October 2020 Newsletter
Photo by Cassidy Dickens on Unsplash We Choose People.
ReWork the Bay seeks a Bay Area where everyone can live full lives with security, dignity, and agency.
And for that to happen, we believe our society needs to center people.
Not profits, not economic growth, not innovation for innovation’s sake.
We Choose People.
What does it mean to Choose People?
It means seeing that the biggest threat posed by the future of work is not technological innovation, but the use of that technology to accelerate power imbalances between workers and companies. (seeColonizing the Futureby Kevin Donovan)
And that strategies exist within a capitalist economy that can counteract that trend. (see The Difference Between Shareholder and Stakeholder Capitalismby John Detrixhe and For Owners Seeking to Sell, an Option That Keeps Your Business Intact by Paul Sullivan)
It means interrogating assumptions about how our economy and labor market work. This includes questioning what (and whose) work we value enough to provide a living wage and safe work conditions; and whether we are actually a country of “self sufficient” individuals, or an interdependent network of people whose health and prosperity are inextricably linked.
Nowhere are these questions so stark as in our broken care economy. (See Building our Care Infrastructure For Equity, Economic Recovery and Beyond by Josephine Kalipeni and Julie Kashen)
It means believing the premise that “if we make the economy better for those who are suffering most, it stands to reason that those efforts would safeguard everyone else, too.” (Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman)
And recognizing that the future we seek will not be realized by clever new ideas from those with the most privilege and power in society. It will come only when the perspectives and ideas of those most marginalized take center stage. (see Black Women Best: The Framework We Need for an Equitable Economy by Kendra Bozarth, Grace Western and Janelle Jones)
And finally, it means doing the work to understand how each one of us has power and agency to be an active contributor toward a region where we all can thrive. This is not just an intellectual exercise; all of us, by virtue of our role at work, in family and community, have the opportunity to speak up, to learn, to grow, to decide, and to vote.
To Choose People.
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