CPD affiliate Rights & Democracy Institute (New Hampshire and Vermont) hosted the launch of the New Social Contract national tour with local and national movement leaders on September 15, 2019. National speakers at the event included Linda Sarsour and Jennifer Epps-Addison, CPD Network President and Co-Executive Director, both of whom will be speaking at New Social Contract tour events throughout the country. Learn more about the tour by visiting newsocialcontract.org.

At the event, RAD released a new national report, The New Social Contract for Workers, calling on elected leaders and candidates to embrace a slate of new public policies to promote workplace democracy and human rights for America’s workers. The New Social Contract for Workers calls for re-envisioning our system of labor protections to empower workers and address the extreme racial inequality that characterizes our jobs and workplaces.

In addition to the Rights & Democracy Institute and the Center for Popular Democracy, the coalition releasing the report included the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative, the National Employment Law Project Action Fund, the People’s Action Institute, Jobs With Justice, and Caring Across Generations.

“A New Social Contract is central to our long-term vision to create a future that puts us on a path to creating just, healthy, and thriving communities for everyone. How do we do that? By focusing on bold, community-led solutions that reshape our economy and public policies to put our people and our planet before everything else. Along with Medicare for All and a Green New Deal, a New Social Contract for Workers is the type of bold solution we need to start moving immediately at the local, state, and federal levels.”—James Haslam, Executive Director of the Rights & Democracy Institute

“The people most marginalized by racial capitalism and corporate exploitation should have the biggest role in dreaming up and enacting the structural changes needed to build an economy that works for all of us. When those targeted by injustice are stakeholders and decision makers in public policy, we come up with solutions that are bold. We address the root cause of inequality, instead of patching over its effects. The New Social Contract is unapologetic in its ambition to address the root causes of racial and economic inequality. Put simply, the New Social Contract is a model for the future of policymaking,”—Jennifer Epps-Addison, CPD Network President and Co-Executive Director.

Please join us in congratulating RAD and the successful launch of its New Social Contract tour and campaign!

One of the most grievous problems facing people in this country is inadequate healthcare and skyrocketing costs. In the United States today, 30 million people are uninsured while another 40 million are underinsured. CPD Network affiliates and allies have been on the frontlines of the fight for affordable healthcare – first to pass the Affordable Care Act and now to champion Medicare for All Act. Medicare for All, the only truly single-payer, universal healthcare system, guarantees that healthcare is a right and enables every person living in the United States to receive the healthcare they need to survive and thrive.

Ady Barkan, a Senior Organizer at CPD, has spent the last three years advocating for Medicare for All after he was diagnosed with ALS, a disease that slowly takes away nearly every physical function while keeping the mind intact. Since his diagnosis, Ady has become arguably the most influential activist in America. Many first heard about him after he confronted then Senator Jeff Flake on an airplane in December 2017. Barkan has now been arrested at the Capitol in Washington more than half a dozen times, showing by example how to fight injustice, and most recently spoke with a number of presidential nominees about supporting Medicare for All. Ady’s work has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, TIME, The Nation and many other major media outlets. 

Ady just released Eyes to the Wind: A Memoir of Love and Death, Hope and Resistance, where he shares how living with ALS reaffirmed his commitment to activism and looks back at his early days working in social justice. Ady also speaks about the highs and lows of starting a family while dealing with terminal illness. 

The moral clarity of Ady’s message—and the power of his example, a dying man standing up for millions of others—has had a lasting impact on this country. Even as his illness has progressed and he has become unable to speak, his voice has boomed loudly in the struggle to protect immigrants under siege, to try to stop Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court, and now to make sure that in our country, healthcare is a human right.

There is only one form of universal health care that covers everybody, without exception, and lowers overall health care expenditures. It is time for Medicare for All. Interested in joining the fight for Medicare for All? Share your healthcare story here and one of our organizers will reach out! 

CPD’s People’s Convention brought over 1,500 leaders and members of our affiliate network to Detroit for three days of action, planning, and joint mobilizing for the fight ahead. We invited members from Churches United for Fair Housing (CUFFH) and SPACEs to reflect on their experiences, gathering with the largest progressive organizing network in the country. 

