Andrew Steps Up With Pride

“For me, Pride is being able to be the person I needed growing up,” declares Andrew Tallett, a Guest Services Screening Representative at UCSF Mission Bay. He adds, “Pride is being the person that won’t shy away or back down from a difficult situation or harassment or being told you are not good enough.” Whether as a union member or a member of the LGBTQIA+ community, Andrew shows the world how he won’t be kept down.

He shows up as a union member to build union power. Andrew wants the University of California to treat us fairly because he is tired of the University working us ragged and not taking us into consideration in their decision-making. Andrew is specifically concerned about all the transitions taking place at work. UCSF management recently announced layoffs and hiring freezes to balance the medical center’s budget. Andrew has stepped up and has organized alongside his coworkers to safeguard jobs. Working with our union representatives,” he explains, “we are finding it easier to navigate these uncertain times.” Due to our union’s power, the University has committed to help patient care workers at UCSF find comparable jobs within the medical center to avert a drastic impact in workers’ day-to-day life. 

Another way that Andrew is who he needed as a youth is through his pride for being Kānaka Maoli. He shares how the Indigenous community in Hawai’i is also dealing with UC’s injustice. UC has invested more than $68 million to build an 18-story telescope on a sacred, ancestral mountain. But like our union, Kānaka Maoli are organizing to confront UC’s actions. “We might be small, but we are mighty,” he says of Indigenous groups in Hawai’i and their land protection efforts. In addition, Andrew takes pride in the ancestral practice of māhū used to refer to people who embody both femininity and masculinity and who, as he explains, “have traditionally been healers and teachers and preservers of knowledge and history.” Being māhū guided his growth leadership and active union involvement because as he asserts, “Indigenous lives matter, LGBTQIA+ lives matter, our lives matter.”

Andrew has worked at UCSF Mission Bay for 6 years. He lives in San Bruno.