Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book Discussion On The Fight For Fifteen 20160910

In brooklyn, new york. Plus, a look at the lessons u. S. President s learn during their first year in office, how new york city was helpful and hurtful to the union during the civil war and the positive and negative aspects of studying abroad. Now, thats just a few of the programs youll see this weekend on booktv. For a complete television schedule, go to booktv. Org. Booktv, 48 hours of nonfiction books and authors, television for serious readers. Next, a look at the fight for 15 Wage Movement with Service Employees International Union Vice President david rolf. Hello, everybody, welcome. I am so, so happy to see you. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. Thank you, good evening. I know. Hopefully, everyone has enjoyed some wine and some food x this is a lovely, lovely room this evening. So its not every day that we get these kinds of moments to pause, to ten back and reflect to step back and reflect on our gains and actually celebrate, because we need to and we should celebrate the amazing victories for working people that have been snow pooling across the country snowballing across the country as part of fight for 15. Just to think only several years ago, 9 . 25 was considered 9. 25 was considered ambitious and only possible in places like San Francisco. Thank god for San Francisco. [laughter] but now 15, thanks to seattle, and then california and new york and localities across the country. But also we need these moments to place these victories in campaigns as part of a broader vision, an agenda for an economy that works for all, for a renewed social contract for the 21st century, if you will. So thank you, david, for this amazing piece of work that is this book and all that you have led and are continuing to lead in the world that has been captured in this book. And for creating this moment for us and similar moments for groups across the country to come together, to reflect and to animate us forward. I also want to thank mark and nick can key and nicki and diane and all the colleagues at new press. A few years ago we began talking about how great it would be to have a series of books about the future of work and a just economy. Uplifting the powerful stories, the voices in the agendas of leading activists and changemakers that can serve as tools for change. The first of the series we also launched here a few years ago was by [inaudible] from cross generations and National Domestic worksers Alliance Workers alliance, and fords been really proud to partner with you at new press x its super exciting to see this second book in the series come into the world. And i know, david, it will indeed already has been a powerful tool as the Movement Continues to evolve and grow. So because actually i feel like im many a room of friends here and i think most of you are, indeed, friends i didnt introduce myself. [laughter] my name is lani romero alston, and im a Program Officer in in the quality Economic Security work area. I think ford and xav will be up here talking later. Were just really incredibly proud to partner with you and to partner with several of the groups who also cosponsored this event, the National Domestic workers alliance, the National Employment law process, sciu and the Roosevelt Institute here. And ill have to say, david, reading the book it was like, it was like a moment in time. I feel like for something ford has felt very connected to, very committed to supporting the stories and the voices in the campaigns that have been hardfought and incredibly won across the country, and were really thrilled to continue to partner with you all as we move forward to make this agenda of 15 but beyond of an inclusive economy a reality. So i hope you did grab a drink and bring it in. Youre more than welcome to go back out and bring it in. The idea is this is really a celebration, a moment to the pause and reflect and actually a discussion to be had here but to be taken out into the hallways, into our work and world beyond. So without further ado, i would love to introduce felicia wong, my cosponsor here at roosevelt, to get us into the program. [applause] good evening, everybody. And thanks, laine. Thanks to everybody at ford for bringing us together to celebrate the publication of the fight for 15. You know, we all know but sometimes i dont think we say it enough, but we all know that the kinds of both political alliances and personal friendships that we build through the kinds of gatherings that you host at ford are really vital, and theyre a lot of what makes our work work. So thanks to all of you here at the Ford Foundation. And a special shout out to everyone behind the scenes, especially corey waterson bryan. I dont think corey is here, but for those of you who know, corey does everything to make both books and book launches happen. So a special shout out to corey, davids colleague. Tonight i have the very, very easy task of introducing david rolf, the president of sciu 775 which, as all of you know, organizes 400,000 workers, mostly longterm care providers in seattle. So id like to talk about three elements of who david is. First, david as a visionary labor leader, secondly, david as a writer and a truth teller and, thirdly, david as a friend. So the visionary labor leader part you all know about, you know . David you read the book, he helped to craft the strategy that started at ctac, seattles 10squaremile airport city of 26,000 people. So that strategy moved to seattle and now to scores of campaigns across the country. And the fact that raising the wage to 15 is now part of the everyday National Conversation at dinner tables across america and in the 2016 president ial and the fact that my mom and dad ask me about it when i go home for the holidays, that can all be traced to the guy were here to celebrate tonight. But this isnt the only thing that david has helped to start. You know, our move to thinking about making worker benefits portable paid leave and sick time and unemployment the idea that those could follow you when you, a worker in the 21st century economy, move from gig to gig, a lot of that which you now hear at dinner tables across america and president obamas speeches, you know, that was also partly davids idea. Or a startup Funding Organization called the workers lab which many of you are involved in. Thats davids brain child too. And each of these shows davids commitment to finding few Solutions New solutions to the very old problem of building real power at scale for workers. And davids able to do this, as i said, because he is a thinker, and hes a truth teller. David is rare among labor leaders in that hes been willing to say our movement is shrinking, and by many measures it is dying. We have threats from the outside, technological change is real, and we have threats from within old, calcified thinking. And, therefore, we really have to think differently, think about allies, different business modelswe are to actually see the kinds of lives for working americans that we all hope for. And, in fact, if we want to see working americans period. Now, david doesnt just talk about this, obviously. Youre all holding in your hands proof of the fact that he writes things down which allows him to make connections between the history of the Labor Movement. Anyone can ask him about the origins of tafthartley over cocktails. He connects the history of