It's time to join them in the streets

The last several years have been rough on working people, but the folks who make the products, fix the machines, fry the chicken, and keep the place clean can never really be counted out. Grassroots movements to restore opportunity for working Americans are emerging across the nation like green shoots bursting through an Iowa corn field.

Here in Iowa, Vanessa Marcano helped organize low wage workers to win back nearly $200,000 in stolen wages.  The practice, called wage theft, comes in many forms, but most often it means a smaller paycheck for working Iowans.

Citizens for Community Improvement (CCI) trained Vanessa and hundreds of workers to assert their rights in the workplace.  Now, they’re working to pass legislation in the state that would stop wage theft, increase worker protections and raise the minimum wage. The Congressional Progressive Caucus, which I co-chair, is on the same page. We passed amendments earlier this year in Congress to stop federal contractors who steal from their employees from receiving federal contracts.

In my home state of Minnesota, Enrique Barcenas struggles every day to feed his family on $8 an hour. He, like hundreds of Minnesotans, leaves home to work late night shifts cleaning retail stores for contracted janitorial companies. Enrique and his fellow workers can barely afford the basic necessities on the shelves around them.

Enrique and his fellow workers said enough is enough.  They banded together to convince Target Corporation to enact a new contractor policy.  Enrique worked with his colleagues at CTUL (Centro De Trabajdores Unidos en Lucha) to help Target establish its new “Responsible Contractor Policy” which says that if you're a vendor who wants to do business with Target, you must pay your workers fairly and allow them a voice on the job. As the late Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone always said, “We all do better when we all do better.”

But Minnesota and Iowa aren’t the only organizing success stories.

Reverend William Barber III, president of the NAACP in North Carolina, started the Moral Mondays movement after the state legislature refused to expand health care for the poor, slashed unemployment insurance, and made it harder to vote in elections. New York City’s Naquasia LeGrand, a fast food worker with two KFC jobs, is organizing her fellow workers to demand $15 an hour and a voice on the job.  Naquasia and Ai Jen Poo of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, Saru Jayaraman of the Restaurant Opportunities Center, Sister Simone Campbell and Rudy Lopez of Fast 4 Familes are all working to answer the economic challenge of historic inequality by organizing grassroots campaigns for change.

Elections, candidates, and political parties don't motivate these workers. They want to know who shares their values of dignity and fair play for working people. They are driven by the moral imperative to elevate the dignity of their work—the same moral imperative that inspired leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Iowa’s Edna Griffin.

Diversity is at the core of all of these movements. William Barber is a Black Baptist preacher. Sister Simone is a white Catholic Nun. Saru Jayaraman is the daughter of two immigrants from India. Ai Jen Poo's parents immigrated from Taiwan. Rudy Lopez is from Chicago, but his parents are from Mexico. Eliseo Medina, a colleague of Cesar Chavez, who fasted for 22 days on the National Mall with Fast 4 Families is sneaking up on 70.  Naquasia is 22.

Like green shoots bursting through an Iowa corn field, working people are reclaiming opportunity and the American Dream.  Working Americans from different parts of the country, including Iowa, and from different walks of life are marching in the direction of more economic opportunity for all.

It’s time to join them in the streets.

Congressman Keith Ellison is a leading people power voice and represents Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives.  His district includes the city of Minneapolis and surrounding suburbs.  Ellison also co-chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus....and he's our July 12 Statewide Convention keynote!