UCLA (CC-BY 4.0)
Frances Perkins, pictured in in February 1940.
There was a time when the Democratic Party adhered to the needs of the working class. It advanced public services for the collective good and met corporate greed with rigorous regulation. One such visionary among the Democrats was Frances Perkins, the U.S. Secretary of Labor under President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
It was under Perkins’s guidance that Roosevelt passed the monumental New Deal, which included the Social Security Act, the minimum wage, child labor bans and, for the first time, protections for workers unionizing. Thanks to her activism, millions of Americans have since reaped the benefits of old-age pensions and labor rights. Perkins was one of those politicians who held the belief that the power of government should be flexed to improve the lives of everyday people, and she used her position to apply pressure on those above her to pursue it. She was also the first woman to serve in a presidential cabinet.
Today, our Democratic Party is overrun by moderates who have forgotten working people. Congressmembers like Senator Chuck Schumer and Representative Hakeem Jeffries, who accept money from the hawkish American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and investment company BlackRock, cater to the demands of billionaire donors instead of defending workers’ interests.
Former Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat-turned independent from West Virginia, raked in campaign cash from oil conglomerates and then famously refused to fund President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better Act that would have guaranteed paid leave, universal Pre-K, and subsidies for education.
The Democratic Party’s leadership has refused to stand up for the collective good, and in doing so has lost the working class vote to Donald Trump, twice. Despite the MAGA right being the antithesis of what the working class needs, it has at least been frank with constituents about the miseries that plague our society.
Of course, the President and his party lie about these problems, using immigrants as scapegoats instead of offering real solutions. But they highlight the problems, which earns them the trust of working-class voters. And therein lies the potential, giving workers what they want: action. Democrats have refused to do anything, and at this moment, when our rights are under siege, they offer press releases and petitions.
It is evident that we need more leaders with the spirit of Perkins; we need a refresher on what the Democrats used to stand for. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is an example of the type of leader the people are desperate for. Mamdani’s promises of affordable housing, rent control, free buses, and universal child care drove a majority to the ballot box. It’s no wonder that Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York are also popular—they talk about the collective good.
We need more leaders who have an agenda for mass change. And this is what Perkins, the architect of the New Deal, fought for.
“The people are what matter to government . . . and a government should aim to give all the people under its jurisdiction the best possible life,” Perkins said. She knew that it was important to provide a social safety network to root out poverty, provide pensions for seniors, and offer protections for workers.
In a country where women still don’t have access to federal paid maternity leave, and millions are indebted due to a lack of universal health care, there is plenty of opportunity to advance policies that would effectively improve our standard of living. And while many people shy away from use of the word “socialism,” it is the duty of leaders to make their case for why such policies would uplift humanity.
March is Women’s History Month. We should take this time to remember people like Frances Perkins, who had a vision for a better future and the courage to fight for it.
This column was produced for Progressive Perspectives, a project of The Progressive magazine, and distributed by Tribune News Service.