Happy Labor Day, all!
I’ve learned a lot about people and movements over my 25 years in organizing spaces, but the most important lessons can be boiled down to a few simple things: everyone has a compelling story, everyone deserves stability, safety, and the opportunity to thrive, you can’t challenge systems without challenging power, and you can’t confront economic inequity without confronting racial, gender or identity inequities. Most importantly for today, I’ve learned that all work that lifts up society has dignity.
The labor movement is the best space for encapsulating all of these lessons. And despite its faults, it will always be the best space for coalescing our diverse working class communities to fight for political power and change. I learned this early on while organizing for migrant farmworker rights. It’s what drove me to become an active rank-and-file member of UAW 4121 in graduate school. It’s why I spent almost seven years organizing alongside low wage education workers with SEIU 925. And it’s why I always try to push labor leaders to think beyond narrow contract or member interests and instead fight for the broader public good.
We’ve seen massive gains for workers in the last few years, almost all of which stem directly from organizing and militancy. The national UAW strike was the most successful mass labor action in the US in decades. It came on the heels of Hollywood strikes by writers and actors, the threat of strikes by stagehands and teamsters, and several years of major wins for teachers, nurses, hospital staff and others. Washington is facing major labor actions right now. UNITE HERE hotel workers in Seattle joined 10,000 others nationwide on strike yesterday. State government workers are staging a statewide walkout at noon on 09/10. Boeing Machinists just voted 99% to approve a strike. Next year, local grocery workers will be fighting for a new contract and against corporate mergers, and collaborating with Tacoma For All on a Worker Bill of Rights. I support all of this and more, much of which I include in my labor platform.
If you have the day off, you should absolutely kick back and enjoy the federal holiday. But you should be sure to take some moments to thank unions for the weekend, healthcare, the 8-hour day and basically every other workplace right we take for granted. But even more importantly, you should take some moments to think of the struggles so many working folks have endured for those rights, to recognize that there are countless people organizing and struggling right now, and that the only way to a future where we all thrive is through organizing today within and across our beautiful, diverse working class.
I promise to bring this energy of organizing and worker power with me to Olympia. See you in the community. See you in the streets. See you in the legislature.
In solidarity, now and forever!
Devin
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