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
Keep Our Students Enrolled
by Paula Umaña
April 27, 2020
Paula Umaña is the Community Impact Director at the Hope Center. Prior to this role, Umaña worked at Community College of Philadelphia as the director of Single Stop, a service that is geared towards increasing student retention by providing assistance in navigating and obtaining additional financial resources and supportive services.
What is the overall mission of the Hope Center and what are your main goals?
Hope Center is an action research center focused on rethinking and restructuring higher education using a systemic change approach to create opportunities for all students to complete their education. We believe that students are humans first. Through research we bring light to the basic needs and insecurities they face including housing, food, childcare, transportation, and mental health services.
We also work to redefine the framing of what it means to be a student-ready college through the #RealCollege movement, which grounds the conversation in real experiences of real college students. We use this term to talk about what people label as "marginalized" or "underserved" students, to acknowledge that the issues students face are not unique to a specific group. The economics of college are very different from what many perceive (not to mention the effect of the pandemic), and those labels fail to dignify students’ experience in dealing with a system that does not set them up for success. We designed an instrument to understand what life looks like for college students and have collected data for five years. In our latest report, we surveyed more than 400 public institutions, including both community colleges and four year universities.
How have things changed for the organization since COVID?
Since COVID, of course, these needs have not gone away, they just were compounded by this crisis. In response, we are being very vocal about the need for policies that make sense. We have designed guides and webinars as resources for colleges to help them plan strategically so students remain enrolled and able to return. We also created resources for students to help them cope with the crisis and connect with assistance that they likely did not anticipate they would need. This is a new field for everyone. Demonstrating that we care for our students will be fundamental to help them have both a sense of belonging and as well as the ability to remain in school and complete their education so they can be better equipped to join the workforce.
Our life at the Center changed completely with the pandemic. Prior to the quarantine, we were working to release some reports, including analyses on interesting initiatives that are running on campuses like meal vouchers and transportation. We just released “Hungry to Win” a report that looks at athlete students' basic needs and insecurities, and we have released a report on students who are parents. We really want to understand how the crisis affects students at all of these different levels. And again, we are not just looking at Pell Grant recipients, or students who fall into the traditional buckets of need for additional support. We are looking at #RealCollege students who are sacrificing to get their education up to a level where they can make livable wages.
And what do situations look like for those students?
We know that the college students that colleges are dealing with now, are not the stereotypical 18 to 22 year olds who live with their parents, and come to school with parental support. When a college closes, not everyone is able to go back home and take their classes online on their computers. Prior to COVID, a third of students lived on campus. Those students may or may not be able to have shelter in place.
We are advocating for colleges to create partnerships, offer emergency aid, and help students strategize alternatives. When I was working at Community College of Philadelphia, I worked with students whose housing insecurity was so prevailing that we would spend weeks to help them secure sustainable options and provide resources to help them create a safety net so they could finish their degree and even look into transfering to a four year institution where they could have room and boarding. For colleges like CCP that have no on campus housing, that possibility does not exist for them, which makes the work harder.
The reality of food insecurity has become evident through this crisis. You see endless lines at food pantries on the news. We are very strongly pushing out information about food stamps because students often don’t know that they can qualify and get a monthly benefit in an easy to use card. Recently the Food and Nutrition Service denied the requests from 29 states to waive certain requirements to support college students in getting food stamps. We were vocal and made a statement denouncing this position because, now more than ever, the modest sum of money that food stamps offer can help students with food security needs.
Based on our research findings, 64% of students work. The jobs that allow them to accommodate their schedule and family lives are often service industry jobs. And if they are in these jobs, now, they can’t work because many of these businesses had to close during the quarantine. Before COVID, students already had to make very hard financial choices: whether to buy a book or whether to eat, whether to pay rent or pay tuition. Financial aid doesn't always cover the real cost of college. The assumption that the cost of attendance is just tuition and college fees is unrealistic. The biggest price tags of attending college are housing and food. Not to mention that not everyone has access to a computer, not everyone has internet access. When you don't have income, when you don't have a way to pay your phone, which is how many students get their homework done, when you don't have wifi because you cannot go to campus to get free wifi or the library because they're closed, then how are you supposed to get a good grade, keep your financial aid, and continue with your studies?