the labor be movement to where we stand today and to where were headed tomorrow. And finally, david is a friend. I was thinking about this this morning, and i think hes kind of a persuasive rabblerouser or maybe an inventive troublemaker, and i always really look forward to getting a call from david because the conversation always starts with something like, hey, felicia, ive got this idea. I really think we should and i never know how that sentence is going to end. [laughter] theres probably some work for me at the end of that sentence, but you all know that david brings all of us ideas that are good for all of us, and he brings all of us together to make those ideas a reality. So without further ado, david rolf. [applause] thank you, felicia. You can see now i have to recover from this blushing attack. [laughter] i dont normally get the normally i hear less polite things said about me across the bargaining table or in city hall, the state capitol. But sometimes even a union hall. So its a little bit of an odd experience for someone who basically listens and talks for a living to have to read rather than sort of stand up here at a mic and extemporize. But since im now an author, im told that what must happen is i have to read passages from the book. So the heart of the evening is really going to be the Panel Discussion in a few minutes, but to get us started i have selected two passages, one from near the beginning and one from near the end of my book, the fight for 15 the right wage for working america. Starting from near the beginning of the book, ill just ask people since were in a president ial Election Year to really get into our mental time machines and go backwards to a moment that occurred in my childhood, but ill read from here on out. Imagine an alternative history of the 1976 president ial election. Americas celebrating its bicentennial with fireworks, and two men a republican from michigan and a democrat from georgia are campaigning to be president. One if one of what if one of them had given a speech that predicted the future . My fellow americans, one could imagine him saying, this difficult decade will soon come to an end. The National Hangover from vietnam and watergate will slowly fade. There will be no more lines for gasoline, no more stagflation. In fact, the berlin wall will crumble in our lifetimes, the cold war will end, the Nuclear Threat will recede, and there will be no more Foreign Military threats to our soil. The last of the formal legal barriers to full economic participation by women and people of color will fall. China, korea, brazil, india and south africa will join the Global Economic community and lift hundreds of millions of people out of lifethreatening poverty. Americans will invent or reinvent industries that will create more wealth in the next 30 years than has been created in the entire history of humankind. Technology will dramatically improve the lives of all americans and most people around the globe. And america will continue to be the worlds wealthiest nation with its most productive workers. Now, that would have been a truly incredible, truly astounding set of predictions all of which, as it turns out, would have come true. But imagine if the speech continued. My fellow americans, of all the new wealth our country produces, 95 will go to the top 1 of income earners. A few hundred wealthy families will amass more wealth than the bottom 50 of us combined. The bottom 8090 wont see a dime of increased pay, and the bottom 50 will have to take a pay cut. Were going to export manufacturing, import third world wages, divest from our infrastructure, detax, deregulate, globalize, privatize, were going to break the unions, shred the funding for rural and public education, make debtfree college a thing of the past. Were going to turn our backs on the middle class. The net Economic Impact of women doubling their Work Force Participation between 1977 and 2012 will be zero dollars in takehome pay for the bottom 90 of incomeearning families, and the family that can reasonably afford a comfortable middle class life on a single persons paycheck today will need two or even three incomes to live the same life a generation from now. Obviously, giving such a speech would have doomed anyones president ial candidacy. [laughter] his party probably would have been out of power for years. No one in america would have voted for such a vision. And yet just like the optimistic first part, the second part of our fictional president ial speech would also turn out to be true k and it became true not because of some historical accident, but because our Economic System was intentionally rigged in favor of large corporations and wealthy americans over everyone else. Trickle down economics was woven into the National Consciousness as if it were written into the founding documents of our country. Two hundred years of struggle and progress be had been intentionally reverse ared over the course of the last 40 years. If a foreign power had announced that was its plan for america, we would have gone to war. So that is how the book, in large measure, opens. And heres how the book closes. And ill just note that in the following passage, you know, at some point i actually had to send the final, final, final manuscript with the final, final, final edits to the folks at the new press, and that day was actually, i think, the 27th of january. So you will notice in this passage just how fast events have occurred since then, because already some of what im about to read is, in fact, sounding a little out of date. Its becoming ever clearer that americans are ready for a change. A january 2015 poll showed that 63 of americans support a 15 minimum wage. The april 15th, 2015, strikes for [inaudible] that sciu helped organize were joined not just by fast food workers, by childcare aides and retail workers. These strikes took place in an astounding 236 u. S. Cities. Workers in 40 other countries joined solitarity actions. Chicago raised its minimum wage to 13. Los angeles joined seattle and San Francisco in raising the minimum wage to 15. Emeryville, california, raised its minimum wage to 16. The mayors of boston, new york, st. Louis and kansas city all proposed minimum wage increases to 15. Activists in washington, d. C. Are organizing this is what i wrote in january to put a 15 wage on the june 2016 municipal ballot. In congress from 2010 through 2014, proposals for a 10. 10 wage were considered extreme. 9 was the more centrist number while conservatives wanted no change. But in the spring, a group of senators blew past years of tepid capitol Hill Politics on wages. In the summer of 2015, another group of senators and representatives finally introduce a bill to go to 15. In 2014, thousands of Service Workers at Johns Hopkins hospital won a contract that included a 5 minimum 15 minimum wage. In the spring of 2015, Union Hospital workers in minnesota did the same, home care workers in massachusetts in june 2015 that will raise starting wages to 15 by 2018. And won Retirement Benefits for the first time. In new york, mayor bill de blasio proposed a 15 minimum wage in 2014 which would require a state and city law change. Governor cuomo initially dismissed the figure as unrealistic. In early 2015 when the state Assembly Cuomo scoffed, god bless them, shoot for the stars. He then put forward his own plan to slowly raise the minimum wage to 11. 50 in new york city and 10. 