Portside

As many as 400 workers at more than 60 fast food restaurants in the Detroit metro area walked off the job on Friday. The fast food strike in Detroit is the second major labor action to hit an American city’s fast food industry this week: On Wednesday and Thursday, more than 100 workers in St. Louis walked off the job at roughly 30 different restaurants. These rolling walkouts followed similar actions in New York, central Pennsylvania, and Chicago.

Voters backed progressive policy measures

In this year’s election, voters given the opportunity to weigh in directly on questions of economic justice showed policy preferences far more progressive than those reflected in many national and state election outcomes.

People are hurting, and millions of them didn’t vote either way. They just didn’t vote. I want people to hear that. The vote totals went down. They didn’t go up. They went down. And we have to take this very seriously.

“By challenging feelings of isolation and polarization, breaking down division, and creating long-term relationships, we can achieve our goal of building a democracy and economy that works for all of us.”

Ballot initiatives offer a tool “to not only block authoritarian rule and ideology, but to build a world where all of us thrive and live with dignity — the world we deserve.”

A ballot measure to raise pay to $23 an hour could help workers in labor negotiations and boost the local economy.