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Rob Duffey, rob.duffey@berlinrosen.com
Anna Susman, anna.susman@berlinrosen.com
Police early Tuesday handcuffed fast-food cooks and cashiers, Uber drivers, home health aides and airport workers who blocked streets outside McDonald's restaurants from New York to Chicago, kicking off a nationwide wave of strikes and civil disobedience by working Americans in the Fight for $15 that is expected to result in additional mass arrests throughout the day.
In Detroit, dozens of fast-food and home care workers wearing shirts that read, "My Future is My Freedom" linked arms in front of a McDonald's and sat down in the street. As the workers were led to a police bus, hundreds of supporters chanted, "No Justice, No Peace." In Manhattan's Financial District, dozens of fast-food workers placed a banner reading "We Won't Back Down" on the street in front of a McDonald's on Broadway and a sat down in a circle, blocking traffic, until they were hauled away by police officers. And in Chicago, scores of workers sat in the street next to a McDonald's as supporters unfurled a giant banner from a grocery store next door that read: "We Demand $15 and Union Rights, Stop Deportations, Stop Killing Black People." Fast-food, home care and higher education workers were arrested, along with Cook County Commissioner Jesus "Chuy" Garcia.
The strikes, which began early Tuesday on the East Coast, are rolling westward throughout the morning, with McDonald's and other fast-food workers walking off their jobs in 340 cities from coast to coast, demanding $15 and union rights; baggage handlers, cabin cleaners and skycaps walking picket lines at Boston Logan International Airport and Chicago O'Hare International Airport to protest against unfair labor practices, including threats, intimidation and retaliation when they tried to join together for higher pay and union rights; Uber drivers in two-dozen cities idling their cars calling for a fair day's pay for a fair day's work; and hospital workers at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, who won a path to $15 earlier this year, joining in too, fighting for union rights.
Throughout the day, working Americans will wage their most disruptive protests yet to show they won't back down to newly-elected politicians and newly-empowered corporate special interests who threaten an extremist agenda to move the country to the right. Fast-food, airport, child care, home care, child care, higher education and Uber workers will make it clear that any efforts to block wage increases, gut workers' rights or healthcare, deport immigrants, or support racism or racist policies, will be met with unrelenting opposition.
"We won't back down until we win an economy that works for all Americans, not just the wealthy few at the top," said Naquasia LeGrand, a McDonald's worker from Albemarle, NC. "Working moms like me are struggling all across the country and until politicians and corporations hear our voices, our Fight for $15 is going to keep on getting bigger, bolder and ever more relentless."
The wave of strikes, civil disobedience, and protests follows an election defined by workers' frustration with a rigged economy that benefits the few at the top and comes exactly four years after 200 fast-food cooks and cashiers in New York City first walked off their jobs, sparking a movement for $15 and union rights that has compelled private-sector employers and local and state elected representatives to raise pay for 22 million Americans. A report released Tuesday by the National Employment Law Project shows the Fight for $15 has won nearly $62 billion in raises for working families since that first strike in 2012. That's 10 times larger than the total raise received by workers in all 50 states under Congress's last federal minimum wage increase, approved in 2007.
In all, tens of thousands of working people from coast to coast will protest Tuesday at McDonald's restaurants from Detroit to Denver and at 20 of the nation's busiest airports, which carry 2 million passengers a day. They will underscore to the country's biggest corporations that they must act decisively to raise pay and let President-elect Donald Trump, members of Congress, governors, state legislators and other elected leaders know that the 64 million Americans paid less than $15/hour are not backing off their demand for $15/hour and union rights. In addition to $15 and union rights, the working Americans will demand: no deportations, an end to the police killings of black people, and politicians keep their hands off Americans' health care coverage.
"To too many of us who work hard, but can't support our families, America doesn't feel fair anymore," said Oliwia Pac, who is on strike Tuesday from her job as a wheelchair attendant at O'Hare. "If we really want to make America great again, our airports are a good place to start. These jobs used to be good ones that supported a family, but now they're closer to what you'd find at McDonald's."
