“You let people know that you don’t got to go through it alone”

The fight is just getting started

Welcome to a Tuesday edition of Progress Report.

Thank you to the folks who commented or reached out about my piece about being a block away from getting caught up in the tragedy in Liverpool last night. As for the people who yelled at me and canceled their subscriptions because I had the audacity to use an event tangentially about sports to make a larger political point, I hope you’re more generous and patient with your children. Also, politics is downstream from culture, so we have to engage with it.

As I mentioned, today I’ve got an interview with the sort of person I think should run for elected office, about a brazen attack on democracy and workers rights.

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“You let people know that you don’t got to go through it alone”

Earlier this month, the Missouri legislature voted to repeal the right to paid sick leave and annual minimum wage increases, which had been approved via ballot initiative by voters in November. It was an affront to both decency and democracy, as well as a slap in the face to the countless workers and activists who’d fought to get the initiative passed in November.

From everything I’ve seen, there as no better expression of the dismay, anger, and exasperation than the speech given in front of the Missouri capitol building by a Wendy’s worker named Fran Marion. She seamlessly fused the personal and political, drawing a link between the policies protected by Republican lawmakers and the turmoil and damage they cause to working people. A few years back, Marion missed work at her fast food job because she had the flu, and because she didn’t have any paid time off, she wound up short on her rent and was evicted from her apartment.

Now a leader at the Missouri Workers Center, I got Marion on the phone last week to talk about the GOP’s repeal of the ballot initiative, and she did not hold back.

“We’re [already] in a form of economic slavery, and now you've added political slavery to it,” she said.

It’s activists like Fran who are the beating heart of whatever movement that exists to rein in corporate power and improve the lives of working and even middle class Americans. We spoke more about the repeal, organizing the low-wage workplace in a very solidly red state,

Before we get to the news, I like to ask people how they got involved in their movement.

Fran Marion: I was working at Popeyes and a lot of my coworkers were involved. We’d have morning debates, like that was our debate topic, them trying to get me to join. I was so pessimistic. The thing that got me to join was that Fight for 15 came and did a strike on my store and I happened to be at work that day. I'd never seen anything anything like that.

Listening to my co-workers speak on things that we needed; I agreed with them on everything they said. We needed paid sick days, we needed free meals, we needed healthcare, we needed a raise.

Now, my district manager was there and he thought everything that was being said was funny. And I was like, well, I'm wanna laugh too, but I didn't find anything that funny. I had to put myself in his shoes, and of course it's funny to someone that doesn't have those worries. So I decided that I walked out of my job and I joined the movement and I've been with the movement ever since.

Were you nervous to take such a big step? It takes a lot to quit a job, even if you go get another one, and you were entering a new world.

I was nervous. But as far as my soul, I felt this is where I needed to be.

So once you jumped in, what did that look like?

It’s amazing. I got to learn how to talk, how to talk to my coworkers and help organize them. Now I'm standing up for something that I truly believe in, and the struggles that I go through on a daily basis, I was not alone.

This is a country filled with isolated people, so we don’t realize how many of our neighbors, co-workers, and members of our community are dealing with the same shit.

I really didn’t. You think “These are all my problems. I can't believe that I'm going through this. Why me? Why me?” And then you realize it's not just me.

Has it been easier or harder to get people to come aboard over time?

It's a little bit of both. As far as getting talking to my coworkers, it's just a matter of really letting them see the real picture. Letting them that they’re not alone. We’re all human. A majority of us are parents struggling day by day, living paycheck to paycheck. You let people know that you don’t got to go through it alone.

You guys have had a lot of victories over the last number of years — what have you worked on since you joined about a decade ago?

I've traveled and helped other states organize. I've worked on helping to deliver petitions, helped Prop A get passed. We're in the process of planning to get the clean slate bill passed. I worked on this for a decade, to get $15 as our minimum wage.

You’ve had some big victories in Missouri, even as it’s become a red state. As your success has grown, do more people start believing that change is actually possible? Is lack of that belief a big challenge?

I think our biggest challenge is people that feel that if I’m not going through it, it doesn't exist. Another big challenge is that people that feel that if I come join you, my boss is going to retaliate against me. When in fact, the fight that we're fighting is not just for us, it's for your boss too. I mean, we work for these million dollar corporations. The only difference between me and my boss is our title.

Have bosses been difficult about it?

Some bosses I’ve had in the past have been difficult in their own ways and their own rights. And that merely comes from lack of understanding or lack of wanting to understand. It’s really lack of education, lack of wanting to know, or they're basically being a puppet for corporate.

It must have felt incredible to win that campaign, to win the time off and wage increase, and I’ve seen your speeches, but I can’t imagine the anger you’re feeling now that they’ve taken it away.

Anger is an understatement as far as like I'm angry. The Missouri model is let the will of the people be the supreme law. The people voted for $15 minimum wage and paid sick days, but the legislature decided to follow what corporate wants. These companies that we work for and help generate the money for, [the politicians] chose what they wanted instead of making it about the people and what we need. How many people want to go into a business and see their employees sick or coughing when they want to get served?

I think the thing that ticks me off most is that they say they don't want to give sick leave to us. You're not giving us anything. As [the initiative] states, for every 30 hours worked, you get one hour off. We're not asking you to give us anything. We still gotta earn it.

It’s not a gift, it’s a single hour off for almost a full week of back-breaking work.

It just goes back to that saying, it's corporate greed and profit over people. But your people spoke.

I guess these legislators felt like they didn't have to be afraid of the people. Did you have the chance to speak with any of them about this ahead of the vote?

The ones that stood with us. I didn't get to speak to the ones that negated [the initiative], I haven't had the privilege as of quite yet. But I did have the privilege of speaking out in front of the state capitol, so hopefully they were listening.

So what do you guys do next?

We keep fighting, we keep organizing and the legislators that chose to negate the people's will, they need to not get too comfortable in their seats because the people are going to vote them out.

Does such a frustrating setback like this make people feel like it doesn’t matter what we do, or does it make people feel more motivated?

We're more motivated. Us as a movement, we're more motivated because we're not going anywhere. We're just going to multiply in our numbers and at the polls and remove those guys and put in people who will stand with us and believe in people over profits. Because without your people, your business can't run.

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