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On Labor Day, Champions of Working Class Vow to Defeat Trump
"The facts are clear: Democrats are the party of labor, and the Biden-Harris administration has been the most pro-labor administration in our lifetime," said a pair of supporters.
Sep 02, 2024
With the Labor Day holiday as a backdrop, U.S. union leaders on Monday reiterated their message that a Democratic administration led by Vice President Kamala Harris would offer far better policies for workers than a Republican one with former President Donald Trump at the helm.
Echoing Harris' resonant "We are not going back" campaign slogan, Communications Workers of America president Claude Cummings Jr. said that "we are not going back because we have the opportunity to elect Kamala Harris, a true champion for working people, who has a vision for the future where we all have more control over our own lives, not less."
"Last month, as our members at AT&T Southeast were preparing to go on strike, Donald Trump laughed with notorious union buster Elon Musk about firing striking workers," he continued. "Today that would be illegal, but if he's elected president, Trump will have the plan and the power to take us back to a time when it wasn't."
"Donald Trump's allies, including many people he appointed to serve in his administration, want to take us back to the days before the NLRA," he contended, referring to the landmark National Labor Relations Act signed into law by Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935. "Their dangerous, extremist agenda, detailed in a handbook known as Project 2025, calls for increasing corporate control over workers. They want to appoint [National Labor Relations Board] members who will stop enforcing large parts of the NLRA, including the ban on company unions."
Harris, who was in Detroit Monday, said: "On Labor Day, we honor workers, unions, and the entire labor movement fighting for fair wages, good benefits, and safer working conditions for all. As president, I will always stand with workers, because when unions are strong, the middle class is strong. And when the middle class is strong, America is strong."
In her second annual "State of the Unions" address, Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, the nation's largest federation of unions, highlighted the importance of organized labor in November's election. Shuler noted that 1 in 5 voters in the battleground states of Michigan, Wisconsin and, Minnesota is a union member, and that recent polling shows Harris with a 15-point lead over Trump among union voters.
"Union workers are growing our power in this country in a way that we haven't seen in a generation. In November, that power could win the election for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz," she said, referring to the Minnesota governor who is the Democratic vice presidential nominee.
"We can run up the margins where it counts," Shuler added. "When you ask a union member who their most trusted source in the world is on politics, it's not their friends, family, or loved ones—it's their fellow union member. There is no question that the road to the White House runs through America's union halls."
While numerous unions have endorsed Harris, Trump has struggled in his efforts to court organized labor, despite strong support among rank-and-file workers. Last week, members of the International Association of Fire Fighters booed GOP vice presidential candidate and U.S. Sen. JD Vance of Ohio after he claimed that he was part of the"most pro-worker Republican ticket in history."
While support for unions in the United States is at a seven-decade high, union membership remains at an all-time low, the result of more than a century of efforts by capitalist interests and the politicians they influence to weaken organized labor. One way they've done this is by McCarthyite purges of communists and socialists, traditionally the strongest champions for working people, from union ranks.
Today, labor leaders overwhelmingly concur which of the two major parties offers workers a better deal—even as it attacks democracy by fighting to exclude pro-worker competitors to its left.
"The facts are clear: Democrats are the party of labor, and the Biden-Harris administration has been the most pro-labor administration in our lifetime," Service Employees International Union president April Verrett and Democracy Alliance president Pamela Shifman said in an opinion piece published by The Hill on Monday.
"As we look ahead, the choice we face in this election couldn't be more stark," they wrote. "One path leads to a brighter, more inclusive future for all workers—a future where economic, gender, and racial justice go hand in hand. The other path seeks to turn back the clock, dismantling the progress we've made and putting corporate interests ahead of working families."
Civil rights icon Dolores Huerta, who co-founded the United Farm Workers union with Cesar Chavez—the late grandfather of Harris' campaign manager—in 1962, on Monday published a Univisionopinion piece in which she argued that "this election marks a pivotal moment in our history."
