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Union leaders are joined by community group representatives, elected officials, and social activists for a rally in support of unionization efforts by Amazon workers in Alabama on March 21, 2021 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo: Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images)
The Labor Movement Is About the Fight for True Democracy
The Americans organizing their workplaces aren’t simply fighting for themselves. They’re storm troops fighting for democracy.
Apr 21, 2022
This spring, we find ourselves in precarious waters.
The global COVID-19 pandemic has exposed deep cracks in the foundation of our democracy. Our economy remains deeply unequal, with billionaires profiting off the pandemic while workers struggle to keep up with inflation.
The moment we're in is not simply a fight to restore normalcy. It's a moment to decide if we'd rather have a democracy or run-away capitalism.
So now more than ever, we need to deepen our democracy--not just in the voting booth, but on the shop floor, too.
In our new book, The Future We Need: Organizing for a Better Democracy in the Twenty-First Century, we argue that we're long overdue to build the democracy our ancestors imagined--one that prioritizes participation not just in politics, but in our economic lives too.
Our country has a rich, if incomplete, history of these efforts.
After the abolition of slavery, the groundwork was laid for formerly enslaved workers to make decisions about the conditions and compensation for their labor. Although later years brought setbacks, during this period our country made genuine strides toward building a real multiracial democracy.
We believe it's in this spirit that so many workers today seek the ability to organize and collectively bargain--at Amazon, Starbucks, and beyond. The people organizing these workplaces aren't simply fighting for themselves. They're storm troops fighting for democracy.
A healthy democracy is a system in which people have the ability to consult, confer, and govern themselves. As we strive to recover from this pandemic, we'll need to create new mechanisms that allow everyone to participate in decisions about the political and economic questions that impact us all.
Workers are already developing exciting new innovations to accomplish this.
For example, domestic workers are excluded from the protections of the National Labor Relations Act. Yet workers operating on the gig platform Handy successfully negotiated a legal agreement with the company that piloted some of the same standards, practices, and protections you might see in a traditional collective bargaining agreement.
More recently, the independent Amazon Labor Union in Staten Island won a traditional union election at one of the largest companies on the globe, originally without any union or non-profit infrastructure to support them--or even a bank account.
And despite fierce corporate resistance, workers at dozens of Starbucks stores across the country have done the same.
These workers didn't wait on the perfect law to pass or validation from the powers-that-be to directly negotiate their economic conditions. They found their own way.
Despite the rules and traditional ways of doing things, workers throughout the country--in formal and informal employment relationships, in union and right-to-work states alike--have stood up for themselves and their communities.
The moment we're in is not simply a fight to restore normalcy. It's a moment to decide if we'd rather have a democracy or run-away capitalism.
Will we continue to socialize all the risks and sacrifices while concentrating all the benefits among a small select few? Or will we force those wealthy few to share decision making power--and profits--with the many whose work makes their wealth possible?
These are human decisions that we must all actively take part in making. We can't restore faith in our shared aspirations of a great American multiracial democracy without all of us participating.
A mentor of ours once told us that if individuals on the margins of society don't believe that democracy is real for them, they simply won't fight for it--and the system will crumble. With democracy under attack from all sides, that threat is all too real.
As we approach the midterm elections, we should see the workers who are rising up as their own voting bloc--one not based on a specific issue or demographic, but rather on the desire to imagine and re-build a democracy worth fighting for.
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
This column was distributed by OtherWords.
Sarita Gupta
Sarita Gupta is the executive director of Jobs with Justice, a national network of more than 40 local coalitions of labor, community, student, and faith organizations, working together to build a broader global movement for economic and social justice.
Erica Smiley
Erica Smiley is the organizing director of Jobs With Justice, a national network of grassroots-based labor and community coalitions.
This spring, we find ourselves in precarious waters.
The global COVID-19 pandemic has exposed deep cracks in the foundation of our democracy. Our economy remains deeply unequal, with billionaires profiting off the pandemic while workers struggle to keep up with inflation.
The moment we're in is not simply a fight to restore normalcy. It's a moment to decide if we'd rather have a democracy or run-away capitalism.
So now more than ever, we need to deepen our democracy--not just in the voting booth, but on the shop floor, too.
In our new book, The Future We Need: Organizing for a Better Democracy in the Twenty-First Century, we argue that we're long overdue to build the democracy our ancestors imagined--one that prioritizes participation not just in politics, but in our economic lives too.
Our country has a rich, if incomplete, history of these efforts.
After the abolition of slavery, the groundwork was laid for formerly enslaved workers to make decisions about the conditions and compensation for their labor. Although later years brought setbacks, during this period our country made genuine strides toward building a real multiracial democracy.
We believe it's in this spirit that so many workers today seek the ability to organize and collectively bargain--at Amazon, Starbucks, and beyond. The people organizing these workplaces aren't simply fighting for themselves. They're storm troops fighting for democracy.
A healthy democracy is a system in which people have the ability to consult, confer, and govern themselves. As we strive to recover from this pandemic, we'll need to create new mechanisms that allow everyone to participate in decisions about the political and economic questions that impact us all.
