interviews
Labor and the White House
by Dave Weigel
March 31, 2021
This interview with Dave Weigel, national reporter covering politics for the Washington Post, was conducted and condensed by franknews and Payday Report.
DW | The White House's involvement in the Amazon union drive was a big surprise. I mean, we know where it could have originated, the union talked to the White House; they have kind of an open door with Biden that they didn't have with Trump. We know that Faiz Shakir, Bernie Sanders’ campaign chairman, and his group, Perfect Union, got involved. So, there was public pressure.
The fact that the White House and the president released that video was a big deal to people. And, he made this decision to get involved very early on in his presidency. It was within his first 50 days. He decided to do what hadn't been done before and give a message in support of the union. It was a very careful message. The new labor secretary, Marty Walsh, when asked specifically about Amazon, responded in more general tones.
But, no matter what happens, if you are in for a penny, you are in for a pound.
A lot of previous presidents, including Barack Obama, said a lot less about these union drives and, in doing so, limited their own exposure. If the drive didn't work, people didn't say that the president supported something that didn't work. The fact that Biden made a statement, early on, when it wasn't clear how this was going to go, is a real political statement of what they thought was important.
frank | How do you think his background plays a role in this?
He's always leaned in really hard and identified with workers in the same way he's tried to identify with different civil rights movements. Joe Biden has always wanted to be seen as the kind of person who is coming from Scranton, who has lived through the sixties, and who wants to jump to the front of the march if there is a struggle happening.
He frames everything in terms of fairness. He's not as natural as other members of the party in talking about this. When Bernie Sanders talks about this, for example, he talks about greed, he names CEOs, he says nobody deserves that much money, he talks about a maximum wage and how there should be no billionaires at all. Biden doesn't go that far. Biden has never gone after Jeff Bezos. He's never gone after individual heads of companies the way that Sanders does. He does this sort of a "Hey man, these guys are under assault, somebody needs to stick up for them."
That is something that he has always wanted to be part of his brand. Even when he was voting for trade deals like NAFTA as a Senator, he was never really comfortable. He had the same ideological mindset as a lot of the Democrats in the eighties and the nineties. He did it because he saw that that was the way things were moving and he voted strategically. But, the stuff that fired him up was when he could side with workers. It is the same thing with the projects he took on under Obama when he was Vice President.
During the Democratic primary, he didn't get the same amount of labor support that Hillary Clinton did, but, Sanders didn't get it either. There wasn't the same sort of a landslide of labor to get in early and say, this is our candidate. Instead, they were demanding more of the candidates.
I would cover presidential primary events with the Teamsters in Cedar Rapids or the Building Trades in DC and you would kind of look to the level of applause as an indicator. The interesting thing is that at those events Sanders would lay out the things he did and what he wanted to pass. Biden would go on at length about non-compete clauses and about wage theft and things like that. It was less, "I have studied all of the papers on this and I've decided this is my policy," and more of "this seems unfair and I'm against this thing."
I think the Democratic Party is increasingly understanding what labor can mean for them strategically.
Republicans have gotten kind of tangled up on labor. They have done better with union households, but they are basically the party of deregulation still. They've never really moved on the labor part of their messaging. That makes it easier for Biden to compete for these workers. When it comes down to it, Republicans want “right-to-work." Josh Hawley, who branded himself as a working-class candidate, for example, supports a national right-to-work.
Biden was very concerned with winning back more union households. Union workers were saying, “Democrats had the presidency for 16 years. What do they do for us?” Biden didn't have all the answers that labor wanted, but he was making a lot of specific promises about how he was going to act. He talked about infrastructure spending and about how he was going to run the NLRB and how he was going to approach employers. It was less than Sanders did, but that's way more than Democrats had done in the past.
I mean, the McCain/Romney era Republicans had no appeal to the sort of voters who voted for Obama twice and then voted for Trump. Biden only peeled back maybe 10% of them depending on where you're talking about, but it has made life easier for Democrats.
This fight has in large part been framed in the context of continuing a battle for civil rights. Do you see Biden lean into that messaging?
