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Labor activists on how workers are shaping the future of work

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Join Washington Post Live for a special series that explores how the labor market is responding to dramatic disruptions brought on by inflation, automation, gigification and the pandemic. Part two of the series looks at what structural changes mean for the future of the workforce and how workers are shaping the relationship between their jobs and their lives, featuring Ai-jen Poo, president of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, Michelle Miller, co-founder of Coworker.org, and Jaz Brisack, organizing committee member of Starbucks Workers United.

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“Coming out of the pandemic, I think people have more of an appreciation for what it takes to make this country move. And we cannot lose that…Workers were told they were essential and then are now being treated as expendable.”- Liz Shuler (Video: Washington Post Live)

“When we think of the future of work, it’s so technology oriented, but in reality, the future of jobs is moving towards care. We have a huge and growing aging population we’ve got to care for…We’re going to need a huge workforce to support that and we just simply don’t have the sustainable workforce in place because the wages are poverty wages with no benefits. So, this is urgent, these are jobs of the future, we have an opportunity to make them good jobs and we can’t miss it.”- Ai-jen Poo (Video: Washington Post Live)

“I think workers have always wanted to organize, but fear takes a lot forms. And usually, the biggest form is employer opposition, which we’re still seeing in extreme ways… But I think our generation is overcoming a lot of what we’ve told about unions and a lot of misconceptions and slander of unions. I think redbaiting doesn’t work anymore… People are fundamentally seeing that unions are the only way to really change a workplace from a dictatorship into a democracy.”- Jaz Brisack (Video: Washington Post Live)

“It’s not going to be a winning strategy to try to union bust… The public overwhelmingly supports unions and isn’t going to stand for union busting. And secondly, they’re fighting the best workers that these companies have… And when you’re burning those kinds of people out and trying to force them out so that they stop having the energy to carry on this union campaign, then you’re shooting your own company in the foot. So, it’s much better to sign the fair election principles, actually stop fighting us and come together. No company wants a union, but there’s much better ways to behave than the way all of these companies are reacting.”- Jaz Brisack (Video: Washington Post Live)

“The ways in which workers have been able to use technology to create virtual spaces to find one another and to share their concerns and to come up with campaigns has been really inspiring… I also think that based on that expertise and the ways in which people have been able to use these technology tools to organize, that, that is the indicator that in terms of the way that technology is being implemented at their own workplaces by their bosses, then maybe these workers have some expertise about how to do that better and how to do that in a way that isn’t about extraction, domination and surveillance. But instead, about improving their ability to do their jobs.”- Michelle Miller (Video: Washington Post Live)

President, National Domestic Workers Alliance

Senior Advisor, Care in Action

Organizing Committee Member, Starbucks Workers United

In partnership with Ford Foundation

The following content is produced and paid for by a Washington Post Live event sponsor. The Washington Post newsroom is not involved in the production of this content.

(Video: Washington Post Live)

Worker Voice in the US South

In a segment presented by the Ford Foundation, José García, director of Ford’s Future of Work(ers) program, speaks with Jennifer Epps, executive director of the Labor Innovations for the 21st Century (LIFT) Fund, on the significant labor challenges facing working people in the US South, from some of the nation’s worst wages, benefits, and collective bargaining opportunities, and new efforts to strengthen worker power and the economic and social conditions across the South.

Executive Director, The LIFT Fund

Director, Future of Work(ers) Program, Ford Foundation


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