Workers are already developing exciting new innovations to accomplish this.
For example, domestic workers are excluded from the protections of the National Labor Relations Act. Yet workers operating on the gig platform Handy successfully negotiated a legal agreement with the company that piloted some of the same standards, practices, and protections you might see in a traditional collective bargaining agreement.
More recently, the independent Amazon Labor Union in Staten Island won a traditional union election at one of the largest companies on the globe, originally without any union or non-profit infrastructure to support them--or even a bank account.
And despite fierce corporate resistance, workers at dozens of Starbucks stores across the country have done the same.
These workers didn't wait on the perfect law to pass or validation from the powers-that-be to directly negotiate their economic conditions. They found their own way.
Despite the rules and traditional ways of doing things, workers throughout the country--in formal and informal employment relationships, in union and right-to-work states alike--have stood up for themselves and their communities.
The moment we're in is not simply a fight to restore normalcy. It's a moment to decide if we'd rather have a democracy or run-away capitalism.
Will we continue to socialize all the risks and sacrifices while concentrating all the benefits among a small select few? Or will we force those wealthy few to share decision making power--and profits--with the many whose work makes their wealth possible?
These are human decisions that we must all actively take part in making. We can't restore faith in our shared aspirations of a great American multiracial democracy without all of us participating.
A mentor of ours once told us that if individuals on the margins of society don't believe that democracy is real for them, they simply won't fight for it--and the system will crumble. With democracy under attack from all sides, that threat is all too real.
As we approach the midterm elections, we should see the workers who are rising up as their own voting bloc--one not based on a specific issue or demographic, but rather on the desire to imagine and re-build a democracy worth fighting for.
From Your Site Articles
Sarita Gupta
Sarita Gupta is the executive director of Jobs with Justice, a national network of more than 40 local coalitions of labor, community, student, and faith organizations, working together to build a broader global movement for economic and social justice.
Erica Smiley
Erica Smiley is the organizing director of Jobs With Justice, a national network of grassroots-based labor and community coalitions.
This spring, we find ourselves in precarious waters.
The global COVID-19 pandemic has exposed deep cracks in the foundation of our democracy. Our economy remains deeply unequal, with billionaires profiting off the pandemic while workers struggle to keep up with inflation.
The moment we're in is not simply a fight to restore normalcy. It's a moment to decide if we'd rather have a democracy or run-away capitalism.
So now more than ever, we need to deepen our democracy--not just in the voting booth, but on the shop floor, too.
In our new book, The Future We Need: Organizing for a Better Democracy in the Twenty-First Century, we argue that we're long overdue to build the democracy our ancestors imagined--one that prioritizes participation not just in politics, but in our economic lives too.
Our country has a rich, if incomplete, history of these efforts.
After the abolition of slavery, the groundwork was laid for formerly enslaved workers to make decisions about the conditions and compensation for their labor. Although later years brought setbacks, during this period our country made genuine strides toward building a real multiracial democracy.
We believe it's in this spirit that so many workers today seek the ability to organize and collectively bargain--at Amazon, Starbucks, and beyond. The people organizing these workplaces aren't simply fighting for themselves. They're storm troops fighting for democracy.
A healthy democracy is a system in which people have the ability to consult, confer, and govern themselves. As we strive to recover from this pandemic, we'll need to create new mechanisms that allow everyone to participate in decisions about the political and economic questions that impact us all.
Workers are already developing exciting new innovations to accomplish this.
For example, domestic workers are excluded from the protections of the National Labor Relations Act. Yet workers operating on the gig platform Handy successfully negotiated a legal agreement with the company that piloted some of the same standards, practices, and protections you might see in a traditional collective bargaining agreement.
More recently, the independent Amazon Labor Union in Staten Island won a traditional union election at one of the largest companies on the globe, originally without any union or non-profit infrastructure to support them--or even a bank account.
And despite fierce corporate resistance, workers at dozens of Starbucks stores across the country have done the same.
These workers didn't wait on the perfect law to pass or validation from the powers-that-be to directly negotiate their economic conditions. They found their own way.
Despite the rules and traditional ways of doing things, workers throughout the country--in formal and informal employment relationships, in union and right-to-work states alike--have stood up for themselves and their communities.
The moment we're in is not simply a fight to restore normalcy. It's a moment to decide if we'd rather have a democracy or run-away capitalism.
Will we continue to socialize all the risks and sacrifices while concentrating all the benefits among a small select few? Or will we force those wealthy few to share decision making power--and profits--with the many whose work makes their wealth possible?
These are human decisions that we must all actively take part in making. We can't restore faith in our shared aspirations of a great American multiracial democracy without all of us participating.
A mentor of ours once told us that if individuals on the margins of society don't believe that democracy is real for them, they simply won't fight for it--and the system will crumble. With democracy under attack from all sides, that threat is all too real.
As we approach the midterm elections, we should see the workers who are rising up as their own voting bloc--one not based on a specific issue or demographic, but rather on the desire to imagine and re-build a democracy worth fighting for.
From Your Site Articles
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.