50 elsewhere in the state. But the 15 movement moved cuomo as well and quickly. By the middle of 2015, he had appointed a board whether recommended raising wages to 15, and fast food workers were set to make 15 by 2018 in new york. Sensing the change in the political winds, cuomo then went even further. In september 2015 announcing a proposal to increase the state minimum wage to 15 for all workers. That will be the highest statewide rate in the nation, he said, and its about time. Nine months later. By november he put his money where his mouth was and unilaterally established a 15 minimum wage for all State Government workers. Thats a long way for a politician to travel in less than a year. The New York Times editorial page editors blog ran a headline in june 2015 that summed up what seemed to be on the nations mind. Starting wage of 15, the new normal. And this all happened months before the 2016 president ial election got really underway in iowa and new hampshire. Every great moment for justice in American History has begun with a seemingly implausible demand. The abolition of slavery when the entire economy of south was built on slavery and the u. S. Constitution was written to insure its political survival. An end to child labor when one in five American Workers was under 16. Womens suffrage at a time when urban political machines, major religious faiths and powerful industries all feared losing power or income if women gained the right to vote. An eighthour day when full time manufacturing and employees worked an average of 100 hours a week, an end of jim crow laws and the passage of civil rights and Voting Rights laws, eventually obamacare to dramatically expand Health Care Coverage and now Marriage Equality for lgbt americans. Impossible . The fight for 15 has been called impossible, even, quoteunquote, near insane. Quoteunquote, killing flies with a shotgun, an economic death wish. Yet the movements to establish a fair workweek, end child labor, expand civil and human rights all produced powerful policy victories and created a more just society within a generation. As weve seen the fight for 15 movement, while only a few years old, has already won major victories for workers. The challenges of poverty, income inequality and slow Economic Growth are only becoming more acute. Main street needs higher wages, and although wall street fights it, it has proven itself a poor steward of the american economy. This issue is not going to fix itself. Thats the job of government and those who own it. In other words, us. Now is the time for the people and our representatives, president ial candidates and members of congress, statehouses and City Councils to seize the easy opportunities presented to them. A chance to be part of an historically Significant National movement to do something both hugely popular and hugely valuable for American Workers. One hundred years from now few People Living in america now will be remembered by name. What people will remember is whether or not our generation had the courage to stand up for the American Dream when it was at its greatest moment of risk and whether we left a vibrant middle class to the generations that came after us. Let us hope we give them reason to remember us with appreciation. Thank you. [applause] all right. Thank you, david. Something that david always does, i think, for many of us in this room, weve gotten that call from felicia whether its been the literal call or whether it has actually been this call that you just left us with. Many would say we won, we won the campaign, we even got more than what they thought we could, but were not done, right . So this is the idea that we wanted, as you all sip your wine, to have this conversation of, okay, lets look forward. And ford here, weve come out of several years of thinking big thoughts and talking with many of you of what are the moments of our time, how do we actually take on some of these biggest issues. We take on inequality. And so in our new agenda its called ford forward. And so were looking forward. And then when we wanted to have this forwardlooking conversation, we thought, well, who could help to have a lively conversation that really starts getting at how do we think about the way in which our institutions that exist need to be transformed, how do we think about what a Labor Movement for the 21st century looks like, what a social movement for the 21st century looks like, how do we think about the thoughts and ideas. And, yes, in the house of philanthropy, what is the role of philanthropy. So we all said Laura Flanders would be a wonderful person, and shes a best selling authors who interviews forwardthinking people on the key questions of our time. So i want to ask laura to come up. She halls always been has always been an amazing, amazing partner, and if you havent, please go and check out her web site asking some of the most provocative and interesting questions and discussions of our time of what is it going to take for us to move forward for this kind of an inclusive economy, agenda and the call that david has put out for us. So, laura, and are you going to call up indeed, i will. So we have an amazing panel. Thank you, laine, thank you, everyone. [applause] lively conversation, but youre all drinking wine. I see that the bar has been raised. Lets bring up our panelists. Were going to be speaking for a little while, well also take questions. We have the honor of having cspan in the house. Thank you, cspan, thank you all the media workers behind the scenes here. So when it gets to the q a session, i will ask you to wait for the microphone to come your way. But in the meantime, im going to ask our panelists to come up to the stage. I will go sit over there on the far right, although thats uncomfortable for me, but its far left from your point of view. [laughter] and bring up xav briggs, janice fine, david roll of, saket soni. [applause] let me briefly just briefly introduce so you know who is who. Xav is right here to my left, Vice President of the Ford Foundation, survivor of this twoyear process we will hear more about. Janice fine, associate professor of labor studies at rutgers university, one of the seminal what do we say, ofular . [laughter] writers on the question of Worker Centers and organizing at the edge of change, as she puts it. David rolf, who youve just heard from, the winner of the fight for 15. No. Hell tell us more. And saket soni, cofounder of the National Guest Worker Alliance in new orleans, among other things. Thank you all. Lets start with the question that you put at the very end, david. I mean, im sure youd quibble about whether the fight for 15 has been won, but that question that you put at the end which is to say what is the seemingly improbable, implausible demand of today . Im going to pose to you, what is it . Whats the next one . You know, were winning the fight for 15. We havent won, but we are winning. But the other twin demand that workers had when they walked off on strike for the first time here in new york in november of 2012 was 15 and a union. And, you know, i think im probably in the growing minority of labor leaders, activists and thinkers who would say that union is unlikely to look like my grandfathers autoworkers union, my great grandfathers Distillery Workers Union or my moms teachers union. But the question of what new forms of worker power are going to emerge for the 21st century that combine the power to make the worlds Biggest Companies say yes