Jane Fonda is a member of four labor unions. “I know I grew up in privilege,” Fonda said at a recent Georgetown University forum. “But without unions, they’d probably have us working 20-hour days.”
But Fonda, at age 79, appears to have no trouble with those hours. On top of promoting her new Netflix movie with Robert Redford, Our Souls At Night, and co-starring in the Netflix series Grace and Frankie, she’s found time to become a leading champion of raising wages for restaurant workers.
“After the election, I felt I’d been hit by a truck,” Fonda told a packed crowd at the October 23 Georgetown event. “I’m old. And I’ve never felt this way before.”
The Hollywood actor said she asked herself what she could do to get out of her post-election funk. Her answer? “Organize.”
She credits her father Henry Fonda and his movie The Grapes of Wrath with helping her understand the essence of organizing. “What do I mean by ‘organizing’? I mean talking to people — listening to people.”
With her Grace and Frankie co-star Lily Tomlin, Fonda recently headlined a week-long series of events in Michigan to support the One Fair Wage campaign, which aims to raise the state’s minimum wage and bring parity between the full minimum wage and the wage that tipped workers receive.