All over the country, working families are being supported in their protest by community, religious and elected leaders. In Chicago, U.S. Rep Jan Schakowsky walked the picket line with striking workers and Cook County Commissioner Jesus Garcia got arrested supporting strikers; while in New York City, councilmembers Brad Lander, Mark Levine and Antonio Reynoso got arrested alongside workers outside a McDonald's in Lower Manhattan. In Durham, NC the Rev. William Barber II, founder of the Forward Together Moral Movement, is expected to risk arrest with striking McDonald's workers later this afternoon, while in Kansas City, Mo. several dozen clergy members plan to get arrested alongside scores of fast-food workers.
"By rejecting the reactionary politics of divisiveness and relentlessly opposing injustice in all its forms, the workers in the Fight for $15 are lighting the way forward for our nation," said the Rev. William Barber II. "We need to come together across lines of class, race, and gender, and tell our newly elected leaders in one clear voice that we will not let you divide us, oppress us, or take us one step backward in our march towards a more perfect union. The fight for voting rights, living wages, and civil rights are all one fight."
While McDonald's workers are striking and risking arrest in the U.S., the company is also on the hot seat Tuesday for its mistreatment of workers in Europe, where the company is already under scrutiny for allegedly dodging more than EUR1.5 billion in taxes from 2009 to 2015. The European Parliament's Petition Committee held a hearing Tuesday, on three petitions filed by British, Belgian and French unions on mistreatment of McDonald's workers across the continent, including the widespread use in the United Kingdom of zero-hour contracts, in which workers are not guaranteed any hours; a bogus flexi-jobs program in Belgium that saps public coffers and undermines labor standards without created jobs; and a union-busting scheme in France. Protests are also expected by airport workers in Berlin and Amsterdam.
Poverty Pay Doesn't Fly
Tuesday's strikes by workers at Logan and O'Hare and the rush of protests at airports around the country mark an intensification of the participation in the Fight for $15 of airport workers, who have been linking arms with fast-food and other underpaid workers as the movement has grown. Skycaps, baggage handlers and cabin cleaners point to jobs at the nation's airports as a symbol of what's gone wrong for working-class Americans and their jobs. Four decades ago, every job in an airport was a good, family-sustaining one. Men and women worked directly for the major airlines, which paid a living wage, provided pensions and health care and respected Americans' right stick together in a union. That's no longer the case. Today, most Americans who work at airports are nonunion and are employed by subcontractors that pay low wages, without any benefits. Their jobs now represent the failures of a political and economic system geared towards the wealthy few and corporate profits at any cost.
Between 2002 and 2012 outsourcing of baggage porter jobs more than tripled, from 25 percent to 84 percent, while average hourly real wages across both directly-hired and outsourced workers declined by 45 percent, to $10.60/hour from more than $19/hour. Average weekly wages in the airport operations industry did not keep up with inflation, but instead fell by 14 percent from 1991 to 2011.
America's airports themselves are also a symbol of the concerted effort to erode the ability of working people to improve their jobs. President Reagan fired and permanently replaced 11,000 striking air traffic controllers in 1981, paving the way for a decades-long march by corporations and elected officials to systematically dismantle Americans' right to join together on the job. By zeroing in on airports Nov. 29, working-class families are looking to transform a symbol of their decline into a powerful show of their renewed force.
$15/hour: From 'Absurdly Ambitious to Mainstream'
The catalyst for that revival, the Fight for $15, launched Nov. 29, 2012, when 200 fast-food workers walked off their jobs at dozens of restaurants across New York City, demanding $15 and the right to form a union without retaliation. Since then it has grown into a global phenomenon that includes fast-food, home care, child care, university, airport, retail, building service and other workers across hundreds of cities and scores of countries. Working American have taken what many viewed as an outlandish proposition - $15/hour- and made it the new labor standard in New York, California, Seattle and Washington, D.C. Home care workers in Massachusetts and Oregon won $15/hour statewide minimum wages and companies including Facebook, Aetna, Amalgamated Bank, JP Morgan Chase and Nationwide Insurance have raised pay to $15/hour or higher. Union members working in nursing homes, public schools and hospitals have won $15/hour via collective bargaining.
All told, the Fight for $15 has led to wage hikes for 22 million underpaid working families, including more than 10 million who are on their way to $15/hour, by convincing everyone from voters to politicians to corporations to raise pay. The movement was credited as one of the reasons median income jumped last year by the highest percentage since the 1960s.