when they want to say no with the scale to touch tens of millions of workers, with a revenue model that allows for organizational sustenance and resilience even during bad economies or periods of political disfavor is really the needle that has to be threaded. You know, were winning the fight for 15, but and the union piece whatever that means in a 21st century context not which i dont mean a set of specific 1935era legal responsibilities, but the sense of collective power at scale in a Sustainable Way is really, i think, the problem for our time. Were going to solve the low wage problem. Were going to do that relatively directly as more and more states find that they are starving for job applicants when people are flooding to new york and seattle and california. Thats the lowhanging fruit. The harder, much harder problem to grapple with is what collective worker power looks like in a global and technologypowered 21st century economy. Well, were talking about what might a union look like, what might 21st century worker power look like, what does the 21st century working class look like . That phrase, white working class, i think, is quickly running out of date. Well, i think workers today, i think a lot has changed about how we work and whos working today. On how were working, the economy is really driving towards call it the fissured workplace or contingent work or new phrases like the gig economy. More and more workers are tending towards employment relationships where there isnt a direct responsibility of an employer to a worker. Another way of putting it is the person who writes your paycheck is often not in control of the economy and the labor market in which you toil. And so to davids point about the difference, the way workers aggregate will have to be different because the plant or the workplace is not a place to aggregate enough voice to get to collective power. So how were working is changing. The other thing thats changing is how were not working. Theres been a shift in the way were employed, but theres also a shift in the way unemployment works. More and more workers are structurally unemployed and facing significant long periods of unemployment. Many of my members are unemployed for 27 weeks or more. And that means that the social safety net doesnt catch you when youre in that wide a chasm. Right. And then the demographics have changed. The working class of the united states, according to epi, will be majority minority class ten year, ten full years before that change will come to the rest of the country, to the whole country. So thats, thats a significant change. Its a sea change, and its this change is happening at the same time that the u. S. Itself is in an extraordinary inflection point. The face of change is changing. And were not were being outpaced by technology and globalization. So is its not just the working class thats changed, but its placement in the global economy. Well, janice, let me bring you in on that. I come from a country formerly known as the United Kingdom [laughter] and watched the vote of last week with thank you for ending western civilization. Anytime. [laughter] for you, saket, anytime. It seemed to me theres much to be said about it, but i would like you to talk a little, because i know you were there as well, about what it means about the need to address culture along with class. Are we just, you know, for many people voting for exit not all, but for many sort of white power provided a refuge from wall street power. It was surely underpinned the movement for exit by economics, but it was the cultural piece, the heat around race and immigration that gave that movement its power. So what does that mean about how we organize, if you agree . The organization with the most presence, there were big signs saying you kept saying thank you to people who voted and i have to say the party for exit and there is a temptation to dismiss this as racism and to say this is in a phobia and it is important to resist and understand if we dont organize white workingclass people and someone else is going to do it. The parallels to trump, what is happening with trump were mind blowing and i thought back to my years as a Community Organizer when it was about trying to talk to people to figure out the issues we could create a movement around and have people realize their common interests but the electoral politics are now the opposite. I remember being taught we are going to rate people want to 4, they are against us, we never talk to them again and hope they dont come on election day, 3 that are leaning against us, we wont talk to them either we focus on those 2s who are leaning towards us and the numb ones and i feel dont mean to oversimplify but that is part of the problem, the way we are talking about the electoral map now, i live in new jersey where there are a lot of Trump Supporters and has someone with lots of Muslim Students and latino students and jewish, lots of reasons trump gives me horrible horrible shivers but one guy on a street has a trump button and i dont know what possessed me to do it but i said why . He looked at me and he said ever see a poor man give jobs away . This moment we are in where we got to go back to understanding the organizing work. That is happening in the labour party, this realization that the aflcio and the trade unions have never been more promigrant worker and is able to deliver and it is because they are not talking to their own people. It is one thing to take the position, thanks for the position but what are you going to do to make sure that working people are having conversations, having Difficult Conversations as people were really mad about feeling there were reasons they felt it wasnt just about racism and xenophobia and i dont mean to deny but there was also about feeling they were subject to these rules, they couldnt figure out, they lost in the labor market and we have to have things to say about that. Inclusive organizing, how in light of all this do you bring together the next generation of movements that will for sure place the demands of the labor market, collectivebargaining, childcare, wages but also expand to include some of the demands of the Racial Justice movement and agenda Justice Movement and Voting Rights, justice reform, is that still Labor Movement at that point . It is a really important question. There is a sense in which the poorest of the poor argument is about a livable wage and how to achieve it. One beautiful thing about a wage floor, remember the basics, it is a universal policy. Whoever is on the bottom of the economy mainly women, it is universal, it belongs to everyone regardless of color or background. There is another argument that is part of the answer, and that is because inequality hurts us all, not just the disadvantaged, reverse logic is true, raising the poor, rebuilding label standards, and the social contract around it is good for the economy as a whole. It benefits us all, doesnt just benefit the lowest paid workers. Politics of common interest helps us get past divide and conquer, wedge politics. We do know from our history here and in europe, economic anxiety is a beautiful fuel for race baiting, xena phobia, because it is a safe goat scapegoat. We got to have a come back. And understand this is their conversation too. What institutions do we need to do that . Institutions. Felicia said this in your intro, we are seeing all kinds of winds blowing in the Labor Movement, new