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Good evening to my fellow working families of these United States,

I am Andraneice Dorsey, a worker leader and organizer with Unemployed Workers United, here to give you the State of Our Workers' address.

Since the inception of Unemployed Workers United, we’ve sought to organize Unemployed, Underemployed, and workers in precarious working conditions that were being greatly impacted by the health and economic crisis that COVID further exposed.

Since 2020, we’ve engaged over 160,000 workers in partnership with national and local organizations in the Southeast and Southwest regions of the country. Along the way, we have learned that most of them lost their income during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. Some are still waiting for their pandemic unemployment insurance benefits, while others were unfairly denied regular unemployment and federal pandemic unemployment compensation (FPUC) because their Governors arbitrarily ended FPUC in the summer of 2021.

We hear the job market is growing but most workers like me aren’t feeling the positive impact of that. At the same time mass waves of worker-led organizing efforts across the country are pointing to the need for more workers to have the opportunity to secure a steady and good quality job that will respect their rights in the workplace and their dignity. We want good union jobs for all of us.

“Until a few months ago, I was one of those unemployed workers who had lost their income during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. I couldn’t find an adequate job to support my family. I saw myself searching for ways to navigate the unemployment insurance system in my state of Tennessee and helping others do the same. Then I found Unemployed Workers United and today I remain committed to organizing and reaching more people than before.”

Our national leaders have overwhelmingly sided with corporations over workers again and again. They continue to rely on outdated labor laws and have been unwilling to update those same labor laws. UWU is dedicated to creating a movement through local power to change this paradigm.

The Biden Harris administration must take bold action in their second year in office to:

  • Have the Department of Labor pay out directly the pandemic unemployment benefits that are owed to individuals that were denied this benefit arbitrarily by their Governors in states like AZ, TX and TN.
  • Cancel All Student Loan Dept
  • Update executive order 11246 to increase Black workers' job opportunities
  • Create an affirmative process to protect immigrant workers from deportation when having labor disputes at work.
  • Invest money in creating good quality jobs for our communities not to militarize and criminalize them.

UWU will continue pushing democratic leadership to pass progressive legislation such as the PRO Act and Child Tax Credit permanent extension to help folks at work and home on the pathway to building a better society.

And we will continue to hold every elected leader in our communities that is choosing to side with corporations over it’s constituency and do our part to elect new leaders to offices who will put our families first and create policies that will give us an equitable opportunity to pursue our happiness.

We know poor and working class people's lives have always been torn apart by capitalism and imperialism. As a Black woman in the South who has struggled through unemployment and fights for a better life for myself and my family, I know there are many people around the world, doing the same thing for a better future. I stand with poor and working class people across the world organizing and fighting for a better future for all of us. We are not sitting by as corporations and governments try to make us disposable. We are fighting for our rights. For our families. For our communities. The norm of this nation is no longer acceptable.

Unemployed Workers United is creating the new normal.

We are the game changers of our own communities and workplaces. Get involved with Unemployed Workers United today.

Become a member of Unemployed Worker United now!