Margaret Levi

Mondragon in Spain has over 80,000 employee owners, takes in over 13 billion dollars a year and redistributes its profits to build worker skills and capacities among its member cooperatives.

A newer approach is to use platform technologies to teach workers their rights.

In our global, hyper-connected and socially isolating world, platforms such as coworker.org or UNIT

recognize and address the fact that there is a mobile workforce that no longer has water coolers or lunchrooms around which to gather and strategize.

These platforms provide workers with a way to share experiences, access organizing resources, and build networks at scale across geographies and employers.

Coworker.org had a huge win.

with Alphabet, the parent company of Google, a giant among tech firms.

Alphabet workers recognize that they are part of a community of fate that crosses large distances.

They have been protesting Google's contracts with the Pentagon and with immigration authorities.

They have normal, run-of-the-mill economic union demands, but they also have the political demand that they should have a say over company policies that affect them and us.

Now, whatever you thought of unions in the past, I hope that these examples have revealed to you what they can be today and for tomorrow.

Unions once significantly reduced income inequality, the gap between the rich and the poor.

They can again.

Billionaires are building rockets to explore outer space.

This is so exciting, but equally exciting

are the workers who are providing the goods and services on which those billionaires we all depend, exploring new ways to gain power and voice.

If even some of these explorations succeed, workers will gain dignity, economic security, and the power to challenge employers and politicians.

The result?

The resuscitation of the middle class and a far more equitable society.

Thank you.