About this Episode
As Democrats struggle to connect to the working class, working people are connecting to each other, winning better wages and working conditions. In 2012, the Fight for $15 and a Union launched, catalyzing a mass movement of low wage working people that helped raise wages across the country and plant the seed for today’s resurgence of the power of working people in union.
From writers to delivery drivers, warehouse stockers to automakers, Americans are standing up for themselves and reframing the most vital of economic issues: work. Refusing to credit status quo approaches that say that we must confine ourselves to what the majority of the public currently favors, working people are showing us how to make the public favor what we truly need.
Hear how the Fight for $15 and a Union got folks across the country to walk out despite the precarity of their jobs and clapped back at the standard divide and distract tactics of the opposition. And learn how doing an end-run around corporate controlled media by spotlighting working people’s real lives paves the way for wins and offers a vital lesson for Democrats looking to woo working class voters.
Visit the Missouri Workers Center website
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Read the Transcript
Meet Our Interviewees
Faiz Shakir
Faiz Shakir is the Founder and Executive Director of More Perfect Union, a progressive nonprofit advocacy journalism organization. Former Campaign Manager for Bernie 2020, Shakir continues to serve as Chief Political Advisor to Senator Bernie Sanders. He is also interim executive director of the American Economic Liberties Project, which advocates against corporate monopolies.
Terrence Wise
Terrence Wise is a 43-year-old father of three. He is a fast food and gig worker and is also a board member of the Missouri Workers Center. Terrence began organizing with other workers in Stand Up KC as part of the Fight for $15 and a union movement over a decade ago. He has emerged as a national voice for the movement, having testified before the U.S. Senate Budget Committee and House of Representatives Education and Workforce Committee. Terrence has helped lead his co-workers out on strike, engaged in civil disobedience, and spoken before diverse audiences, including the national NAACP convention and the White House Summit on Worker Voice in October 2015, where he introduced President Obama. He helped make the Fight for $15 an international movement through his leadership on delegations in Ireland, England, Brazil, and the European Union, where he met with other low-wage workers and offered testimony before governmental agencies abroad, including the Brazilian Senate, about low wages and job conditions.
Credit: Missouri Workers Center 
Credit: Fight for $15 
Credit: SEIU 
Credit: Missouri Workers Center 
Credit: AFL-CIO 
Credit: Fight for $15
