SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
economic justice
The Michigan Legislature Should Honor Dr. King's Legacy by Rejecting an Anti-Worker Bill
The bill would limit the upward economic mobility of part-time workers and workers at businesses with less than 25 people, reduce paid time off, and strip workers of protections they may otherwise be entitled to.
Jan 25, 2025
This week, as we honor the work of and the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., we must remember that to meaningfully honor his legacy means to uplift his work fighting for working class communities through race and class solidarity, his critical work in the labor movement, and his efforts to ensure people understood that racial justice was deeply intertwined with economic justice. In fact, labor rights were so deeply entrenched in Dr. King's work that it is the right of the individual worker that brought him to Memphis before he was assassinated.
In February 1968, two Memphis garbage collectors, Echol Cole and Robert Walker, were crushed to death by a malfunctioning garbage truck. Following their preventable death, Black workers across the city went on strike to protest the long history of neglect and abuse of its Black employees. It was a tale as old as time: greedy CEOs and corporations with a history of forcing workers into unsafe working conditions and putting the safety of these workers at risk, and fed up labor leaders who were sick of being mistreated. Dr. King came to Memphis to show support for these striking workers, and addressed a crowd of 25,000 in Memphis.
This was not his first time standing up for the rights of the worker. While addressing the Illinois AFL-CIO in 1965, King quipped: "The two most dynamic movements that reshaped the nation during the past three decades are the labor and civil rights movements. Our combined strength is potentially enormous." And he was right. And the big corporations and wealthy elites of this country know it. That's why they have been fighting so hard against class solidarity and against worker protections
The choice before us is clear: We can stand with working families, or we can roll back essential protections that Michiganders have fought hard to secure.
We deserve an economy that works for all of us, especially working class people that are critical to keeping our economy afloat. A nation's economy must do more than just help people survive: it should take active measures to level the playing field. It should allow people to choose where and how to live. And it should enable them to pass on their wealth to the next generation.
In Michigan, instead of fighting to uplift working class families and make this vision a reality, the Michigan state legislature dishonors both their commitment to Michigan families and the legacy of MLK Jr. by working to pass an anti-worker bill known as the Earned Sick Time Act. This legislation is a red-herring claiming to fight for small businesses while stripping employees at those businesses of their rights. If passed, this bill would limit the upward economic mobility of workers at small businesses as well as part-time workers, reduce paid time off, and strip workers of protections they may otherwise be entitled to under state and federal labor laws.
In other words, this bill deprioritizes workers at a time when Michigan families, Black mothers, and caregivers of color are struggling with rising costs. With so many of us feeling the squeeze at the grocery store while searching for child or eldercare, paying rent, or helping our kids afford college, elected officials should be working to level the playing field, not widening income disparities. The choice before us is clear: We can stand with working families, or we can roll back essential protections that Michiganders have fought hard to secure. I choose to stand with working families, and I urge our elected officials in the state to do the same by voting no on the Earned Sick Time Act.
The bill's proposed changes to earned paid sick time would make it harder for workers to care for themselves and their families. Right now, more than 1.7 million Michigan workers lack access to even one hour of paid sick time. This isn't just a statistic—it represents real families in our districts making impossible choices between their health, their safety, and their paycheck. The Earned Sick Time Act would worsen this crisis by reducing protections for thousands more workers, forcing them to choose between coming into work sick and risking the health of those around them, and keeping food on the table.
The most troubling part is this fight we are faced with in Michigan is not unique. All across the country, we are seeing billionaires and dark money groups working to strip people of their rights and their ability to provide for their families. It reminds us of a very simple truth: The American Dream is not attainable for a majority of Americans, nor has it ever been. The myths politicians tell us have been harmful to real progress. They say that if you work hard enough, you too can get rich. But this "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" idea has failed us. It keeps us trapped in uncertainty and instability while the rich get richer and we fight among ourselves. That's why I am calling on Michigan leadership to ensure a bill that would further move the goalpost of what the American Dream could be does not pass. We can do better for each other than this.
A resilient economy is a collaborative effort, not a competition. We can have a nation free of bigotry, provide for people while they are ill, and help people access prosperity and opportunity. It's not a zero-sum game. Dr. King's life was a testament to this. He was dedicated to the fight for economic justice, fair wages, and labor rights, in addition to racial justice and equality. He gave everything, including his life, to this mission. We must ensure his legacy lives on by picking up his mantle. We must have the political courage to fight back against corporate interests and with the people that brought elected leaders to power.
