Workers of the World, United
Mary Joyce Carlson has spent most of her life fighting for fair labor practices. She is an attorney for the Fight for $15, a movement to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour. While that platform may have once seemed a dream, through the dogged work of Carlson and others, it has turned into real policy in cities across the country. Carlson’s fight is not limited to the United States; she has developed partnerships in other countries to unite workers across national borders and apply global pressure to multinational companies.
On Tuesday, Carlson will be accepting the 2018 George Barrett Award for Public Interest Law from the Sidney Hillman Foundation to recognize the role she has played in advocating for workers all over the world. CityLab spoke to Carlson about the fight for wages domestically and internationally, successful organizing tactics, and how globalization has affected the labor movement.