When Sara Horowitz founded Freelancers Union 20 years ago in New York City, her initial members had one clear need that stood out amongst the rest: Healthcare.
“I thought, oh my God, how boring is that? Let’s just get that done and move onto the next issue,” says Horowitz, the daughter of a labor lawyer and granddaughter of a former vice president of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union. However, she quickly discovered that the health care needs were just one example of what she saw as the lack of a safety net that millions of Americans were coming to terms with. “So that became the central core piece of what we do.”
Twenty years after its founding, the Freelancers Union has around a quarter of a million members and has just launched a national healthcare program for freelancers living in any state.
As part of our Up-and-Comers series, Ai-jen Poo, director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, sat down with Horowitz to discuss labor issues in a 21st century “gig” economy.
Tag: union
3 Reasons Why Sunday’s Historic Climate March Could Be the Start of Something Huge
Thousands of protestors will cram the streets of New York City this Sunday, calling on world leaders to help stop climate change. But they’ll also have another message: “Welcome to a new chapter in the fight against global warming. This time it’s going to work.”
The People’s Climate March is expected to be the biggest-ever collective action against global climate change, and organizers are hoping the protest will mark a watershed moment in their fight.
For years, scientist and activists have been pleading for coordinated action to halt the warming of the planet, but world leaders have repeatedly failed to rise to the challenge. Since the disastrous United Nations Climate Conference in Copenhagen in 2009, global summits have not forged worldwide consensus on how to achieve the U.N.’s stated goal of restricting any future global temperature increase to no more than two degrees Celsius.
This weekend’s march is set to coincide with another one of these global meetings: The U.N. Climate Summit 2014. No decisions will be made at the event, which will be attended by 125 world leaders, including President Obama. But the summit will lay the groundwork for landmark U.N. climate conferences this December in Lima and next year in Paris.
Despite the failures of the past, organizers of the People’s Climate March see at least three reasons to hope this year.
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