interviews
Labor and the White House
by Dave Weigel
March 31, 2021
This interview with Dave Weigel, national reporter covering politics for the Washington Post, was conducted and condensed by franknews and Payday Report.
DW | The White House's involvement in the Amazon union drive was a big surprise. I mean, we know where it could have originated, the union talked to the White House; they have kind of an open door with Biden that they didn't have with Trump. We know that Faiz Shakir, Bernie Sanders’ campaign chairman, and his group, Perfect Union, got involved. So, there was public pressure.
The fact that the White House and the president released that video was a big deal to people. And, he made this decision to get involved very early on in his presidency. It was within his first 50 days. He decided to do what hadn't been done before and give a message in support of the union. It was a very careful message. The new labor secretary, Marty Walsh, when asked specifically about Amazon, responded in more general tones.
But, no matter what happens, if you are in for a penny, you are in for a pound.
A lot of previous presidents, including Barack Obama, said a lot less about these union drives and, in doing so, limited their own exposure. If the drive didn't work, people didn't say that the president supported something that didn't work. The fact that Biden made a statement, early on, when it wasn't clear how this was going to go, is a real political statement of what they thought was important.
frank | How do you think his background plays a role in this?
He's always leaned in really hard and identified with workers in the same way he's tried to identify with different civil rights movements. Joe Biden has always wanted to be seen as the kind of person who is coming from Scranton, who has lived through the sixties, and who wants to jump to the front of the march if there is a struggle happening.
He frames everything in terms of fairness. He's not as natural as other members of the party in talking about this. When Bernie Sanders talks about this, for example, he talks about greed, he names CEOs, he says nobody deserves that much money, he talks about a maximum wage and how there should be no billionaires at all. Biden doesn't go that far. Biden has never gone after Jeff Bezos. He's never gone after individual heads of companies the way that Sanders does. He does this sort of a "Hey man, these guys are under assault, somebody needs to stick up for them."
That is something that he has always wanted to be part of his brand. Even when he was voting for trade deals like NAFTA as a Senator, he was never really comfortable. He had the same ideological mindset as a lot of the Democrats in the eighties and the nineties. He did it because he saw that that was the way things were moving and he voted strategically. But, the stuff that fired him up was when he could side with workers. It is the same thing with the projects he took on under Obama when he was Vice President.
During the Democratic primary, he didn't get the same amount of labor support that Hillary Clinton did, but, Sanders didn't get it either. There wasn't the same sort of a landslide of labor to get in early and say, this is our candidate. Instead, they were demanding more of the candidates.
I would cover presidential primary events with the Teamsters in Cedar Rapids or the Building Trades in DC and you would kind of look to the level of applause as an indicator. The interesting thing is that at those events Sanders would lay out the things he did and what he wanted to pass. Biden would go on at length about non-compete clauses and about wage theft and things like that. It was less, "I have studied all of the papers on this and I've decided this is my policy," and more of "this seems unfair and I'm against this thing."
I think the Democratic Party is increasingly understanding what labor can mean for them strategically.
Republicans have gotten kind of tangled up on labor. They have done better with union households, but they are basically the party of deregulation still. They've never really moved on the labor part of their messaging. That makes it easier for Biden to compete for these workers. When it comes down to it, Republicans want “right-to-work." Josh Hawley, who branded himself as a working-class candidate, for example, supports a national right-to-work.
Biden was very concerned with winning back more union households. Union workers were saying, “Democrats had the presidency for 16 years. What do they do for us?” Biden didn't have all the answers that labor wanted, but he was making a lot of specific promises about how he was going to act. He talked about infrastructure spending and about how he was going to run the NLRB and how he was going to approach employers. It was less than Sanders did, but that's way more than Democrats had done in the past.
I mean, the McCain/Romney era Republicans had no appeal to the sort of voters who voted for Obama twice and then voted for Trump. Biden only peeled back maybe 10% of them depending on where you're talking about, but it has made life easier for Democrats.
This fight has in large part been framed in the context of continuing a battle for civil rights. Do you see Biden lean into that messaging?
Biden did not really lean to the racial justice aspect or the civil rights legacy aspect of this labor fight. When the congressional delegation here came down a couple of weeks before the vote, they were much more explicit. Someone like Jamal Bowman or Cori Bush is much more comfortable saying that than Biden. That is the thing about Biden. He basically sets boundaries. He says what his position is and backs off and lets the action happen without his constant commentary. It's very different than Trump in that way too. And that's different than the Sanders position. And it's different than what Warren said her position would be as president.
Can you give us context on how or why you started covering this story?
