Colorado workers are barely scraping by, fighting to make ends meet while corporate CEOs and investors rake in record profits. The system is rigged against us but in January, Colorado lawmakers will be able to give workers a fighting chance by passing the Worker Protection Act to empower workers to negotiate for better pay, better benefits, and safer working conditions.
This issue is personal to me. As a former Starbucks barista and union organizer, I lived through the exploitation that far too many workers experience. Working full-time — while a full-time student — wasn’t enough to cover the basics. As an insulin-dependent type 1 diabetic, I constantly fought for hours just to qualify for healthcare benefits. When I wasn’t fighting for hours I worked side gigs just to make ends meet. Rent, groceries, car maintenance, childcare — all these basics were out of reach for so many of us.
Corporate employers like Starbucks know how to manipulate the system to squeeze as much profit as possible. They held hours back from pro-union workers, forcing us into a corner where we had to choose between having enough hours to afford health care or risking our livelihoods to stand up for our rights. And many Colorado workers can’t afford to live off their main job’s wages. We pick up extra jobs just to pay rent and put food on the table. We can’t even consider vacations, pay for mental health care or afford to be sick. Workers carry these burdens while corporations pad their profits.
My...
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