By joining together, speaking out and going on strike workers in the Fight for $15 have "elevated the debate around inequality in the U.S." and "entirely changed the politics of the country." Slate wrote that the Fight for $15 has completely "rewired how the public and politicians think about wages" and called it "the most successful progressive political project of the late Obama era, both practically and philosophically:" The New York Times wrote that the movement, "turned $15/hour "from laughable to viable," and declared, "$15 could become the new, de facto $7.25;"and The Washington Post said that $15/hour has "gone from almost absurdly ambitious to mainstream in the span of a few years."
This election year working-class voters made the fight for $15 and union rights a hot button political issue in the race for the White House through an effort to mobilize underpaid voters. Workers dogged candidates throughout the primary and general election debates, calling on candidates to "come get our vote" and forcing presidential hopefuls to address their demands for $15/hour. Strikes and protests at more than a dozen debates forced candidates on both sides of the aisle to address working families' growing calls for higher pay and union rights. This summer, the Democratic Party adopted a platform that includes a $15/hour minimum wage, and recently even Republican elected leaders, including Mr. Trump (who had earlier said wages are "too high"), began to break from their opposition to raising pay.
Voices from the Fight for $15
Dayla Mikell, a child care worker in St. Petersburg, Fla., said: "Risking arrest today isn't the easy path, but it's the right one. My job is all about caring for the next generation, but I'm not paid enough to be able to afford my own apartment or car. Families like mine and millions others across the country demand $15, union rights and a fair economy that lifts up all of us, no matter our race, our ethnicity or our gender. And when it's your future on the line, you do whatever it takes to make sure you are heard far and wide."
Sepia Coleman, a home care worker from Memphis, Tenn., said: "For me, the choice is clear. I am risking arrest because our cause is about more than economic justice--it is about basic survival. Like millions of Americans, I am barely surviving on $8.25/hour. Civil disobedience is a bold and risky next step, but our voices must be heard: we demand $15, a union and justice for all Americans."
Scott Barish, a teaching assistant and researcher at Duke University in Durham, N.C., said: "I do research and teach classes that bring my university critical funding, but the administration doesn't respect me as a worker and my pay hasn't kept up with the rising cost of living. I could barely afford to repair my car this year. And I'm risking arrest today because millions of American workers are struggling to support their families and the need for change is more urgent than ever. We are ramping up our calls for $15 and union rights, healthcare for all workers, and an end to racist policies that divide us further."
Justin Berisie, an Uber driver in Denver, Co., said: "Everyone says the gig economy is the future of work, but if we want to make that future a bright one, we need to join together like fast-food workers have in the Fight for $15 and demand an economy that works for all. Across the country, drivers are uniting and speaking out to fight for wages and working conditions that will allow us to support our families and help get America's economy moving."
U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minnesota) said: "When I talk to people on the picket lines in Minnesota and around the country, they tell me they're striking for a better life for their kids and their families. They tell me they're working harder than ever, and still struggling to make ends meet. In the wealthiest country in the world, nobody working full time should be living in poverty. But the power of protest and working people's voices can make all the difference. Politics might be the art of the possible, but organizing is the art of making more possible. Workers around the country are fighting to make better working conditions and better wages possible. And I stand with them."
Fast food workers are coming together all over the country to fight for $15 an hour and the right to form a union without retaliation. We work for corporations that are making tremendous profits, but do not pay employees enough to support our families and to cover basic needs like food, health care, rent and transportation.
"We've got to work fast to end fossil fuel operations near our homes, schools, and hospitals and trade fossil fuel infrastructure for healthy, clean energy," said one co-author.
"The evidence is clear that fossil fuels—and the fossil fuel industry and its enablers—are driving a multitude of interlinked crises that jeopardize the breadth and stability of life on Earth."
That's the first line of the abstract for an article published Monday by top scientists who reviewed "the vast scientific evidence showing that fossil fuels and the fossil fuel industry are the root cause of the climate crisis, harm public health, worsen environmental injustice, accelerate biodiversity extinction, and fuel the petrochemical pollution crisis."
The new paper in the peer-reviewed journal Oxford Open Climate Change highlights the diverse impacts of "every stage of the fossil fuel life cycle" and stresses that the "industry has obscured and concealed this evidence through a decadeslong, multibillion-dollar disinformation campaign aimed at blocking action to phase out" its deadly products.
