Building Real Democracy Starts on the Shop Floor
The fight for democracy in America didn't begin, or end, at the ballot box. As labor organizer Erica Smiley, executive director of Jobs With Justice and co-author of The Future We Need: Organizing for a Better Democracy in the Twenty-First Century, reminds us, our democracy has always been "in training," a work in progress shaped as much by picket lines as polling places.
"Unions are schools for democracy," Smiley explains. In workplaces where people of all backgrounds must build consensus and fight for fair contracts, we learn the skills that sustain a pluralistic society. It's no surprise…
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