are you saying that what you are about to sign, not only does not address the full funding of the peia, but it could also be paid for through cuts to low income and poor children in their medicaid, children that teachers teach? there is not a chance on this planet that is going to be the case. [applause] and the reason it is not going to be the case is we have cash-ending balances and medicaid that will absolutely backstop any cuts whatsoever to medicaid. we will not let our people on medicaid suffer in any way. amy: that is governor justice. katie endicott, your response? >> through this process, i have been so empowered and encouraged to see certain ways that the legislative process works. i have also been very discouraged at moments because we have witnessed the ugly side of politics. i believe that yesterday -- and prior to yesterday, we witnessed that. we witnessed this divisive rhetoric that was meant to divide and vilify teachers. and to take away from this moment his victory we have achieved. we do believe the governor, believe our union leadership that there is no way that med

when they started coming out and telling us that the governor hadad agred to a 5% raiaise and that peia, which is our insurance, and a grim for our insurance program, when they told us that would remain frozen, the crowd immediately started chanting "see you tomorrow! see you tomorrow!" the governor agreed we would have a cool off day. we were not scheduled to go back to thursday. our leadership agreed we would go back on thursday in good faith. at the people of west virginia said, no, we are going back in good faith. you have to sign, seal, and deliver it. we were determined that we were not going back. i went through the hallway on wednesdaday during the cool off day and i was trying to talk to union leaders. we were all very clear, we are not going back. we had union meetings across the state. some people met on the state's of the capital -- steps of the capitol with her union members. we voted instantly. it was overwhelming. everyone was coming to the capital and saying, what is mason counting doing? what is logan county doing? everyone was saying, we're not going g back. we're not

the acronym is peia. it stands for public employees insurance agency. basically, our state government has not been funding at adequately for years. new cuts. there are public hearings are every november and they basically tell you how much worse the insurance is going to get. this year the proposed moving to something called total family income. premiums on the income of everyone in our family. for instance, my spouse has another job and so they would base not just on my income, but her income as well, which meant my premium is going to double. there are a lot of teachers who both of them work in the school system, and they were going to see there's double, too. i think people have just had enough and have decided they're not listening to us when we try to lobby and call, so we have got to do something big. we have got to walk out to get them to listen. this is ao'neal, wildcat strike. could you talk about the laws in terms of striking in west virginia and the role of the union leaders? as i understand it, there are two teachers unions that represent di