"Good Jobs" Are No Longer Enough

From Detroit to NYC to Chicago: Why Labor Must Bargain for the Information Economy On June 3, 2015, I stood before Local 2499 of the National Border Patrol Council in Detroit. I had been invited there not as a labor economist, but as a civil rights leader. As the founding CEO of the Detroit LGBT Chamber of Commerce, I was being recognized for my 2014 commitment to diversity and inclusion and for helping build bridges between communities that, historically, had not always found themselves in the same room. It was a meaningful moment. An LGBTQ human rights advocate receiving recognition from a Border Patrol union would have seemed unlikely only a few months earlier. Having been detailed and threatened with arrest by that same patrol, I was proud of what that event represented.

Then I changed the subject.

At least, that’s what many people in the audience thought.

During my remarks, I began talking about the changing economics of the American middle class. I argued that what we traditionally understood as a middle-class standard of living increasingly required household incomes approaching $200,000 a year. Before I could explain why, someone shouted from the audience, “What does that make us?” Others joined in. The room became animated, not because people disagreed with mathematics, but because they believed I had questioned the dignity of their work.

Afterward, my mother, an SEIU steward who had accompanied me on the trip while visiting the city where she lives, offered me advice that has stayed with me ever since.