"Each of us will have a choice to make about which direction we want our country to go," she said. "Donald Trump despises Latinos, workers, and immigrants and wants to turn back the clock to a time before many of us had full rights and freedoms, when the rich did well while the middle class was left behind. We cannot go back!"
"I choose to go forward, into the future," Huerta continued. "A future that makes room for all Latino families. A future where our middle class is strong, our freedoms are secure, and our democracy is sound. That's what Vice President Harris is fighting for. And that's why I'm all-in to elect Vice President Harris the next president of the United States... ¡Sí se puede!"
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Congressional Progressives Unveil 'Bold' Agenda for Second Biden Term
The Congressional Progressive Caucus says its legislative blueprint for 2025 and beyond aims to "deliver equality, justice, and economic security for working people."
Apr 18, 2024
The Congressional Progressive Caucus on Thursday published a "comprehensive domestic policy legislative agenda" for U.S. President Joe Biden's possible second White House term that seeks to "deliver equality, justice, and economic security for working people."
The CPC's Progressive Proposition Agenda is a seven-point plan aimed at lowering the cost of living, boosting wages and worker power, advancing justice, combating climate change and protecting the environment, strengthening democracy, breaking the corporate stranglehold on the economy, and bolstering public education.
"Progressives are proud to have been part of the most significant Democratic legislative accomplishments of this century. We have made real progress for everyday Americans—but there's much more work to be done," Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said in a statement.
"That's why the Progressive Caucus has identified these popular, populist, and possible solutions," she added. "Democrats in Congress can meet the urgent needs people are facing; rewrite the rules to ensure majorities of this country are no longer barred from the American promise of equality, justice, and economic opportunity; and motivate people with a vision of progressive governance under Democratic majorities in the House and Senate and a Democratic White House."
Progressive lawmakers have already introduced bills for many items on the agenda, including a Green New Deal for Public Schools, expanding the Supreme Court, comprehensive voting rights protection, and legalizing marijuana.
Critics noted the conspicuous absence of Medicare for All—once a top progressive agenda item—and foreign policy issues including ending Israel's genocide, apartheid, occupation, settler colonization, and ethnic cleansing in Palestine.
Jayapal toldNBC News that the CPC is focusing its blueprint exclusively on domestic goals—especially ones it feels can be achieved.
"The way we came to this agenda is to say that we were going to put into this agenda things that were populist and possible... and affected a huge number of people," she said. "We haven't taken a position on particularly Israel and Gaza in the progressive caucus, and so that's not on here."
The CPC agenda is backed by a wide range of labor, climate, environmental, civil rights, consumer, faith-based, and other organizations.
"The Congressional Progressive Caucus is leading the way for Congress to address the major issues affecting working families, from reducing healthcare and housing costs to strengthening workers' rights to join unions, earn living wages and benefits, and have safe workplaces," Service Employees International Union president Mary Kay Henry said in a statement.
"SEIU is proud to partner with the CPC to move these priorities forward and build a more equitable economy in which corporations are held accountable for their actions," she added.
Mary Small, chief strategy officer at Indivisible, said: "House progressives were the engine at the heart of our legislative accomplishments in 2021 and 2022. They've continued that momentum to be true governing partners to the Biden administration as those laws and programs are implemented."
"That's why Indivisible is so supportive of the CPC's Proposition Agenda, a bold vision for progressive governance in 2025 and beyond. From reproductive rights to saving our democracy to economic security for all, the CPC is driving forward exactly the sort of legislative goals we want to see in our next governing moment."
That moment is far from guaranteed, with not only the White House hanging in the balance as Biden will all but certainly face former Republican President Donald Trump in November's election but also the Senate Democratic Caucus clinging to a single-seat advantage over the GOP. Republicans currently hold the House of Representatives by a five-seat margin.