I started covering the Amazon drive because of the president and members of Congress intervening. I mean, labor decided to get involved months before, but the fact that Democrats were getting involved was new. It has been interesting to monitor their investment in this over other Democratic Party causes.
There's a little bit of intervention from the Democrats, but not, I'd say equal to what Amazon is doing. They are not the advertisements on TV. We all know the Democratic party is kind of involved, but it is not the same political project that I've seen in other places.
There are two stories that kind of were happening at the same time; they have merged, but not completely. One is this labor drive, which is smaller than most drives that have succeeded. It is not overwhelming. You don't see labor signs everywhere you go. But, on the other hand, the level of national involvement is kind of new.
Had Biden said nothing, there would have been a story, but it wouldn't involve the White House, it wouldn't involve the Democratic Party, and it might not involve the PRO Act.
And I think that's going to change because of this.
New interview w/ @daveweigel @PaydayReport
— frank news (@FrankNewsUS) April 6, 2021
"The White House's involvement with the Amazon drive was a big surprise ... Previous presidents, Obama comes to mind, said a lot less. The fact that Biden did that early on is a political statement of what they thought was important." pic.twitter.com/MwYlmqE4xQ
That was a big decision Biden made to be a part of this.
Right. And that political story is interesting. The story here is much more independent. A lot of the people who've come in to help canvas are from smaller groups. You have Black Lives Matter and DSA groups from the area, but you don't have the Democratic Party getting involved in a huge way. I think that is something that people will revisit after the vote.
Should the Democratic Party, like most left parties in the world, be very involved with labor? Should they always take the side of labor?
Most social democratic parties are labor parties and they build up from there. Their coalition includes labor unions. In the British Labour Party, for example, labor has a role in electing the leadership. That is not the case here. That's the conversation I think they're going to start having when this votes over. For example, if there are, and the union says there are, hundreds of people around the country calling them saying, "Hey, I have some questions about what I can do at my fulfillment center in my town," that will be a question for Democrats.
And if Amazon wins, do you get spooked? Amazon has been very punchy in their PR. They might say that a bunch of elite Democrats stood with the union and the workers stood with Amazon. That is very comfortable turf for Amazon to be on, and that leaves a big question open for Democrats. If the union succeeds, throw all of that out the window. I think the lesson that everyone would take in that case would be that if it takes less than a three-minute video from the president to get momentum for something like this, then we should keep doing that. As we talk, I don't know the answer to that question. I think that is something that is going to be answered when the votes are in.
interviews
The Struggle Continues
by Derrick Knox Jr.
February 8, 2021
This interview with Derrick Knox Jr., Chair of the Michigan Poor People's Campaign, was conducted and condensed by franknews.
Derrick | The Poor People's Campaign was started in 1968 by the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with the goal to eradicate poverty.
The campaign focused on improved housing and living wages.
He started this campaign in what would become the last two months of his life. And actually, he was in Memphis, where he was assassinated, because he was marching for living wages for the sanitation workers during the Poor People’s Campaign.
Fast forward to 2018, Reverend Dr. William Barber II and the Reverend Dr. Liz Theo Harris reignited the Poor People's Campaign. I got involved with the Michigan chapter in 2019, and specifically in Lansing, where I live.
frank | What are the parallels between the original movement and this newest iteration?
The same things Dr. King was fighting for in 1968 are the same things we're fighting for today: for a living wage, healthy affordable housing, an economy not driven by war, and equity. King started the Poor People's Campaign because he saw that even though there are civil rights issues, the root of the issue was capitalistic greed. Racism is an issue, and greed is what helps drive racism in this country.
He was about pursuing community over capitalism because ultimately, we are social beings. In our essence, we are not materialistic beings, but we've gotten to a point where that is what a good portion of our politics have become. We, the Poor People’s Campaign, are focused on building power from the ground up. We're not trying to be just spokespeople for poor people, but rather, advocating and organizing resources and movement for the poor.
We want to use any and every resource that we have to amplify the voices of the people that are directly affected by the abuse of our countries economic realities. Too often institutional plans don't involve the people that they're actually meant for.
We think, if I made it in life, I must know what you have to do in order to succeed. We end up with these monolithic plans that fail to take into account sustainable plans for things like mental health, childcare, employment, education, food assistance, and community.
What do your local initiatives look like?
I’ll give you a few examples. For one, the standards for affordable housing are very low. In Lansing, there are 98 families that live in a low-income development that is infested with bed bugs, roaches, rats, mikes. They've been living in those conditions for over eight years. They've gone to the city, they have reached out to other municipalities, and yet they have received no help. We have been advocating for them, organizing residents, and holding meetings with HUD all in an effort to get them some type of relief.