"The fossil fuel industry has spent decades misleading us about the harms of their products and working to prevent meaningful climate action," said co-author Naomi Oreskes, professor of the history of science at Harvard University, in a statement. "Perversely, our governments continue to give out hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies to this damaging industry. It is past time that stops."
"The most polluted communities should be prioritized for clean energy investments and removal and cleanup of dirty fossil fuel infrastructure."
While the researchers focused on the United States, "as the world's largest oil and gas producer and dominant contributor to these fossil fuel crises," their review—including proposed "science-and-justice-based solutions" for an economywide effort to "forge a path forward to sustaining life on Earth"—applies to the whole world, which is quickly heating up due to emissions from coal, gas, and oil.
The article features sections on the fossil fuel-driven climate crisis, public health harms, environmental injustice, biodiversity loss and extinction, petrochemical pollution, and industry disinformation. Each section lays out the "problem" and "solutions."
The climate emergency section includes details such as "the production and combustion of oil, gas, and coal are responsible for nearly 90% of human-caused carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and approximately 79% of total greenhouse gas emissions," and "failures in political will to implement necessary climate action have made the 1.5°C benchmark nearly impossible to achieve without overshoot," referring to a primary goal of the 2015 Paris agreement.
Although the current U.S. administration has demonstrated its alliance to the fossil fuel industry—including with President Donald Trump's recent energy emergency declaration—the scientists still emphasized what's possible in the country.
"In the USA, powerful policy levers are available to governments and civil society at the local, state, national, and international levels to phase out fossil fuels and transition to a clean, renewable energy economy," they wrote. "These levers include regulation (e.g. applying and enforcing existing laws), legislation (e.g. polluters pay laws, fossil fuel subsidy reform, land use laws limiting drilling), and litigation (e.g. holding fossil fuel companies accountable, defending existing law)."
They also warned that "last-ditch efforts to prolong the fossil fuel industry are proliferating. These include counterproductive false solutions, like carbon capture and storage (CCS), which would perpetuate fossil fuel use while capturing only some of the resulting emissions, and hydrogen made from fossil fuels."
The public health section notes that "air pollution from fossil fuel combustion accounts for 8.7 million (equaling 1 in 5) premature deaths per year worldwide and 350,000 premature deaths per year in the USA. In a single year, air pollution from oil and gas production in the USA resulted in 410,000 asthma exacerbations, 2,200 new cases of childhood asthma, and 7,500 premature deaths in 2016."
Co-author David J.X. González, an assistant professor of environmental health sciences at the University of California, Berkeley, said Monday that "we've got to work fast to end fossil fuel operations near our homes, schools and hospitals and trade fossil fuel infrastructure for healthy, clean energy."
"Oil, gas, and coal will continue to condemn us to more deaths, wildlife extinctions, and extreme weather disasters unless we make dirty fossil fuels a thing of the past."
The paper points out that "climate change is increasing incidence of physical and mental health impacts and mortality through multiple pathways: worsening extreme events including heatwaves, severe storms, floods, droughts, and wildfires; shifting ranges of disease vectors; threats to food security; and displacement and forced migration, which restrict access to healthcare and other basic services."
"These harms, though broadly felt, also disproportionately impact marginalized communities which are already disproportionately burdened by other socioenvironmental hazards, as well as susceptible populations including young children, people with certain disabilities, people experiencing homelessness, pregnant people, people with chronic diseases, and older adults," the publication continues.
University of Montana associate professor of environmental studies Robin Saha, another co-author, said that "decades of discriminatory policies, such as redlining, have concentrated fossil fuel development in Black, Brown, Indigenous, and poor white communities, resulting in devastating consequences."
"For far too long, these fenceline communities have been treated as sacrifice zones by greedy, callous industries," Saha added. "The most polluted communities should be prioritized for clean energy investments and removal and cleanup of dirty fossil fuel infrastructure."
The paper's other co-authors are Robert Bullard of Texas Southern University, Boston University's Jonathan J. Buonocore and Mary D. Willis, Trisia Farrelly of the Cawthron Institute, William Ripple of Oregon State University, and the Center for Biological Diversity's Nathan Donley, John Fleming, and Shaye Wolf.
"The science can't be any clearer that fossil fuels are killing us," declared Wolf, the paper's lead author and the center's climate science director. "Oil, gas, and coal will continue to condemn us to more deaths, wildlife extinctions, and extreme weather disasters unless we make dirty fossil fuels a thing of the past. Clean, renewable energy is here, it's affordable, and it will save millions of lives and trillions of dollars once we make it the centerpiece of our economy."
"Don't use his term 'liberation day'! Call it Trump's devastating trade war! He has caused maximum uncertainty, likely to drive the U.S. economy to a near halt," wrote one economist.
As U.S. President Donald Trump gears up to unveil yet another round of tariffs this week and observers warn of potential "stagflation," the Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs on Sunday published a research note projecting that the chance of a recession in the next 12 months stands at 35%, up from 20%.
"The upgrade from our previous 20% estimate reflects our lower growth baseline, the sharp recent deterioration in household and business confidence, and statements from the White House officials indicating greater willingness to tolerate near-term economic weakness in pursuit of their policies," according to the research note.
Trump has previously said he plans to unveil a slate of reciprocal tariffs on April 2—a day he has dubbed "Liberation Day"—and on Sunday he said they would impact "all" countries to start. The announcement rattled financial markets globally on Sunday, and stocks continued to fall on Monday. The S&P 500 dropped by over 1% at the start of trading, and the index is on track for its worst month since September 2022, according to The New York Times.
"Don't use his term 'liberation day'! Call it Trump's devastating trade war! He has caused maximum uncertainty, likely to drive the U.S. economy to a near halt," wrote the economist and author Anders Åslund wrote on Bluesky on Saturday.
In the research note, Goldman Sachs analysts said they expect Trump's reciprocal tariffs to average 15% across all U.S. trading partners, though product and country exclusions may bring that average down.
Trump has already imposed blanket tariffs on China and blanket tariffs on traditional trade allies like Mexico and Canada, with some carve outs for certain goods. The administration has also enacted global aluminum and steel tariffs, and announced last week that it would impose 25% tariffs on autos and auto parts that are not produced in the U.S. The government will commence collecting the import tax on April 3.
Economists generally agree that tariffs—a tax on imports from other countries—are a cost that is largely passed on to consumers, though tariffs can be used to support domestic industries by promoting consumption of domestic-made goods.
In early March, U.S. Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Penn.) penned an op-ed in the Times warning against "anti-tariff absolutism" on the grounds that they can be used as one part of a broader industrial policy to revitalize American manufacturing.
"Mr. Trump's tariff approach has been chaotic and inconsistent. There's no doubt about that. But the answer isn't to condemn tariffs across the board," Deluzio wrote.
Last week, United Auto Workers (UAW) president Shawn Fain, historically a Trump critic, praised the decision to impose auto tariffs.
"The UAW and the working class in general couldn't care less about party politics; working people expect leaders to work together to deliver results," said Fain in a statement. "We will work with any politician, regardless of party, who is willing to reverse decades of working-class people going backwards in the most profitable times in our nation’s history. These tariffs are a major step in the right direction for autoworkers and blue-collar communities across the country."
Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs also predicts higher inflation and lower gross domestic product (GDP) growth. Higher tariffs are likely to increase consumer prices, according to the analysts, who raised their yearend 2025 inflation forecast by 0.5 percentage points to 3.5%, above the Federal Reserve's target inflation rate of 2%.
Also as a result of tariff news and first quarter GDP data, Goldman Sachs has lowered its 2025 GDP growth forecast by 0.5 percentage points to 1%, when measured from the fourth quarter of 2024 to the fourth quarter of 2025. Also, the report's analysts now projects unemployment reaching 4.5%, a 0.3 percentage point increase from the previous forecast.
The Irish journalist and economic commentator David McWilliams warned in an opinion piece published Monday by Common Dreams that the "combination of a rapidly weakening economy and fear of inflation points to an old enemy not seen since the 1970s: stagflation, where unemployment and inflation rise together."
Other observers have also warned that stagflation could be looming.
"Launching chaotic trade wars with our allies and gutting Social Security, Medicaid, and other vital programs in order to fund tax breaks for his billionaire donors isn't making life more affordable for working-class families," said Alex Jacquez, the chief of policy and advocacy at the Groundwork Collaborative, in a statement earlier this month. "It is, however, a perfect recipe for stagflation."