ideas, new tactics, it includes things like reaching out broadly in communities, not just negotiating, over a variety of community benefits, caring about things like healthcare, infrastructure, public goods the things that are in broad public interest. We observed working with Many Movement organizations and partners, that is very important because it makes this inclusive agenda more broadbased, and Different Actors in that agenda more mutually the basics of finding ways to Work Together and not to sort of work in your lane. There are other things too that have to do with reforming institutions. David in his first comment talked about a room to organize and build the next generation of models of collective power and likewise the reform agenda needs to be a broad one, needs to go into how we agreed to pay for the infrastructure we need. That is institutional reform too. We are told the government cant do anything right, we shouldnt tax the infrastructure we need, we have been told to turn on each other rather than figure out these agendas. Back to you, are the stories on every page of the book yet . Are their stories to lift up from seattle that perhaps speak to some of this or speak to the possibility that some of this might be happening already in ways we need to know about . You come out of the campaign with people that you collect and accumulated on all parts of that movement, the woman, the first woman who walked off of her job at a taco bell in a neighborhood called ballard outside the city of seattle. Without knowing whether coworkers would follow her. The first store that shut down in a way that strikes may 29th and 30th, and is you can have all of the pr people and organizers in the world and one who walks off the job. First of all the workers who had courage to walk off the job are stories i would what anyone to tell first. If you want to jump the beginning. A number of workers not only in fast food but retail and a number with amazon and a number of places not all making them the minimum of 9 and . 32 but somewhere in the lowwage economy. It is important that workers from seattle and seatac are exciting. In the playbooks of a normal minimum wage campaign, maybe three, picked a big bold aspirational number picked by organizers in new york who were working on the initial fast food strike in november. I wont say who it was with, a group of labor leaders two weeks before that and was asked should the minimum wage be 9 or 10. 10 . He said that would hurt Small Businesses and harm the economy so we dont want to do that. An important person in the democratic party. Big moral aspirational goal, didnt see the job killer argument. We did not say it will do more good than harm. We said it would help everyone, even the rich. If you want customers you better care what workers in your community make, 70 is consumer demand driven. It is true to giving billionaires tax breaks does have job creation, impact produces for every dollar you spend on regulatory tax relief for billionaires, producing . 80 worth of jobs but you give one dollar to a lowwage worker and none of it is set to a swiss bank account, caribbean tax shelter on wall street. It all goes to goods and services, some are made in china but many have to be sold or delivered in person by someone working in the united states. We did not see the aspirational demand or job killer argument and we changed the value the fast food worker through the narrative into that persons value is a neighbor, family member, customer, human being, not the value of the product. The more workers were able to tell their own stories the more it became difficult to read out of the playbook, argument number 3, this will only help hurt the people it is intended to help and they have been using that since 1937 when we first enacted a federal minimum wage. I had a fourth one in there but i will stop there. Those are some of the things we learned. Probably 10 years before you first came on the show i was doing talking about new orleans. The people you were working with were seen as job killers in the community. You shifted that of how that happened. Talking about big, bold aspirational demand, it is awesome, the workers who are lowest, closest to the floor, lowest to the bottom, most vulnerable who when they form organizations build the political confidence to make bold aspirational demand and they are scapegoated as job stealers and job killers. When immigrants arrived in new orleans after Hurricane Katrina they were vilified. Much of the success of organizing after that depended on our understanding that there was a deep valid list to the year. We cant wipe away fear with facts and figures, you have to listen to people for people standing in a ravaged landscape wondering when their homes would be rebuilt, and they saw workers come to new orleans and wages fall from 14 an hour to 6 in hotels and on construction sites. There was a very valid fear. At the same time story about the fear, deep and awesome violent reactions, my organization was founded when guest workers trapped in labor camps across the coast where ferried out to new orleans and had a Founding Convention and decided to start a network that would give them a voice. It is often the case that these workers who were deeply scapegoated, had the most transformational demand, my members wanted to transform not just there conditions but did not want to displace workers that were coming in and working alongside. I do think there is something to what david is saying about how far the debate went, think about the fact that 15 was unimaginable and a year later 15 was the demand. That transformation is not possible unless workers in social motion believe in it and often workers were most vulnerable who were going to do that. A lot of workers in America Today are like guestworkers in a labor camp, they come to point they feel they have nothing left to live for and nothing to lose. That can be a very dangerous thing or it can be the crucible for a bold new imaginative direction all our movements can go in. There are bold new imaginative directions coming out of the situation in europe where the conversation around guaranteed minimum income, basic wage, you have always been pushing us to think not just about how to shift the system but the system shifts. Where are we with that project and how do we talk about a different kind of Economic System, not just different players and it. I want to talk about the players. What is funny about sitting here is this audience is kind of like if you had the allstar team of the 21st century worker and Community Organizer movement both of them would have numbers, most of them would be star players so it is a funny thing to be up here because i feel like people has they are building it. More to say at a time the Labor Movement, people were saying you couldnt organize, what is important to know and acknowledge is people in this room have built incredible organization. A call out some of them, it is important to acknowledge who is here. Much of the work that was done by the National Employment law project has been incubating and supporting in every possible way the burgeoning movement. Chinese Progressive Association has been working 40 years, painstakingly organizing the black Worker Center movement which emerged over the last few years. Incredible talent and accomplishment in the workers defense project, people at a time when everyone said you cant build organization, it is