Biden did not really lean to the racial justice aspect or the civil rights legacy aspect of this labor fight. When the congressional delegation here came down a couple of weeks before the vote, they were much more explicit. Someone like Jamal Bowman or Cori Bush is much more comfortable saying that than Biden. That is the thing about Biden. He basically sets boundaries. He says what his position is and backs off and lets the action happen without his constant commentary. It's very different than Trump in that way too. And that's different than the Sanders position. And it's different than what Warren said her position would be as president.
Can you give us context on how or why you started covering this story?
I started covering the Amazon drive because of the president and members of Congress intervening. I mean, labor decided to get involved months before, but the fact that Democrats were getting involved was new. It has been interesting to monitor their investment in this over other Democratic Party causes.
There's a little bit of intervention from the Democrats, but not, I'd say equal to what Amazon is doing. They are not the advertisements on TV. We all know the Democratic party is kind of involved, but it is not the same political project that I've seen in other places.
There are two stories that kind of were happening at the same time; they have merged, but not completely. One is this labor drive, which is smaller than most drives that have succeeded. It is not overwhelming. You don't see labor signs everywhere you go. But, on the other hand, the level of national involvement is kind of new.
Had Biden said nothing, there would have been a story, but it wouldn't involve the White House, it wouldn't involve the Democratic Party, and it might not involve the PRO Act.
And I think that's going to change because of this.
New interview w/ @daveweigel @PaydayReport
— frank news (@FrankNewsUS) April 6, 2021
"The White House's involvement with the Amazon drive was a big surprise ... Previous presidents, Obama comes to mind, said a lot less. The fact that Biden did that early on is a political statement of what they thought was important." pic.twitter.com/MwYlmqE4xQ
That was a big decision Biden made to be a part of this.
Right. And that political story is interesting. The story here is much more independent. A lot of the people who've come in to help canvas are from smaller groups. You have Black Lives Matter and DSA groups from the area, but you don't have the Democratic Party getting involved in a huge way. I think that is something that people will revisit after the vote.
Should the Democratic Party, like most left parties in the world, be very involved with labor? Should they always take the side of labor?
Most social democratic parties are labor parties and they build up from there. Their coalition includes labor unions. In the British Labour Party, for example, labor has a role in electing the leadership. That is not the case here. That's the conversation I think they're going to start having when this votes over. For example, if there are, and the union says there are, hundreds of people around the country calling them saying, "Hey, I have some questions about what I can do at my fulfillment center in my town," that will be a question for Democrats.
And if Amazon wins, do you get spooked? Amazon has been very punchy in their PR. They might say that a bunch of elite Democrats stood with the union and the workers stood with Amazon. That is very comfortable turf for Amazon to be on, and that leaves a big question open for Democrats. If the union succeeds, throw all of that out the window. I think the lesson that everyone would take in that case would be that if it takes less than a three-minute video from the president to get momentum for something like this, then we should keep doing that. As we talk, I don't know the answer to that question. I think that is something that is going to be answered when the votes are in.
interviews
Swipe Out Hunger
by Rachel Sumekh
May 16, 2019
This interview with Rachel Sumekh, the founder and CEO of Swipe Out Hunger, was conducted and condensed by frank news.
frank: How did you find yourself doing this work?
Rachel: I'm 27 years old. I live in Los Angeles, which is also where I'm born and raised. I'm a first generation student, both my parents are Iranian immigrants. I was always a student leader. I was student body president in high school – but suddenly in college it became cool to care about leadership as opposed to it being a nerdy thing. I had a friend [Bryan] who posted on Facebook inviting other students to come take action and end hunger with our meal swipes and I messaged him saying, "Hey, I have a background in Photoshop, I will help make the flyers so that students can come donate their meal swipes." He's like, "Cool, come on this day, we're going to move a bunch of food."
We had students donate swipes. After the swipes drive, we had all this food, but barely anyone showed up – except for me and Bryan. The pivotal moment of what really got me into this work was watching him. Instead of saying, "Wow, we have thousands of pounds of food to move, and only two of us on this hot June day in L.A., let's reschedule," he's like, "Cool, we told the school we were going to do it, and now let's do it."
