Friends -
Earlier this month, Amazon workers in Staten Island, New York, made history by organizing the first union at an Amazon facility. This weekend I will be traveling to New York to meet with those workers. I look forward to congratulating them on their extraordinary victory and seeing how we can work with them to expand upon their efforts.
Later in the day, I will be traveling to Richmond, Virginia to join a rally with Starbucks workers at a time when multiple Starbucks stores across the country are voting to unionize. Not only are Starbucks shops voting to unionize, they are voting pro-union in overwhelming numbers.
So, what's going on?
At a time of extreme and growing income and wealth inequality, the working class of this country is telling billionaires and large corporations that they cannot have it all. They are making it clear that we cannot continue to tolerate a system where the very rich get much richer while working families struggle to put food on the table and afford basic necessities.
All across this country, working people are courageously taking on corporate greed and coming together in solidarity to fight for decent wages, benefits, and working conditions. Workers are organizing and standing up for economic justice on the job in a way that we have not seen for years. This is what a grassroots political revolution is all about.
The Amazon workers in Staten Island are part of an independent union with very little financial resources. And yet they were successful in taking on one of the largest corporations in this country owned by Jeff Bezos, one of the wealthiest people in America, who spent millions trying to defeat them. Likewise, Starbucks workers are taking on the resources of the billionaire who owns that company, Howard Schultz.
I am proud to stand with Amazon workers and Starbucks workers this Sunday in New York and Virginia. But, as you know, there are many more worker struggles now taking place all across the country. Whether it is in manufacturing, the service industry, hospitals, or universities, working people are standing up and fighting back. And we must support them. In my view, there is no way we can transform this country in a progressive direction without a strong and militant trade union movement.
So today I would like to ask you to do something important to show you stand in solidarity with workers organizing for better wages and working conditions.
You have likely heard me say before that real change never happens from the top on down, but from the bottom on up. In fact, no real change in American history, not the labor movement, the civil rights movement, the women's movement, the gay rights movement, the environmental movement, or any other significant movement has ever had success without grassroots activism — without people standing up, taking on powerful special interests and fighting for justice.
Right now our movement has an important role to play in elevating worker struggles nationwide, which is why I am asking you one more time:
We cannot have a moral society or a strong economy when so few have so much, and so many have so little. That is the struggle that workers are engaging in all across this country.
Thank you for adding a contribution, if you can afford it, to help our movement keep up these important organizing efforts.
In solidarity,
Bernie
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