The reality is this: The biggest thing we can do for worker power right now—concretely in one moment and to lay the groundwork for future improvement—is to defeat not just Donald Trump but enough Senate Republicans to put Democrats in the majority. Current Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has shown what an impediment to progress he is, not just with Trump in the White House but when Barack Obama was president as well.
Democrats have plans to raise the minimum wage, which has been stuck at $7.25 an hour since 2009; to pass the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act; to invest in infrastructure and green jobs. Democrats would protect and even build on the Affordable Care Act—if Trump’s Supreme Court appointees don’t make that impossible. Democrats would pass more COVID-19 relief, without which so many people have been pushed into poverty. Democrats are defending the U.S. Postal Service, which has been a backbone of the Black middle class. Trump’s National Labor Relations Board has attacked workplace union voting rights again and again. In fact, here, from the Economic Policy Institute, are 50 reasons Trump is bad for workers.
And of course, as long as Trump is in office the coronavirus pandemic will continue to be mishandled, putting more workers at risk or out of work.
Democrats are imperfect, but under Trump, so many avenues for worker organizing have been blocked. Elect Joe Biden and Democratic Senate candidates not because it will be the final answer, but to give workers a better chance in the ongoing fight. Vote early if you can, but whatever you do, make a plan and vote.
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● Teachers in the largest school district in Idaho, of all places, called in sick to protest the district’s problematic COVID-19 safety measures
● Why nurses say "Trump must go"
● How to boost unions' power? Sectoral bargaining
● Happy 500 issues to Labor Notes. A couple recent pieces:
● It's not enough to fight—labor and the left have to be serious about how to win. An interview with Jane McAlevey
● California's Prop 22 is bad for Black workers, Color of Change’s Rashad Robinson and the National Employment Law Project’s Rebecca Dixon write
● And Dixon joined with Working America’s Matt Morrison to write on overcoming inequality in unemployment benefit access and utilization
● Migrant workers restricted to farms under one grower's virus lockdown:
“You put up with a lot already. I never expected to lose my freedom,” said Martinez, 39, who is in his third year working in the tomato fields along the East Coast. He said workers spent months on end without interacting with anyone at all outside the farms, though Lipman eventually relented and organized a carefully controlled trip for groceries each week.