In our interconnected world, our success depends on our neighbors' success. So let's succeed by uplifting each other. As we brace ourselves for what will come under a Trump administration, it's more important than ever that we stand together.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Democrats' Working-Class Failures, Analysis Finds, Are 'Why Trump Beat Harris'
"By branding itself as an active party of economic populism that fights for needed changes for the working class, the Democratic Party can put itself in a position to regain the support of the voters it lost in 2024."
Dec 17, 2024
Further bolstering the post-election argument that U.S. working-class voters have ditched the Democratic Party because they feel abandoned by Democrats, a Tuesday analysis details why Vice President Kamala Harris lost to Republican President-elect Donald Trump.
The report by Data for Progress, a left-leaning think tank, uses dozens of national surveys of likely voters conducted throughout 2024 to back up assertions that the party needs to improve its messaging and policies targeting working people if Democrats want to win future U.S. elections, after losing the White House and both chambers of Congress last month.
Data for Progress found that before Democratic President Joe Biden passed the torch to Harris this summer following a disastrous debate performance against Trump, "voters were highly concerned about his age, and swing voters overwhelmingly cited it as the main reason they wouldn't vote for Biden."
"Voters were also deeply unsatisfied with Biden's economy," the 40-page report states. "A strong majority perceived the economy as getting worse for people like them, with more than 3 in 4 consistently reporting they were paying more for groceries. Voters blamed Biden more than any other person or group for U.S. economic conditions."
"While voters across party lines strongly supported Biden's populist economic policies, many were not aware that his administration had enacted them," the document details. "When Harris entered the race, her favorability surged, along with Democrats' and Independents' enthusiasm for voting in the election."
However, "on the economy—voters' top issue—Harris struggled to escape Biden's legacy. Half of voters said that Harris would mostly continue the same policies as Biden, leading swing state voters to prefer Trump on handling inflation," Data for Progress explained. This, despite warnings from economic justice advocates and Nobel Prize-winning economists that Harris' plan for the economy was "vastly superior" to the Trump agenda.
"Harris was effective at communicating to voters that she supported increasing taxes on billionaires, but struggled to break through with other aspects of her popular economic agenda," the think tank noted. "Most voters heard only 'a little' or 'nothing at all' about her plans to crack down on corporate price gouging, protect Social Security and Medicare, and lower the price of groceries, prescription drugs, and childcare."
The report on "why Trump beat Harris" also highlights that "beyond the economy, Democrats struggled mightily on immigration and foreign policy, with a surge of border crossings at the end of 2023 and major international conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine damaging trust in Biden and Harris on these issues."
"While Democrats had some success breaking through on their stronger issues—abortion and democracy—they struggled with these issues being less important to voters, and with the fact that many voters were unsure of Trump's support for Project 2025," the document adds, referencing the Heritage Foundation-led playbook crafted for the next Republican president.
Although billionaire-backed Trump is a well-documented liar expected to now implement a series of right-wing Project 2025 policies, the former reality television star has demonstrated an ability to capture attention via traditional press and newer media, launching his Truth Social platform, appearing on various podcasts, and reportedly taking advice from his 18-year-old son about reaching young people.
Data for Progress observed that "while Harris held an advantage with voters who regularly consume political news, those who consume little or no political news—a group that disproportionately consumes content on social media—supported Harris at much lower rates."
As the think tank concluded:
Broadly, these findings indicate that the Democratic Party needs to do far more work to break through to voters—particularly those who are politically disengaged—on the economy. Democrats' economically populist agenda is overwhelmingly popular, but they need to more clearly communicate it to voters and engage in more robust communications. Earlier this year, President Biden declined the traditional pre-Super Bowl interview for the second year in a row, when 123 million Americans tuned in—the most-watched Super Bowl in history. In fact, Biden will leave office having done the fewest number of press conferences among recent presidents. Even when Harris took over the top of the ticket in July, she waited weeks before doing her first major broadcast interview in late August. Democrats need to do the basics of actively communicating their agenda to the American people, including through non-traditional media to reach disengaged voters. Voters crave authenticity and engagement, which they found in Trump.
Democrats also need to more actively demonstrate to voters that they are the party of change. They need to show voters that they are capable of fixing our country's immigration system and foreign conflicts by taking a serious but humane approach to border security and supporting popular solutions to conflicts abroad.
"By branding itself as an active party of economic populism that fights for needed changes for the working class," the group stressed, "the Democratic Party can put itself in a position to regain the support of the voters it lost in 2024."
Echoing that conclusion in a Tuesday statement, Data for Progress executive director Danielle Deiseroth declared that "this report should serve as a clarion call to Democrats who let a billionaire con man outflank them on cost-of-living issues."