"The public is crying out for leadership from somewhere," said one supporter. "Higher ed can provide that and catalyze something bigger."
A resolution passed by the Rutgers University Senate in response to the Trump administration's crackdown on First Amendment rights is "exactly the kind of model" needed in higher education, said one professor on Sunday as word spread of the document—which was approved amid outcry over other universities' capitulation to the White House's attacks.
"The public is crying out for leadership from somewhere," said Michael Yarbrough, a professor of law and society at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. "Higher ed can provide that and catalyze something bigger. And in the process, we can remind everyone of our true value, something we desperately need to do."
The step toward leadership came in the form of a resolution to form a "mutual defense compact" with the other schools that, along with Rutgers, make up the Big Ten Academic Alliance. Under the compact, the schools would "commit meaningful funding to a shared or distributed defense fund" that would provide "immediate and strategic support to any member institution under direct political or legal infringement."
The Rutgers Senate, which includes faculty, students, administrators, and alumni, called on the New Jersey institution's president to "take a leading role in convening a summit of Big Ten academic and legal leadership to initiate the implementation of this compact."
The resolution, passed on March 28, was agreed to days after the Rutgers faculty union filed a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration to block its efforts to abduct, detain, and deport international students for expressing support for Palestinian rights, criticism of Israel's U.S.-backed assault on Gaza and the West Bank, and taking part in pro-Palestinian campus protests over the past year.
Under Trump's executive orders to stop what it classifies as "antisemitism" and to deport foreign nationals who "espouse hateful ideology," immigration agents in recent weeks have detained people including Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University graduate student who led negotiations last year calling on the school to divest from companies that profit from Israel's policies; Tufts University Ph.D. candidate Rumeysa Ozturk, who co-wrote an op-ed calling for her school's divestment; and Georgetown University academic Badar Khan Suri, who was detained because "the government suspects that he and his wife oppose U.S. foreign policy toward Israel," according to his lawyers.
"We've all been trying to figure out how to solve this collective action problem. This seems like a very positive big step in the right direction."
"The First Amendment means the government can't arrest, detain, or deport people for lawful political expression—it's as simple as that," said Jameel Jaffer, executive director at the Knight First Amendment Institute, which is representing the Rutgers union and other faculty organizations in the lawsuit. "This practice is one we'd ordinarily associate with the most repressive political regimes, and it should have no place in our democracy."
Under the Rutgers resolution, members of the senate called on participating institutions to "make available, at the request of the
institution under direct political infringement, the services of their legal counsel, governance experts, and public affairs offices to coordinate a unified and vigorous response."
The response could include legal representation, countersuit actions, amicus briefs, legislative advocacy, and "coalition-building," according to the resolution.
The Rutgers Senate did not respond to a request for comment on the resolution.
"Proud to be a Rutgers faculty member today," said Michael Raucher, a professor of Jewish studies at Rutgers University—New Brunswick, regarding the passage of the resolution, which reportedly still has to be approved by Rutgers administrators.
Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, chair of the joint program in English and education at University of Michigan—another member of the Big Ten alliance—expressed support for the Rutgers faculty's leadership.
"I greatly admired our Rutgers colleagues' actions of solidarity during the recent waves of campus strikes," said Thomas. "My admiration has increased tenfold."
Last May, about 100 Rutgers faculty members prepared to form a protective circle around students' Palestinian solidarity encampment at the school's New Brunswick, New Jersey campus as a deadline set by administrators approached and officials threatened the students with arrest.
In contrast, Columbia administrators have faced harsh rebukes from First Amendment rights advocates for agreeing to the Trump administration's demands when the White House said it was canceling $400 million in government grants and contracts over the school's alleged "continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students."
In response, Columbia—which allowed New York City police to drag students out of a school building and arrest more than 100 people last year during the pro-Palestinian protests—suspended, expelled, and revoked the degrees of some students who had participated in the demonstrations and increased law enforcement presence on campus, among other steps.
"We've all been trying to figure out how to solve this collective action problem," said Elizabeth Wrigley-Field, a professor at University of Minnesota—another member of the Big Ten alliance. "This seems like a very positive big step in the right direction."