Formation | February 2021 |
---|---|
Type | Nonprofit |
EIN: 85-3189807 | |
Executive Director | Faiz Shakir |
Website | perfectunion |
More Perfect Union is a progressive non-profit news media organization founded in February 2021 by Faiz Shakir. The outlet, named after a phrase in the U.S. Constitution, specializes in video reporting and opinion coverage about the American labor movement, economic policy, and corporate accountability. [1] [2]
In August 2021, More Perfect Union won the Sidney Award for outstanding investigative journalism. [3]
In August 2021, More Perfect Union won the Sidney Award for its coverage of the Frito-Lay strike. "MPU was the first national outlet to cover the strike," the Sidney Hillman Foundation wrote in awarding the prize. "They published dispatches from the ground over a three-week period which collectively generated over 4 million views and spurred follow-on coverage by outlets such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, and NPR... After a three-week strike, Frito's Topeka plant struck an agreement to end the forced 7-day workweeks and so-called 'suicide shifts', which gave workers only 8 hours of break between shifts. [3] [4]
Also in August 2021, More Perfect Union confirmed with actor Danny DeVito that he had been stripped of his verified status on Twitter after he tweeted a message of solidarity to striking Nabisco workers: "NO CONTRACT NO SNACKS." [5] The news spread widely and contributed to DeVito and his rallying cry becoming popular labor memes. [6]
In November 2021, More Perfect Union launched an explainer series called "The Class Room". It is "aimed at providing a left-wing answer to PragerU, a YouTube titan of right-wing ideology," the New York Times reported. [1]
More Perfect Union says it receives funding from various donors, including from George Soros' Open Society Foundations, but does not take money from labor unions. [1]
In 2023, "The Class Room" was awarded the Hillman Prize for Opinion and Analysis. [7]
Strike action, also called labor strike, labour strike in British English, or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became common during the Industrial Revolution, when mass labor became important in factories and mines. As striking became a more common practice, governments were often pushed to act. When government intervention occurred, it was rarely neutral or amicable. Early strikes were often deemed unlawful conspiracies or anti-competitive cartel action and many were subject to massive legal repression by state police, federal military power, and federal courts. Many Western nations legalized striking under certain conditions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Doritos is an American brand of flavored tortilla chips produced by Frito-Lay, a wholly owned subsidiary of PepsiCo. The concept for Doritos originated at Disneyland at a restaurant managed by Frito-Lay.
Sidney Hillman was an American labor leader. He was the head of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America and was a key figure in the founding of the Congress of Industrial Organizations and in marshaling labor's support for President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal coalition of the Democratic Party.
The American Labor Party (ALP) was a political party in the United States established in 1936 that was active almost exclusively in the state of New York. The organization was founded by labor leaders and former members of the Socialist Party of America who had established themselves as the Social Democratic Federation (SDF). The party was intended to parallel the role of the British Labour Party, serving as an umbrella organization to unite New York social democrats of the SDF with trade unionists who would otherwise support candidates of the Republican and Democratic parties.
PepsiCo, Inc. is an American multinational food, snack, and beverage corporation headquartered in Harrison, New York, in the hamlet of Purchase. PepsiCo's business encompasses all aspects of the food and beverage market. It oversees the manufacturing, distribution, and marketing of its products. PepsiCo was formed in 1965 with the merger of the Pepsi-Cola Company and Frito-Lay, Inc., PepsiCo has since expanded from its namesake product Pepsi Cola to an immensely diversified range of food and beverage brands. The largest and most recent acquisition was Pioneer Foods in 2020 for US$1.7 billion and prior to it was buying the Quaker Oats Company in 2001, which added the Gatorade brand to the Pepsi portfolio and Tropicana Products in 1998.
Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America (ACWA) was a United States labor union known for its support for "social unionism" and progressive political causes. Led by Sidney Hillman for its first thirty years, it helped found the Congress of Industrial Organizations. It merged with the Textile Workers Union of America (TWUA) in 1976 to form the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union (ACTWU), which merged with the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union in 1995 to create the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE). UNITE merged in 2004 with the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union (HERE) in 2004 to create a new union known as UNITE HERE. After a bitter internal dispute in 2009, the majority of the UNITE side of the union, along with some of the disgruntled HERE locals left UNITE HERE, and formed a new union named Workers United, led by former UNITE president Bruce Raynor.
The Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM) is a labor union in the United States and Canada primarily representing workers in the food processing industry. The union was established in 1886 as the Journeyman Bakers Union. The contemporary BCTGM was formed in January 1999 as a merger of the Bakery, Confectionery and Tobacco Workers' International Union and the American Federation of Grain Millers.
