A coalition of 200+ labor, community, civil rights, women’s, human rights and environmental groups will descend on Washington, D.C., April 11-18 to campaign for restoring U.S. democracy, the AFL-CIO announced.

In a statement, the labor federation said its “Democracy Spring” will bring thousands of people together to “collectively denounce the partisan and wealth divisions” now tearing the U.S. apart and to “demand a nation that works for all Americans.” Its website is www.democracyspring.org.

Democracy Spring is “an opportunity to fight forward and to reclaim the economic narrative that supports working families,” the federation added, noting the coalition seeks to “build an independent political movement that aligns with our shared values” of eliminating income inequality, restoring voting rights, preventing corporations from buying elections, strengthening the right to unionize, enhancing women’s rights and comprehensive immigration reform.

The campaign will demand “full democracy at all levels of government . . . .  This is bigger than politics, parties or profits.”

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders is the only presidential hopeful who’s been consistently against ‘free trade’ pacts, according to labor’s analysis. Before Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton was against the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, she supported it. Ohio Gov. John Kasich is “all over the lot,” according to Press Associates Union News Service. Billionaire Donald Trump says he’s against the TPP and blasted China (which he mistakenly associated with TPP although it’s not in the deal), but adds that he’d make such deals with individual countries. And Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio support free trade.

Both Sanders’ voting record and his statements show that he’s opposed every free trade pact since he entered Congress 25 years ago.

Defeating such anti-worker trade pacts is key to organized labor’s Raise The Wage campaign, whose platform unions are using to make endorsements and channel political spending. Labor isn’t against trade, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says, but opposes the lopsided trade the pacts create.

Farmworkers have instituted a boycott of Wendy’s, hoping to force the hamburger chain to end human rights abuses.

The labor-backed Coalition of Immokalee Farmworkers launched the boycott March 3 with a New York protest march from Columbus Circle to the Manhattan corporate offices of Wendy’s board chair Nelson Peltz. His hedge fund, Trian Partners, is the chain’s largest shareholder.

“Though the South added millions of jobs in recent years, the region’s low-road approach to economic development meant many of them are low-paying jobs that leave families fighting to get by,” said the Institute for Southern Studies.

The farmworkers who pick the produce – particularly tomatoes – that top all fast-food chains’ burgers are paid pennies per bushel for the vegetables they harvest. Other fast food chains raised payments after pressure from the coalition, unions, workers, consumers and allies. The other companies pay a penny per pound for the produce they buy from farms in Florida, the Carolinas, New Jersey and Virginia. The added money goes to the farmworkers.

“Wendy’s is profiting from farmworker poverty,” the coalition reported. “Wendy’s stands alone as the last of the five major U.S. fast food corporations to refuse to join the Fair Food Program: McDonald’s, Yum! Brands (Kentucky Fried Chicken), Subway, and Burger King are all part of the program,” which has been lauded by consumer advocates and the Obama White House.

April 28 is Workers Memorial Day, when working people “mourn for the dead and fight for the living,” as the AFL-CIO says. For details, go to www.aflcio.org and search for “Workers memorial Day.”

News briefs courtesy of The Labor Paper