impossible to organize, people have proven that wrong and what has been striking to me when i talk to people, i live in princeton in witness protection with my husband david but a lot of times we have people who say to us things like do you support raising the minimum wage . That is great. What is this obsession with brilliance that i dont understand . The idea that you could have these policies without a powerful organization underneath. You are talking enforcement . In order to get workers in motion there has to be a union. Without the resources of have why you deciding that or knowing the end game, it would invest heavily in doing this, this wouldnt have happened. I dont want to move so quickly off of the need for institution building. We are getting to it. She the idea, the puzzle david put out at the beginning, the puzzle of how we institutionalize this moment and create these enduring institutions, the right has been clear, the most important base of power is the Labor Movement and there is an attempt to kick it out from underneath us. We need to understand sometimes they move against each other and have to recognize the fight for 15 has been listed by these institutions old hand new. Scei you was this forwardlooking organization and also the Community Organizers and others in this room who made those demands real. We have thinking to do about what it looks like to build membership institutions. We are at a moment it is fashionable to say we dont need those institutions. We are going to network, we dont need membershipbased, the bottom line is power, the power that you had to make it happen. The power of the institution and other institutions. This last point is so important, the fantasy we have, the tendency with the organizations. And the images we have been gripped by over the arab spring, mobilization at an extreme. A lot of it without organization underlying it. This is a part of why the political traditions have been so difficult and disappointing in a number of arab nations. We cannot ignore the importance of creating modern organizations, working for the way people live today. At some point i want to bring in we have riley on the show not long ago demonstrating it used to be the demonstrations would demonstrate power. Now they are just a demonstration and we all go home. I want to go back for a second, maybe i can think of a clever segway. What i was thinking about was fast food workers were able to create an image of themselves, create a vision, a cultural presence. If you go back to talking about your grandfather who came out of appalachia and endeded up in the Auto Industry we have an image of all that. The fast food workers have to create a different story and i have been thinking a lot about bgt pride month about the one killed in orlando who we heard about, latin, queer, immigrant but also workers, a but restart, telesales marketer, bouncer in her late 30s. People in sales, a dancer, choreographer, none of them are traditional states of work. We tend to tell their stories without that being one of the descriptors so i guess i use some of it and everybody wants to weigh in. Who are our allies, not just big burly guys in the same business we were in hauling heavy things that sometimes it is business. Stereotypes i know. Sometimes it is business, the entrepreneur, a sharing type of situation but sometimes not. We want to be pragmatic about interests, we want to be bold, we want to help rewrite analysis together about the economy and the approach and how raising the floor is in everyones interests, not just the interests of the lowest paid workers. And that big tend i let my colleagues shed more light on this, business has a place. I want to speak to that for a moment because business has been in the conversation by default. Business is not a monolith. There are appointed spokespeople in the beltway in washington who adopt certain hardlines. We see organizations like Small Business majority we have been proud to support, speaking out on behalf of of entrepreneurs, mom and pop Growth Companies who say keeping wages at a Poverty Level dont modernize the safety net. Those people dont speak for us. They will organize a wider swath by american business. Point number 2, davids book beyond living wage and ways in which labor standards help the economy as a whole, it is a window on things like the purpose of the corporation. That is not what you wrote the book about. It raises really important questions about companies obligations to workers and communities, the environment. The expression is used in finance and corporate law. David puts it in a more pointeded and plainspoken way using the phrase shareholder value above all. The danger of that ideology, that orthodoxy, religion of shareholder value. Deeply problematic and here is the point. It is not in the longer an interest of business, not the way capitalism survives and thrives and innovates. There are more and more people, leaders in the Business World who understand and are trying to affect change. Including the others. You want to come and on this . Is business your friend . Sometimes, sometimes not. I think we cant be ignorant of the interests involved but there are different stories about the role business has played and i can enumerate a few. The class of just say no, reading from the same script that has been read from since massachusetts started shortening the workday in the 1880s and read Labor Regulation closed until now produces the same set of predictable and data resistant arguments from the organized business lobby. That was what we heard in seatac, kill jobs, heard the people youre going to help, drive businesses away, move to automation, the people who will really get hurt are less skilled workers, newer workers and workers of color. Completely predictable. This was said at lunch is catered with prime rib in a luxury hotel where the vote no committee had its meetings and hand wringing about how they would not be able to feed their staff chip meals anymore if wages went to 15 and someday that is the only meal they get. It was a caricature of a bad business lobby run amok. The greater Seattle Business Community learned a lesson. Just saying no in a world of binary outcomes is not the best strategy. We had a different engagement in seattle where i sat across the table from the head of the chamber of office, the owner of the hotel, and bargained for four months to produce an outcome that ultimately was a unanimous vote on city council for the 15 wage policy with the support of most of seattles businesses. Not unanimous support but where major actors in the seattle economy were either accepting some version or perhaps resigned in some cases and quite for it. A tiny minority was resistant and that was because they were invited into a process where it was clear where we were going but they were given an opportunity to impact the phase in through the nuances of the 15 policy and thought that was a better pragmatic decision than simply saying no which they would have gone down to a dramatic defeat. Even win a majority of Business Owners and the country believe in a higher minimum wage, all of their associations have to come out against it because they are catering to the squeaky wheels of those institutions, but the new look in Chapter Seven where id debunk the myth against higher minimum wages based on actual information and not fairytale rhymes or whatever. We look at a number of case studies and a number of them