director for Unite Here, detailed their plans for the 2020 presidential election, which she called “a very big year for Arizona.”
“The first goal that we have for 2020 is to register 250,000 voters,” Schneider said. “The second goal, not to be outdone by the first, is that we’re going to knock on 3,000,000 doors.”
District 26’s Senator Juan Mendez, District 26’s Representative Athena Salman and District 29’s Representative Richard Andrade all attended the event as well.
Andrade emphasized how Democrats in the State Senate are just two away from being the majority and only three away from being the majority in the House. He urged union members to vote and tell their families to vote as well.
“I got off at five o’clock after working twelve hours to be here for this event,” Andrade said in front of the crowd of union members. “You’re electing people just like you who are out there working just like you are every single day.”
Contact the reporter at mmozee@asu.edu.
