The fight for economic opportunity and workplace rights has no more valuable allies than writers who bring to life the everyday struggles of working people and make the case for changes needed to create good jobs for all of America’s workers. On this score, workers and their advocates have had an unequalled champion in Teresa Tritch, who recently left her position as a member of The New York Times editorial board.
Starting in 2004, Tritch used her platform at the nation’s flagship newspaper to shine a spotlight on economic inequality and to bring a stronger focus on workers’ interests to the paper’s editorial pages. Through the opinion pieces she penned and under her own byline on her NYT opinion blog, Taking Note, Tritch gave voice to the millions of working people our economy and politics leave behind.
An early proponent of a $15 minimum wage and workers’ organizing rights, Tritch has been an invaluable ally to the Fight for $15 movement, writing editorials on the impact of underpaid work and the need for significant policy reform to end working poverty. Earlier she followed and wrote about the case of Evelyn Coke, a home care worker who challenged the Labor Department rule denying minimum wage and overtime protections to these low-wage workers. Tritch’s commentary on behalf of this excluded workforce helped lay the foundation for the Labor Department’s 2014 rule, extending basic federal pay protections to these women whose work makes work possible for the rest of us. In these and other areas, Tritch used her platform actively and persistently to advance the dialogue on economic wrongs and the crucial changes needed to rebalance the economy.
Like Beth Shulman—in whose memory NELP bestows this award and whose book, The Betrayal of Work, similarly chronicles the struggles of working people cheated of the basic right to dignity, opportunity and security through their labor—Tritch has used her gifts as a writer and a journalist to give voice to those without a voice and to make the case that all work has value and all working people should be valued.
Teresa Tritch’s compassion, commitment, and tireless advocacy embody all that Beth Shulman worked for and fought for throughout her life and career. Join us next Wednesday, November 29 as we recognize Teresa Tritch as our 2017 Beth Shulman Fellow.