We literally had pictures of residents with hundreds of bites on their backs, on their arms, and on their hands, and the city still says, well that is not a health issue, so we can’t help. That makes no sense. We invited the inspectors and city officials to spend the night there for a couple of months. They have yet to respond or accept that invitation. People will force the poor to live in conditions that they themselves wouldn't want to live in, as long as they're getting paid. That sounds pretty mercenary to me.
If you go into any urban neighborhood in America, I bet you can count on both hands how many liquor stores you can find in that neighborhood while struggling to find a fresh market with healthy food. Here on a local level, we implemented a plan for a full lifecycle urban gardening program. Where we employ the people from the neighborhood to work in our healthy food markets, to do packaging, distribution, shipping, etc. It's also a cooperative where we invite other gardeners to grow on our land and a percentage of their proceeds or crop go to the Poor People's Campaign so we can offer free foods to those that need it the most.
And I'm sure you're aware of the Flint water crisis. The settlement that went down gave pennies on the dollar of what these people have dealt with and will continue to deal with, via lead poisoning for generations. But, the water company continued to charge residents for poisonous water.
Here in Michigan, they were cutting people's utilities and water off during the pandemic. The Fall and Winter seasons in Michigan can be extremely cold. To cut people's water or utilities off during those months because they can't afford it is almost essentially a death sentence. And if they survive that, by the time they can get their water back on, the pipes are now frozen and will burst, which causes even more damage and cost to the home. Then slap on a pandemic, unemployment, death, and burials of loved ones. More cost, stress, and anxiety on already overwhelming circumstances.
There is a story about a nurse who has low-income, living paycheck to paycheck, and her car broke down. She couldn't afford to pay all of her utilities because she had to prioritize getting her car fixed in order to continue going to work. She was behind just a few hundred dollars while continuing to pay it off, and the local utility company shut her utilities off in addition to charging her reconnection fees. We are talking about essential workers, not being taken care of during a pandemic. Capitalistic greed has so poisoned this country that the practices of these organizations have become so inhumane that they would cut an essential worker's power off in the middle of winter, in the middle of the pandemic?
I mean, I could go on all day long. We fight in all of these areas that relate to systemic racism and systemic classism.
You call your proposed national budget a “moral budget,” and your policy proposals are called “moral initiatives.” What role does religion and morality play on a wider level within the campaign?
We call The Poor People's Campaign an interfaith fusion movement. There are basic human necessities that are needed to live: a healthy place to live, access to food, access to healthcare. In any religion, from Christianity to Buddhism to Islam, there is some type of moral code as it relates to the needs of the less fortunate.
From a National Poor People's Campaign level we are pushing for comprehensive free and just COVID relief. Quality healthcare for all. Raise the national minimum wage to $15 dollars, and to update the poverty measure. Guaranteed quality housing for all. An acting federal jobs program to build investments in. We want a guarantee of a safe and equitable public education. We want comprehensive and just immigration reform. We want to ensure the rights of our indigenous folks. We want a fair tax structure. And we want the administration to use the power of executive orders to redirect the bloated Pentagon budget towards these priorities. We want to work to establish a permanent presidential council to advocate this bold initiative.
These goals should be ingrained within religion.
You mention creating a role within the White House – because there’s this back and forth that happens at the transition of presidents via executive order, it makes an impact over a long period of time difficult. It does seem critical to have sustained pressure from the public. How does your organization look to aggregate that sort of power and momentum?
Well, June 2020 was supposed to be when we set up camp at The Capitol to draw attention to the things that need to change in this country. COVID, obviously, disrupted that.
But since, we have done a lot of other action-focused work'. On July 11th, 2020, we had hundreds of cars converge onto the Michigan State Capitol. We had representatives from the community speak to things like utility cutoffs, unhealthy housing conditions, and lack of healthcare access, and homelessness. We wanted to raise awareness about the fierce urgency of these needs.
Another thing that we called to attention, in particular, was police violence against unarmed citizens. In Lansing, in April of 2020, there was a gentleman named Anthony Hulon that was suffocated the similarity to the way George Floyd was jusI one month later. There is a video of officers kneeling on him and suffocating him to death. He died right there in the city jail. However, neither our community nor his family knew what had happened until October. But the mayor of our city knew this happened in April and then the following month marched with the Lansing NAACP around the George Floyd in May.
But this isn't unique to just Michigan. That's the unfortunate thing. These are the injustices that people deal with in this country every day. And these injustices often don't see the light of day.
How can people get involved?
You can go to the website, poorpeoplescampaign.org, to sign up for updates.
There is also a Michigan specific website with a list of local demands. You can get involved in different projects that we have set up like phone banking, or letter writing for specific legislation that we are pushing through city council and state congress. We have many ways to get people involved anywhere they are.