CUFFH Member Jameal Starks Asks ‘What’s An Activist?’

What’s an activist? That was the question on my mind before I went to the Center for Popular Democracy’s 2019 People’s Convention. Is it someone with a master’s degree in Political Science?

I know now: it’s anyone willing to stand up to unfairness. This is just one of the many things I learned and experienced at the convention.

The whole Churches United for Fair Housing (CUFFH) team, CUFFH Youth, and members of our community took a bus to Detroit, Michigan for the People’s Convention. We heard from speakers such as Linda Sarsour and U.S. Representative Rashida Tlaib, took it to the streets with a march, and exchanged ideas through workshops with like-minded leaders from communities all around the country.

I found the People’s Convention to be very empowering and uplifting, especially if you’ve ever felt alone in your personal struggles. It was amazing to come to an event with people just like me who were experiencing victories over unfairness in their community. All of the activities, from the march to show that “Detroit’s Fight Are All of Our Fights,” the guest speakers and direct questions to conversations all made the People’s Convention a very empowering event.

SPACEs Member Chioma Oruh Feels She ‘Found Her Tribe’

I’ve had some time now to digest the many great lessons learned at the Center for Popular Democracy’s (CPD) Our Vision, Our Future: People’s Convention held in Detroit, MI from July 25-27th. In the time since coming home, and post watching the Democratic primary debates that also took place in Detroit shortly after the convention, I’ve had some time to reflect on the significance of this convention both personally and politically.

Personally, I feel like I’ve found my tribe. It was such an empowering opportunity to bring so much of what I personally identify with and give it a platform. I had joined SPACES a few months back, when I was introduced to the Executive Director, LaDon Love. And I simply fell in love with the mission and vision of this organization. In working together on the Birth to Three Campaign, I also learned the unique value of SPACES, as an affiliate organization of CPD.

CPD carries out its mission of building organizing power to transform the local and state policy landscape through deep, long-term partnerships with leading community-based organizing groups nationwide like SPACES in Action, which is the affiliate organization in Washington, DC. At the Detroit convention, I really ingested the power of their vision and how truly transformative this approach to organizing is. Read more of Chioma’s reflection here.

The fast-growing gig economy provides flexibility and opportunity for millions of workers and consumers. Billions of dollars are pouring into these platforms: Instacart’s revenues grew 75 percent over one year, and the company is now valued at over $7.6 billion. DoorDash is now valued at over $12 billion. 

But the workers fueling the rapid expansion of app-based work experience low pay and tip theft, and due to their status as independent contractors they lack access to either employer-provided benefits or the public safety net. Our recent survey of hundreds of Instacart workers showed they earn an average of $7.66 an hour. Many workers put in long hours, others use gig work earnings to supplement their income from a conventional job, but all are relying on their gig income, derived through opaque and ever-changing pay structures, to meet basic needs.

For the past year, CPD has supported Working Washington in engaging thousands of gig workers at Postmates, DoorDash, Instacart, and Caviar. When Instacart workers reported a drop in pay late last year, we tapped into the informal digital spaces where workers congregate and collected data to show that Instacart had begun repurposing customers’ tips to pay wages. Since then we have engaged over 10,000 workers performing app-based food and grocery delivery—the largest base of non-driver gig workers in the country. Much of our engagement has grown organically from the online pay calculator we developed to help Instacart and DoorDash workers navigate these companies’ purposely opaque compensation systems. The pay calculator has enabled us to bring thousands of workers into the campaign and to collect the first national data on the income earned on these apps.

Working Washington executed an aggressive communications strategy that made national news and drove Instacart to change its pay model and pay restitution to its workers. Working Washington drove a similar campaign to pressure DoorDash to abandon its policy of using customer tips to offset, rather than add to, the compensation the company provides to drivers. After vocal criticism from workers and customers that garnered extensive media coverage, DoorDash recently committed to revising its pay practices. 

Now Working Washington is scaling organizing efforts to win industry change, including through strategic engagement with platforms that seek to lead on “high road” labor practices, while developing a strategy to win transformative change through policy fights and mass mobilization of gig workers. Please make a donation today to support this critical fight for workers’ rights.