Key Insights:
- Amid The Great Resignation, there is a parallel between Dr. Martin Luther King’s fight for equal rights and labor rights.
- Employees are demanding work environments that don’t endanger their mental or physical health as the pandemic continues.
- The current climate for worker rights could further revolutionize the workplace.
Employees are waking up to their rights to a livable wage and work that doesn’t endanger mental and physical health. Employers are tasked to do more and good ones are even leading the charge on what the right thing to do is in these chaotic and surreal times.
In a way, we are experiencing a revolution that will rival the last industrial revolution and gains in workers rights in its scope and impact on our daily lives. What forefathers stood for and campaigned on challenged us to fight for our rights. On today, this holiday, in honor of the revolutionary Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,, we bear witness to the transformative power of taking a stand or quitting a job.
The battle has evolved from what Dr. King fought for and has in part been realized as the world can be a friendlier place to live if you are Black, but where the ancestors and the last generation left off is an invitation to carry the torch towards true equity. There are parallels between Dr. King’s fight for equal rights and labor rights, which are human rights afterall.
Changes en mass have transformed the way we work and who gets to do certain work. There is a direct line from striving for more in the workplace and building generational Black wealth and, if done right, that generation will start from a better place. Just as Dr. King created a pathway to what we have now, perhaps the current upheaval is just lighting the way for where we ought to be.