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California's $20 Fast Food Worker Minimum Wage Kicks In
"Fast food companies can afford to pay $20/hour without raising prices or cutting hours," said the California Fast Food Workers Union. "Doing either is a choice. Don't let them tell you otherwise."
Apr 01, 2024
A new California law raising the minimum wage for most fast food workers from $16 to $20 an hour took effect Monday, a move cheered by labor advocates who dismissed—and debunked—claims by an industry reaping record profits that the pay hike would force restaurant chains to raise prices and cut jobs.
The law applies to restaurants at national fast food chains with at least 60 locations and that have limited or no table service. Restaurants inside supermarkets and establishments that bake and sell bread are exempt. Twenty dollars is just a starting point, as a state law also established a Fast Food Council that can raise wages by up to 3.5% annually through 2029.
"The vast majority of fast food locations in California operate under the most profitable brands in the world," Joseph Bryant, executive vice president of the Service Employees International Union, said in a statement. "Those corporations need to pay their fair share and provide their operators with the resources they need to pay their workers a living wage without cutting jobs or passing the cost to consumers."
As the California Fast Food Workers Union noted:
- From 2015 to 2023, California raised the minimum wage by 72%, from $9 an hour to $15.50 an hour;
- While the minimum wage was rising, fast food restaurants in California added 142,000 jobs; and
- The minimum wage has increased every year in California since 2015, and so has the number of fast food jobs in California, except for 2020, when the Covid pandemic hit.
California Fast Food Worker Union also pointed out that "numerous academic studies confirm: When states and cities pass big minimum wage increases, employers either add jobs or there is no or minimal effect on employment."
BREAKING: Today hundreds of fast food workers from across California are in LA to officially launch the California Fast Food Workers Union
We've won a Fast Food Council
We've won $20/hr
Now we're doing whatever it takes to win annual raises, just cause, and more#UnionsForAll pic.twitter.com/pykRKZF0PV
— California Fast Food Workers Union (@CAFastFoodUnion) February 9, 2024
The union highlighted various studies, including one in 2024 that found no fast food jobs were lost when California and New York increased their minimum wage to $15; another in 2018 that showed a slight increase in restaurant and food service employment in six cities that raised their minimum wage; and yet another in 2021 revealing hikes in state and local minimum wages had no effect on McDonald's opening or closing restaurants.
"According to the data, there's no reason why the new fast food minimum wage of $20 per hour in California should mean layoffs or increased prices," Alí Bustamante,deputy director for the Worker Power and Economic Security program at the Roosevelt Institute, said last week. "Profits in the fast food industry are sufficiently high to absorb the greater operating costs and ensure industry workers are paid fairly."
As More Perfect Union noted, McDonald's made $8.5 billion in profit last year, while Burger King's parent company raked in $1.2 billion, and Starbucks enjoyed $4.1 billion in profits.
Additionally, a new Roosevelt Institute analysis co-authored by Bustamante found that the 10 largest publicly traded fast food companies spent $6.1 billion on stock buybacks last year alone. This, while fast food prices soared by 46.8% over the past decade compared with 28.7% for the average of all prices. In 2023, fast food companies charged their customers 27% above their production costs. Critics have accused these and other corporations of "greedflation."
"In 2022, fast food industry employment in California had increased to approximately 553,000 workers—a 20.1% increase since 2014," the analysis notes. "Trends in the California fast food labor market have mirrored the national averages. Yet between 2014 and 2023, the federal minimum wage remained stagnant at $7.25 per hour, while California's minimum wage increased from $9 to $15.50 an hour—further evidence that California fast food firms can readily adjust to minimum wage increases."
The U.S. federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour has not been raised since 2009, and that amount is worth far less now than it was then due to inflation.
"This is an insult to American workers and bad for our economy," former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich said in a video published Monday by the Gravel Institute.
"It's simply a myth that raising the wage automatically means lost jobs," Reich asserted. "Here's the bottom line: If your business depends on paying your workers starvation wages, you should not be in business."
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