gone from the excellent scholarship that really looks at how you can be a high wage company in a lowwage marketplace, so not now how amazon has Software Developers paid equally to microsoft developers, best not a hard problem to solve. At that Harder Company problems to say have quick trip harris cosco the walmart in the marketplace on a high wage model or market how do you fight these lowwage industries that are subject to relet competition within the same market and thats what we talked about in that seventh chapter where exactly possible to build a successful business on a high wage model if you know what you are doing. Lets me go to questions from our audience. About 10 minutes of conversation you are with an organization, the restaurant workers who have experienced combined organized labor organizing. Thank you. This is great and thank you for the invite. I just want to know, you know, last i know fast food, restaurant included, but in most field, you know, people will go to 15, but how we can agree and dont forget the median wage is just a dollar an hour even with tips, so how we can Work Together to make this 11 Million People included. Lets take a couple more questions and then we will let the panelist respond. John from over here. We have one question great book. I to pick up, david, you mentioned 79 years ago a big Labor Movement spot. Three groups of workers were left out, the tipped workers, care givers, Domestic Workers and farmworkers and im curious how you feel and hear his socket talking about a new set of workers, guestworkers, how have they figured into these bytes . Have you been able to redress redress some of the races problems of 80 years ago and how do you see this moving forward . One last question. Third question. There, yes. Hello. Claim with the domestic fair trade association. The fight for 15 was popular around fast food workers specifically and im wondering what part did food play in that . Theres a large movement of people interested in the way that food is produced and was that part of the success of the fight for 15 and having them be part of the culture. Three question, one around the question of the tip wage when we see situations like the dc with a commitment to raising the wage, but the rays for typical workers is minimal and how do we address that. Number two, the question of excluded workers, what world did they play and also three, the last one in the fast food piece of this, what role did food policy to impress booties play it all that. David, janice, who wants to go . I will just say i think to pick up on what john was saying, the last social contract excluded large swaths of workers including southern workers, casual laborers, day laborers, Domestic Workers and that was the result of a political compromise with the dixiecrat largely and with the plantation economy. Those workers who were excluded now have moved from the margins to the majority and represent large segment of the american working class and as people of color go into industries that are growing like retail and service and care, its not just that those industries are lowwage industries is that those human beings who have been historically devalued are now marching into new industries where they are devalued and getting a bad deal, so i think we have to figure out ways to radically expand the social contract and we had to get to a new labor contract. Just two things on that. I think that the idea of exemptions is always one of the dangers sort of its always that the kiwis he looked the movement and the social movement so, how we can arrange politics to be inclusive is a real battle the best second thing is, i know its in davids book and david is close to it, but one of the things that david mentioned, one of the things david mentioned in the earlier presentation was the way that Governor Cuomo convened a wage board to elevate great wages. I think that is important, but the idea of workers being able to bargain for their interests, standards, wages across many workplaces, perhaps across industries, perhaps across an entire labor market is going to be a big step for innovation in the Labor Movement and thats one strategy to really get how to what was said. I dont think you can imagine a city where the scene allows it, with the state politics allow it to work you can imagine a citywide wage board that elevates lowwage worker standards across many many industries. And Labor Movement and business would have to be stakeholders in the and be at the table, but i think we need to advance and experiments where we work on just that so that the day laborer in the restaurant worker, the nail salon worker are not exempt from these arising standards. Janice, do you want to weigh in . I think socket is on the money and i think that john is right to raise a. I think it is so striking to me about the new Labor Movement as opposed to the old Labor Movement, if you study labor history that analysis always was that it was the more skilled workers and more middleclass and sort of the better off workers who led the Labor Movement and if there is anything to be said about this moment we are in is that its actually lowwage workers and workers of colors who are leading this new movement and its an incredibly lower in history. We are in a moment when people are no longer saying, but that started the value and we have to talk about many fracture manufacturer workers, no, we better talk about Service Sector and in terms of your question earlier about employers, a lot of what ive been doing lately is talking to companies about enforcement and one of the things that comes up is when i make the argument for strategic enforcement to work, worker organizations and Community Organizations have to begin at eight formal role in enforcing the law and we have to stop thinking about enforcement as of the government is over here, but something we do together, Civil Society and government together. Where the pushback they get from local agencies is, but what do i say to local business and in a word i say you say you all come. You say we recognize that the labor markets are always better off when employers are organized and thats an argument we can win. David showed juke and when it. A lot of the groups in this room have showed you can win. We want employers to come and we want them to come because we know when employers are organized and theres a community of employers the local labor market level in the sectors we have someone we can deal with and without that we just have chaos. There is a common interest and we know this obviously throughout south labor history, but its no less true today than it ever was. The question of who will lead the movement is amazing. They also used it to think it would be men. [laughter] to go back to the food issue, whether you are talking restaurant workers, food workers , women, also consumers and one of the great models of new organizing that i think is out there in this room is carried across generations model where there is a role for also so stakeholders, consumers, practitioners, even the Service People need in the service of care and we are talking about building a caring economy. You talked about how the fight for 15 movement was wage by people any of the more longterm caregivers and i think what unites everyone in this room is that longterm care around this issue and longterm carried about this issue, we need to have a better idea, i think, of how to connect, how to keep this