A Historic Opportunity: Hilda Solis and the Financial Crisis

By Andrew Thomaides, AlterNet. Posted January 26, 2009.

It's important to recognize that all the achievements, progressive policies, and precedents Frances Perkins helped institutionalize throughout her life were not the work of her alone, even though she was a major force behind the many successes. Without the militancy of organized labor and everyday working women and men who organized themselves around the various initiatives she brought into government, things would have been quite different, and her power not nearly as substantial as it was. As Hilda Solis takes the helm as Labor Secretary, her role in determining whether this economic crisis bears any fruit for the working class of America is critical, and should not be underestimated.

Like Frances Perkins, Hilda Solis is also a very passionate, serious, and courageous leader and also happens to be the most progressive appointee in the cabinet of the new administration. She has deep ties to organized labor, the immigrant community, and movements for environmental justice. With the right amount of grassroots support and pressure, Solis could make a serious contribution to the formulation of progressive legislation that would greatly impact and improve the daily lives of the majority of Americans long into the future. The financial crisis the Obama administration has inherited is the greatest of our time. It presents the same opportunities that were there in 1933 when Frances Perkins and FDR took over the White House and created the modern welfare state, bringing the US out of the Great Depression and into the 20th century socially and economically. It is our duty to make sure Hilda Solis understands the power of her position and the immense opportunity sitting before her during this critical moment in American history. As Howard Zinn, one of this country's most celebrated historians put it, "The innovations of the New Deal were fueled by the militant demands for change that swept the country as FDR began his presidency: the tenants' groups; the Unemployed Councils; the millions on strike on the West Coast, in the Midwest and the South; the disruptive actions of desperate people seeking food, housing, jobs--the turmoil threatening the foundations of American capitalism. We will need a similar mobilization of citizens today, to unmoor from corporate control whoever becomes President. To match the New Deal, to go beyond it, is an idea whose time has come." We need Hilda Solis to have the courage to stand up for the average working American and once again make the cabinet position of Secretary of Labor one of the most powerful positions in the United States government. At this critical juncture in American history, let's not hope Hilda Solis is the Frances Perkins of our time; let's make her the Frances Perkins of our time.

See more stories tagged with: labor, economy, financial crisis, hilda solis, frances perkins

Andrew Thomaides is a freelance journalist and activist in Washington, D.C.

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