Labor’s Convoluted Future

Labor’s Convoluted Future

The Nation‘s Max Fraser and Michael Whitney of Firedoglake join Laura Flanders to deconstruct the ways in which labor’s long-term alliance with the Democratic party is in trouble.

Facebook
Twitter
Email
Flipboard
Pocket

None of the workers cleaning up the Gulf Coast are even under a union contract, and despite the SEIU’s enormous growth under Andy Stern’s leadership, current president Mary Kay Henry says that the union is still fighting for paid sick days. After the labor movement poured millions into a battle they ultimately lost in Arkansas trying to remove Blanche Lincoln—one of the senators who helped kill the Employee Free Choice Act—is labor’s long-term alliance with the Democratic party in trouble?

Max Fraser, author of the recent Nation article "The SEIU Andy Stern Leaves Behind," and Michael Whitney of Firedoglake join Laura Flanders to deconstruct these present and potential future dilemmas of the labor movement.

We cannot back down

We now confront a second Trump presidency.

There’s not a moment to lose. We must harness our fears, our grief, and yes, our anger, to resist the dangerous policies Donald Trump will unleash on our country. We rededicate ourselves to our role as journalists and writers of principle and conscience.

Today, we also steel ourselves for the fight ahead. It will demand a fearless spirit, an informed mind, wise analysis, and humane resistance. We face the enactment of Project 2025, a far-right supreme court, political authoritarianism, increasing inequality and record homelessness, a looming climate crisis, and conflicts abroad. The Nation will expose and propose, nurture investigative reporting, and stand together as a community to keep hope and possibility alive. The Nation’s work will continue—as it has in good and not-so-good times—to develop alternative ideas and visions, to deepen our mission of truth-telling and deep reporting, and to further solidarity in a nation divided.

Armed with a remarkable 160 years of bold, independent journalism, our mandate today remains the same as when abolitionists first founded The Nation—to uphold the principles of democracy and freedom, serve as a beacon through the darkest days of resistance, and to envision and struggle for a brighter future.

The day is dark, the forces arrayed are tenacious, but as the late Nation editorial board member Toni Morrison wrote “No! This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”

I urge you to stand with The Nation and donate today.

Onwards,

Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, The Nation

Ad Policy
x