conversation going and how to take this implausible demand to the next level. Does anyone want to weigh in on this food question . I would love to weigh in on food. Just a quick thought. To your point about karen across generations. Collies more and more are adopting a multi stakeholder approach and that needs to be called out so its organizing restaurant workers and we will continue to organizing Restaurant Owners and organizing consumers to understand what they consume and the implications of what they are paying whether its tipping or no and how people are treated both behind the kitchen door and in front etc. It extends this is maybe where the question comes from also, to who picked up crops, who processed the food, the whole chain i think that one of the things im hearing tonight and that im taking from this is we also need to be savvy about cultural power. Think about what to say there is high points of the Workers Movement and including the Second World War and the association between manufacturing jobs and the war effort. Manufacturing decent work, which put more women in the workforce, putting more people of color and then pushing them out. Very very mixed, but an association of worth with a National Effort and as a cultural power to food it is so relatable. That such a universal. Again, not be naive about the range of interest in for example industrial food riddled with comfort getting interest neither good for health or the treatment of workers took a long way to go, but theres a tremendous power in this and i appreciate the question. I cant help but say media power, just a thought. Absolutely. David, last comments from you and then we will go to closing thoughts. To respond to some of the questions, seattle is the kind of city where there are just exactly as as many farmers markets as mcdonalds. Is that you . That is true to go into the role of food itself was from the center in the seattle struggle. It was really very core about lowwage work. Starting with fast food, but expanding outward to gas stations and airport workers and sort of the whole we now live in a world where 15 is the fastest 20 growing job categories pay under 15 an hour and dont require education past high school and where 4320 of americans work American Workers work jobs under 15 an hour, so we are becoming a lowwage nation and that was the heart of the issue in seattle we sought to address. With respect to restaurant workers, washington stated away with its tip penalty legislation in 1988 and so on a single day in 1989, generally first, every restaurant worker in the stake out a 300 raise. Guess what, we still have restaurants there despite now what is it, nearly 30 years of the Restaurant Association putting out a december newsletter every year predicting how me thousands of jobs would be lost without inflation adjustment minimum wage the following year. Year after year since 1988 we have always grown restaurant jobs. Go figure. Even in a recession, by the way. So, its clear that the arguments for a tip penalty for workers, you know, they just all have any Economic Resilience once you test them because places without tip penalties like San Francisco and seattle have among the highest per number of restaurant jobs a number of restaurants in the united states, so its clear you dont need that stuff in order to maintain a healthy Restaurant Business climate. It wasnt only tips, farmworkers and Domestic Workers were excluded from the laws of the 30s, but also independent contractors, Public Sector workers and healthcare workers. For those groups continue to be excluded except for okays by state legislation. Eight states oh have a tip credits, one state has a collective bargaining for farmers etc. , but the public and healthcare workers went on strike in the 50s, 60s and 70s and when lost and not let them have unions they did it anyway and thats how the laws changed. Do it anyway. Thank you so much. Thank you all. [applause]. Should we stay or go . Remain . We are going to remain coming not to leave. Ray just gave me this powerful shes an organizer. This was a great panel. Thanks so much. David, thank you for writing this book. I have to say i cant remember exactly what felicia said about the bill, but i know it was really great and i actually did read the book and it reminded me a lot of marriage, the good, the bad, the ugly, for better or for worse, for richer or poorer and for those of us that come from the Workers Movement, till death do us part, so it was really a great read. Its very inspiring. I went to thank the Ford Foundation for your support of this amazing work took about 54 15 is the most important fight for Economic Justice in America Today. I know from our own experiences but the Foundation Supports network. I also want to give a shout out to a few other really significant victories that said the Ford Foundation and others in this room have been a part of in a ghost to the point that in addition to needing organizing and it needing new forms of Building Worker power we need the government and this is a shout out to the best Labor Department that we had had since 1938. [applause]. And they are not even here, so all of you know that we have an amazingly brandnew overtime rule and we are fighting to keep this congress from stealing wages that workers have finally one and then on the a few days well, i have to say because kirk is here that we had an amazing surprising decision out of the Supreme Court yesterday on texas is abortion restriction and that was fantastic. But, also yesterday we had the court decided not to grant review of the home care will, which is another fight that the Ford Foundation has supported and other organizations for 20, 30 years, finally home care workers in this country are guaranteed the right to a federal fair minimum wage and overtime pay, 2 million workers went to bed last night knowing that for the first time in this goes to your point, for the first time they have the same rights that most other American Workers take for granted. We would not have this if we didnt have good governments supporting the work that unions like us, ci un people and the groups in this room have been doing to take advantage of this moment, so im you know, im discouraged when i look around and i come from the Labor Movement and i think of whats happening with respect to the Labor Movement, but im also super excited about the things that we have been able to accomplish as a community over the last several years. I have to admit that we were among those that thought we wanted to work in the fight for 15 and we did that report on how me people are less than 15 and im happy to say that because of the 54151 and five American Workers live in a jurisdiction that have a 15 dollar minimum wage it over the course of two or three years thats pretty damned amazing. I just want to quote and i never thought he would do this, the great andrew cuomo, god bless them. Shoot with the stars and i should tell you after this, mingle, have another drink. The foundation is giving away copies of davids bro, but we want to encourage people to go online to go to powells bookstore and order copies for your family and friends. David will sign it for you. Thanks very much. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] youre watching the tv on cspan2, television for serious readers and heres a look at whats on our prime time schedule tonight. We will kick off about 6 45 p. M. Eastern with the john straw spot