We spent the next five hours moving food across UCLA's campus to the food closet. In my mind what it meant to be a leader changed, and the power of one person to take a stand that seemed really unreasonable, not easy, and unknown, was very inspiring. I decided from that point on I wanted to provide that opportunity for people. I still feel that moment.
Today, Swipe Out Hunger is a national nonprofit that operates on 75 universities and colleges; each of those campuses are committed to ending college student hunger, and that work is led by college students. They reach out to us, say they want the program, then we train them on how to write proposals, how to negotiate with the university, how to organize their campus, how to market the resource – and then they go and make it happen. A bad policy is waiting for a student to say it needs to be changed, a student to know how to organize, and a student to know how to clearly demand what they need. We want to build a movement that makes it easier, with each added campus, to make a basic statement – no one should be able to make money off of food on campus until everyone has access to food.
How does the program work logistically?
The core program, is in the meal swipe drive; essentially, a program that allows students at the end of each semester to stop by a table, say they have extra meal swipes on their meal plan, and donate. Freshmen, and often sophomores, who live on campus, are required to buy a meal plan. They get 10, 20, or 25 meals a week. If you don't use all those meals they don't roll over. Typically at the end of the semester they're completely unredeemable unless you want to buy a water bottle in exchange for a whole meal.
We provide students with an alternative. Stop by one of our tables, say you want to donate your meal swipes. It takes about 30 seconds. The university then takes the funds from students' accounts and puts them into a communal fund. There's a partnership set up between dining services and the social services office on campus; with the person who interfaces with students that are food insecure, and electronically moves the credit from the general swipe fund into the account of a student who's food insecure. That student, just like everyone else, can swipe into the dining hall and have access to more nourishing dining hall meals. That's the core of our program.
It involves a lot of stakeholder buy in. To get started you need to have a meeting; the first meeting should have the dining director, students, dean of student life, and a basic needs coordinator, or the person who manages a food pantry, and whoever would be in touch with students who are food insecure. We train those core people and you're able to establish a swipe program.
In addition to that, we've written and passed millions of dollars in legislation that has funded anti-hunger programs on campus. We push for Swipe Out Hunger programs, we push for legislation that gives more money to schools, and the way we support campuses in spending those dollars is twofold. One is SNAP programs; getting more students enrolled in SNAP and getting more campuses to accept SNAP. Then secondly, strengthening food closets; food cloests are a reactive solution, but they're also an incredible resource for an everyday student to grab what they need, take it home, and have access to food. How do we make sure food closets have really good hours, are centrally located, have good produce, and that student volunteers who are running the closets can get a stipend or something?
How do food closets work?
There’s a big range. On some campuses, like UCLA for instance, access is not regulated. Anyone can walk in, get food, and walk out, there's no check in. There are other campuses like UC San Diego, UC Davis, where it's a point system; you're allowed to get three or five points worth of things. You're able to come to a certain amount and pick up what you need. There's a huge diversity, some are very well stocked and very well resourced, and funding for them comes in a variety of ways. It's, as you can imagine, a very easy thing to fundraise for if the university decides to fundraise for it.
A lot of campuses don't want to be known for having homeless students and hungry students.The reason we have such stunning and robust dining halls is because when a parent is on a campus tour and they're helping their child decide where to go to school, if a school has a beautiful dining hall, that's what a parent who's paying full freight, full tuition is going to want their student to experience. A full tuition paying student wants to live the life of college in the movies. So that's what they prioritize.
There's a tension between that and schools also saying, "Yeah, also we have a bunch of hungry and homeless students." We hear many campuses who won't even fundraise for basic needs, even though it's an amazing way to mobilize their alumni. Traditionally, pantries are funded through parent circles, community events, and student fees. Many campuses receive student fees to fund their pantries.
What percentage of students on university campuses, on average – I know there will be a wide range depending on school – are experiencing hunger?
What sort of legislation are you focused on?
The legislation we advocate for is comprehensive. I was telling this story yesterday to another reporter, they asked me to tell them what we think the solution is. I was called by a legislator recently, she said, "I want to take Swipe Out Hunger onto every college campus in California. What's the bill I should write?" Our response was actually, "Swipe Out Hunger's great, but it's not the solution. I can help write what an effective bill would look like."
I've never written policy before, but I sent back a few ideas including one that would establish a funding pool to any campus that has three things. One is if they have a pantry or some sort of pop-up pantry; two, they should have at least one person trained in how to enroll students in SNAP; and three, if the campus has a meal plan they should give students a chance to donate their meal swipes, and then assign a campus point person to work with students to manage the pragrams. Legislation that we believe is effective has all three of those things built on existing resources in the community. There are food banks who know how to food bank really well – partner with the food banks. The staff already exists, all you have to do is train them in SNAP and that'll happen.
I don't want to be the next Feeding America, our entire model is not built on building a new building, it's built on integrating this into existing campus culture, resources, and infrastructure. When we think about policy, we want more funding to the existing system. We want more funding to schools so they don't have to have food be a revenue source, so they don’t have to prioritize full freight students over Pell students and vice versa.
Have universities been open or reluctant to working with Swipe Out Hunger?
The perspective that we, as Swipe Out Hunger, have on this issue is potentially the longest standing perspective. When we began this conversation in 2009 the response we were getting from the university was, "This is not a problem. Maybe there's a couple students who are going hungry, but this is not a problem." Then they started to say, "Okay fine, maybe it's a problem but it's not our problem." By 2014, we had gotten five campuses to launch.
In 2016 as an organization, we decided not to talk to a single campus who didn't also want to work on campus hunger.
Historically it was always students writing us, saying "I want to start this program." In 2017, half of our interest came from people on campus, administrators saying they want this program.
Social pressure came in 2016 – I credit this shift to Sara Goldrick-Rab and The Hope Center's research and leadership. This issue suddenly became a legitimate thing. It was out in the open and schools couldn't deny it anymore. They began looking for a solution. It became an opportunity to be innovative, to be advanced, and so we had schools reaching out.
This resistance goes back to the decision makers. You look at their LinkedIns, it's all Ivy League schools, private high schools. In large part, many have only spent time with people who've never been food insecure – or they wouldn't know it because shame keeps people who have faced food insecurity silent – so no wonder it's so shocking to them. They genuinely don't believe it. I look at the principles Bryan Stevenson speaks about – one of them is proximity.
The social pressure was huge. 2017 was pivotal.
How do students hear about you?
Almost 60% of the students we serve hear about the resource from a friend, despite it being in the campus newsletters, despite it being in flyers and so on.
All of our programs are run by student leaders. Our special sauce is that we're not just a resource but a resource run by your friends. Who's at the tables collecting swipes? It's other students. Who's helping get the word out, who's in the meetings with administrators deciding the program? It's students. We have universities reach out to us and say they tried to start their own Swipe Out Hunger program, but only had four students apply for free swipes. But it's because no students were involved in designing the program. What would have happened if you had a student tell you that the pick up hours for a meal voucher were off, or that the vouchers were only for the dining hall that's all the way across campus, which is only accessible for students who live on campus?
How do you communicate the importance of this issue to others?
I feel like we immediately dive into the issue without providing context on poverty in general. What I like to remind people is that in America, poverty has become so god damn pervasive it's taking center stage on our college campuses.
That fact that we require students to work 20 hours a week to be eligible for meal swipes, means that our social safety net has failed. The fact that we've defunded higher education means we're not setting up our students to succeed. The fact that families can't be there to support our students – in fact, many students are the ones supporting their families – means that as individuals we are so exhausted by the reality of economics in America, that even our social fabric is failing.
I invested my life in college student hunger because if students are able to get through college and have enough to eat, and feel like their campus was truly built for them, they're going to graduate and they're going to feel like the work force and society was designed for them. They're going to get a job. The lifetime earnings of a person change dramatically depending on degree.
I'm invested in this issue, rather than hunger in general, because if we can help students get degrees, it changes their lives and their families' lives. This is not just ending college student hunger because hunger sucks, this is a systemic way to look at how poverty tends to keep people in poverty. We tell people to pursue education as a way to get out of poverty, but even that advice is failing them because the education system in America is not set up for the diversity of people who are on campus today.