Bruce S. Raynor is an American labor union executive. He is the former Executive Vice President of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), former President of Workers United, former General President of UNITE HERE, a founding member of the Leadership Council of the Change to Win Federation (CTW), and a member of the Cornell University Board of Trustees. He was Chairman of several union-affiliated national pension and insurance funds. He was Chairman of the Board of Amalgamated Life Insurance Company, a union-affiliated insurance company established in 1943. Raynor also served as chairman of the Amalgamated Bank, the only union-owned bank in the U.S., and as former co-chair and current member of the Council of Institutional Investors, an organization of institutional investors. Raynor is also President of The Sidney Hillman Foundation, a foundation that supports and rewards socially conscious journalism.
Oberto is an American business that makes meat snacks including all natural jerky, pepperoni, charcuterie, chicken bites and other smoked meats. The company was founded in 1918 by Constantino Oberto in Seattle, Washington. It is now headquartered in Kent, Washington. The company sells products under the following brand names: Oberto, Oberto Classics, Lowrey's Meat Snacks, Pacific Gold Beef Jerky and Cattleman's Cut brands.
The Sidney Hillman Foundation is an American charitable foundation that awards prizes to journalists who investigate issues related to social justice and progressive public policy. The foundation, founded in 1946, is named for Sidney Hillman, who was the founding president of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America. The foundation awards the annual Hillman Prize and the monthly Sidney Awards. The Foundation is headed by Bruce S. Raynor, former Executive Vice President of the SEIU.
Frito-Lay, Inc. is an American subsidiary of PepsiCo that manufactures, markets, and sells corn chips, potato chips, and other snack foods. The primary snack food brands produced under the Frito-Lay name include Fritos corn chips, Cheetos cheese-flavored snacks, Doritos and Tostitos tortilla chips, Lay's and Ruffles potato chips, Rold Gold pretzels, and Walkers potato crisps. Each brand generated annual worldwide sales over $1 billion in 2009.
The United Garment Workers of America was a United States labor union which existed between 1891 and 1994. It was an affiliate of the American Federation of Labor.
The Russian-American Industrial Corporation (RAIC) was an international economic development venture launched in 1922 by the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America in conjunction with the government of Soviet Russia. The corporation, mostly funded measure by small donations from sympathetic American union members, was conceived as a mechanism for the launch of new clothing factories to help alleviate the economic distress which had wracked the Soviet republic during the recently terminated era of Civil War and War Communism.
Jordan Daniel Chariton is an American investigative reporter. Chariton is the CEO of Status Coup, a progressive media outlet that features investigative and on-the-ground reporting on politics, corruption, the working class, social justice, and the environment.
The first-ever "political action committee" in the United States of America was the Congress of Industrial Organizations – Political Action Committee or CIO-PAC (1943–1955). What distinguished the CIO-PAC from previous political groups was its "open, public operation, soliciting support from non-CIO unionists and from the progressive public. ... Moreover, CIO political operatives would actively participate in intraparty platform, policy, and candidate selection processes, pressing the broad agenda of the industrial union movement."
Faiz Shakir is an American Democratic political advisor. He serves as senior advisor to Bernie Sanders and executive director of the nonprofit media organization More Perfect Union. Previously, he was campaign manager for Bernie Sanders' 2020 presidential campaign, an aide to Congressional leaders Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, an editor-in-chief of the ThinkProgress blog, and political director of the American Civil Liberties Union. Raised in Florida by Pakistani immigrants, Shakir is a progressive liberal and an advocate for Muslim American communities.
The 2021 Frito-Lay strike was a labor strike by employees at the Topeka, Kansas Frito-Lay plant against the company's mandatory overtime policy. The strike began on July 5, 2021 and ended on July 23, 2021.
The 2021 Nabisco strike was a labor strike involving workers for the American snack manufacturer Nabisco, a subsidiary of Mondelez International. The strike began at a Nabisco facility in Portland, Oregon on August 10 and over the next few days spread to several more Nabisco facilities throughout the United States.
The 2021 Kellogg's strike was a labor strike started on October 5, 2021, and ended December 21, 2021, involving about 1,400 workers for food manufacturer Kellogg's, unionized as members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers' International Union (BCTGM). The strike was caused due to disagreements between the union and company concerning the terms of a new labor contract, with particular points of contention concerning the current two-tier wage system, health care, holidays, retirement benefits, cost-of-living adjustments, and vacation time. The strike affected all of Kellogg's cereal-producing plants in the United States, consisting of plants in Battle Creek, Michigan; Omaha, Nebraska; Lancaster, Pennsylvania; and Memphis, Tennessee. It is one of several strikes conducted by the BCTGM in 2021, including strike action against Frito-Lay and Nabisco.
Striketober was a labor strike wave in October 2021 by workers in the United States in the context of strikes during the COVID-19 pandemic. During the month, approximately 25,000 workers participated in strikes.
More Perfect Union, a video-centric outlet that has a staff of 24 and backing from George Soros's Open Society Foundation, among other donors, does not take money from labor unions, Mr. Shakir said.