That’s why labor consultant and author Jane McAlevey recommends that unions today follow the example of Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) organizers. In the post-war era, she reports, they better appreciated the fact that former service members had “strategic value” in strike-related PR campaigns, not to mention “experience with discipline, military formation, and overcoming fear and adversity,” all very useful on militant picket-lines.

According to data compiled by the UC Berkeley Labor Center, 80% of the estimated 145,000 skilled nursing facility workers in California (as of 2019) are women, and 72% are people of color. More than half, about 80,000, earn less than $20 an hour.

Why has the higher wages movement exploded in California? How might the fight for higher minimum wages impact the 2022 mid-terms? And what’s next for the movement?