Our allies at Jobs with Justice invited me to speak at their huge conference in Atlanta last week about a bold vision they’ve developed for “A 21st Century Reconstruction for Multiracial Democracy.” Heady stuff. 

At first, I didn’t want to do it. I thought the good folks at Jobs with Justice would be better off with a constitutional lawyer more knowledgeable about how best to guarantee the right to organize or abolish the electoral college — two of their vision document’s “structural milestones.” 

But then I asked myself: When have Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos ever worried about staying in their own personal lanes? Never, right? They and their pals in the billionaire class have their own bold North Star agenda: rule by the rich. And they don’t just exploit workers and shortchange consumers to realize that agenda. They also do whatever they can to dominate our media — and our democracy.

Our side needs a silo-busting North Star agenda, too. And so I joined what turned out to be a fascinating discussion in Atlanta. We’ll be sharing more soon about the new vision for reconstruction and next steps that emerged.  

In the meantime, we’re happy to feature this week one of the thousand worker advocates who converged on Atlanta for strategizing — and a great rally. 

Sarah Anderson
for the Institute for Policy Studies Inequality.org team

A Waffle House Win Would Boost Service Workers Across the South 

This week’s frontline face:  Ieisha Francis, a worker leader with the Union of Southern Service Workers from Durham, North Carolina. 

What she’s doing to help create a more equal world: Francis is organizing to win better wages and working conditions for service workers in the southern United States. She helped win a recent victory at Duke University that’s going to lift the minimum wage for employees and contractors to $20 per hour. 

Now Francis is supporting workers at Waffle House, a chain of over 2,000 restaurants, mostly in the South. The chain’s top exec, Joe Rogers Jr., has become a billionaire off the backs of servers whose wages don’t meet the $7.25 federal minimum. With the upcoming World Cup putting a spotlight on Waffle House’s Atlanta home base, workers are demanding an hourly wage hike to $25.

“In this industry, we’re all overworked, underpaid, and underappreciated,” Francis told the crowd at a solidarity rally in downtown Atlanta last week. “But if we get Waffle House to change their wages, we change the landscape for the entire service industry. If we change Waffle House, we change the South. And if we change the South, we change the entire nation.” 

What makes this fight so important to her: “I’m here for my grandchildren,” Francis told Inequality.org after the rally. “I don’t want them to face the same difficulties I’ve had to face. We’re not demanding anything extraordinary. We’re just fighting to be respected on the job, feed our families, and pay our bills.” 

To support Waffle House and other service workers, check the petition link below.

America’s billionaires are pouring unprecedented sums into U.S. elections. Just 100 billionaire families spent a staggering $2.6 billion on politics in 2024, accounting for 16.5 percent of all political contributions. That marks a nearly 160-fold increase in billionaire political spending since the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision opened the door to unlimited campaign donations.

Do Corporations Deserve the Same Rights that Real People Enjoy?

Hawaii last week became the first state to pass a law directly challenging Citizens United, the Supreme Court decision that opened the door wide to big money in politics. The legislation, just signed into law by the state’s governor, classifies corporations as “artificial persons” that do not have the same constitutionally protected right to make political donations that actual humans enjoy.

End Citizens United, a nonprofit focused on overturning that damaging Supreme Court decision, has hailed Hawaii’s new law as a model for other states. Montana is fighting to get a similar measure on the ballot, signaling growing momentum for efforts to rein in billionaire political power.

This Corporate Chief Is Getting Much Less Joy from His Java

This week’s dour deep pocket: The billionaire Howard Schultz, the 72-year-old current chairman emeritus of Starbucks, the coffee empire he ran three different times as CEO.

What has Schultz sour: the “socialist rhetoric” of current Seattle mayor Katie Wilson, who, he charges, “vilifies employers, even while she continues to rely on them for revenue.“

Seattle and Washington State, Schultz added in a Wall Street Journal op-ed last week, appear to be operating on the theory that “prosperity can be mandated through redistribution rather than generated through growth.”

What in particular has America’s coffee king seeing socialism at every corner? Lawmakers in Washington, a state that had gone generations without taxing income, last year enacted a “millionaires’ tax” — a 9.9 percent levy on income over $1 million — that will go into effect in 2028.

The last word: Schultz and his wife Sheri moved from Seattle to Miami this past March to begin “our next adventure together.” Their adventuring will start in a $44-million beachfront penthouse.

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