What do you anticipate the lasting impact of this will be? What will carry over once this is behind us, and what do you anticipate the work will need to be?
College was not affordable for 75% of the students attending before COVID. That means that students need to take out loans to make it - not always in significant amounts because we aren't talking about Ivy League students. But if they drop out or are unable to pay for tuition because they have no income, their ability to repay those loans will be compromised. When the economy is shut down, when students are living or reliving traumatic experiences, when they are uncertain and have no control over the circumstances, their outlook of their possibilities will look markedly different.
The situation with parenting students is also very worrisome. There are some support systems to help students pay for expenses associated with their children’s care, but right now, none of those systems are in place because of the quarantine, so students have to perform these functions while doing homework, learning how to navigate online classes, and managing their children’s educational needs. And students who are parents of older children are also experiencing their own set of traumas. These children are also trying to figure out how their transition to college will look like, are trying to cope with the social factor and, in many situations, are questioning if college is even an option once they graduate from high school. This uncertainty of what life is going to look like takes a huge toll on people's mental health and on people's ability to cope with what is coming next.
And then there is the question about the ability to access healthcare. You have different systems, not everyone qualifies or knows how to get Medicaid, or much less understand how the special enrollment period can grant them access to coverage through the marketplace. There are a few states that have opened their marketplace exchange, but there is not enough publicity about it. We have people who had health issues prior to COVID, and their issues are being exacerbated by the pandemic. You have domestic violence going on. How do you deal with students who are in a housing situation where domestic violence is jeopardizing their wellbeing and they don't have a campus to go to, to talk to a counselor and get support. So it's a very complex moment, indeed.
With everything moved online for the foreseeable future, are students receiving what they're paying for? And how can that be addressed?
With the stimulus package, $14 billion is directed towards higher education. $1 billion goes to minority serving institutions, $300 million goes to colleges directly affected by the coronavirus, and $12 billion goes to colleges.
Let's take California for example. $1.7 billion dollars is going to the state. When institutions look at how they will maximize these dollars to help students, it is important that they consider not only those who are graduating, but also those returning to school or enrolling for the first time. We recently put together an emergency aid guide to provide pointers to colleges on how to best distribute funds in a sustainable way that makes sense, especially for those who are not captured by the financial aid markers.
In these times, higher education institutions have to really prove their adaptability to properly respond to this crisis. They have to move online. They have to deploy computers to students, create that infrastructure, and work with faculty who are used to teaching their classes physically. On top of all of that, they have to sort out giving aid and creating a system of prioritizing and identifying who needs it. Our guide addresses how to best distribute aid. Is it just cutting checks? Is it using only the data that the financial aid officers have on who receives Pell?
Part of what we address is, how can you give the aid to people who are finishing the semester and bring them back to school in August. What do you do with that financial aid and emergency aid money so that students in August know that they can come to school? New college enrollees should also have access to some of the aid so get started with their education. The financial aid that is going to be distributed needs to help everyone across the board in a sustainable way. We cannot just give cash out as it comes, and have colleges burn through it by the end of summer. Our guide talks about making decisions that are sustainable and that address not only the needs of those identified by the Pell Grant, or those who are qualified as "low income", or those who are captured in the system, but also to those who are not captured by the system.
Is there a component of this that we're overlooking that you think would be a mistake to sort of not give extra attention to?
Right now, public benefits do not take into consideration college students in a way that considers their reality. In a majority of the country, students have to work in order to get food stamps, they cannot just be full time students. The same goes in certain states for Medicaid. I think that we're missing out on the whole possibility of creating a very base layer of support for college students with public benefits.