"Voters are tired of the status quo, one in which the ultrarich and largest corporations rake in record profits while working families struggle to afford groceries," she said. "If Democrats want to take back Congress, they need to recruit candidates who can buck the unpopular establishment and authentically communicate to the communities they seek to represent."
Progressives in Congress—such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016 and 2020; "Squad" members like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.); and Congressional Progressive Caucus leaders, including outgoing Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and incoming Chair Greg Casar (D-Texas)—have long made that same point, but they have been particularly vocal about it after the devastating federal electoral losses in November.
On Tuesday, Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) narrowly
defeated Ocasio-Cortez to lead Democrats on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee in the next congressional session—a contest that was widely seen as a proxy fight between the party's younger, more progressive faction and the establishment that couldn't win over voters last month.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Former Sen. Fred Harris, Champion of Economic Populism, Dies at 94
"The fundamental problem is that too few people have all the money and power, and everybody else has too little of either," said Harris in 1975.
Nov 25, 2024
Former Oklahoma Senator Fred Harris, a moderate Democratic lawmaker who fully embraced economic populism in his later political career and ran what one journalist called a "proto-Bernie" presidential campaign in 1976, died on Saturday at the age of 94.
Harris' death inspired tributes from an array of Democratic politicians and progressives, who remembered the former senator's outspoken support for working people and his championing of Indigenous rights.
Harris was voted into the Senate to replace Sen. Robert Kerr (D-Okla.) in 1964 after Kerr died of a heart attack. He began as a close ally of President Lyndon Johnson, supporting U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War and Johnson's Great Society programs aimed at reducing poverty.
But he "underwent a dramatic passage from moderate-conservative to liberal ideas," as The New York Times reported, embracing a "new populism" that was centered on promoting racial equality and a redistribution of economic and political power and fighting against the exploitation of workers. He also gradually changed his stance on Vietnam, calling for troop reductions and eventually a full withdrawal of the U.S. military in the region.
In 1967 he was a member of the Kerner Commission on Civil Disorders, convened to determine the root cause of riots in Black communities across the country. He concluded that "entrenched racism" was to blame.
He was also credited with sponsoring a bill that pushed President Richard Nixon to return Blue Lake, a site that was sacred to the people of the Taos Pueblo tribe, to them.
"In Senator Harris, Oklahoma sent a public servant to Washington, D.C. who gave voice to those in need, lifted up those the economy left behind, was a champion of civil rights, and was a friend to Indian Country," said Chief Chuck Hoskin, Jr. of the Cherokee Nation.
"His story is one that too few people know—the story of an Oklahoman who championed working families and fought for justice and equity at every turn."
Running for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1976, Harris called for higher taxes on the richest Americans and lower taxes for the rest of the country, stricter regulations on large corporations, a "moral" foreign policy, abortion rights, and "community control" of police forces.
Columnist John Nichols of The Nation said Harris adopted the slogan "No More Bullshit" during his presidential campaign.
Harris' presidential bid, said journalist Ryan Grim of Drop Site News, "was a road-not-taken that would have led to a much better world than we have now."
Harris told the Times in 1975 that the issue he was most concerned with was "privilege."
"The fundamental problem is that too few people have all the money and power, and everybody else has too little of either," he said. "The widespread diffusion of economic and political power ought to be the express goal—the stated goal—of government."
Harris' campaign garnered enthusiastic support from many voters, with the former senator taking aim at "the superrich, giant corporations" and leading efforts to gain the confidence of blue-collar workers, farmers, poor Black and white voters, and unemployed people.
"Those in the coalition don't have to love one another," Harris said. "All they have to do is recognize that they are commonly exploited, and that if they get themselves together they are a popular majority and can take back the government."
After his presidential run, Harris became a political science professor at the University of New Mexico at Albuquerque and left politics to raise chickens on a farm in Corrales, New Mexico.
In conversations with Axios reporter Russell Contreras in his later years, Harris expressed frustration with the Democratic Party, saying leaders didn't discuss poverty as much as they should.
"It's harder to get out of poverty today than it was back then," he told Contreras.
He added that showing a commitment to fight for working-class and low-income people would motivate people in Appalachia, the Mississippi Delta, and on Native American reservations across the country.
"We are grateful to see national media highlighting the life and legacy of former Senator Fred Harris," said the Oklahoma Democratic Party. "His story is one that too few people know—the story of an Oklahoman who championed working families and fought for justice and equity at every turn."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular