For several decades, both major parties - bankrolled by Big Business, watched as deindustrialization, mass layoffs and a changing tech-driven economy hollowed out the former Industrial Heartland.

Working-Class Communities, feeling betrayed by a Democratic Party that embraced neo-liberalism and a Republican Party that offers only false populism and a fascistic grab for total political control, have been left searching for representation.

I’m from Detroit where the Auto Industry’s roots run deep.

My family has generations of Union Members who worked at General Motors, Ford and Chrysler (before the last was bought out and reconfigured as Stellantis).

And in Michigan, we know firsthand what happens when industry leaves town seeking lower wages and higher profit margins.

It impoverishes people in Working-Class neighborhoods, our schools lose funding and our social services decline.

Yet, a new study from the Center for Working-Class Politics (CWCP), the Rutgers LEARN Labor Education Program and the Labor Institute points to a potential, and very possible, roadmap out of this crisis.

The data confirms what Working People, like the Auto Workers in Detroit, have long known: Bold, Working-Class politics centered on economic justice is not just popular - it is a winning message capable of reclaiming the Rust Belt from the MAGA right and the corporate Democrats who enabled them.

The report’s findings were echoed by the class-oriented agenda put forward by United Auto Workers (UAW) President Shawn Fain, who articulated the core issues, based on internal Union polling, that unite the whole of the Working Class: Wages, health care, retirement and time.

To Continue Reading This Labor News Report, Go To: Workers’ agenda, not Wall Street’s can win Rust Belt – People's World