Thread by @StrikeDebt

Labor unions across the nation are demanding @POTUS use his executive authority to #CancelStudentDebt.

Here’s why.

Student debt is wage theft. Plain and simple. Interest-heavy loan payments take a huge bite out of workers' take home pay every month. They’re one of the most regressive kinds of pay cuts – the poor, the working class and Black/brown folks lose the most.

Student debt is also a form of indenture. If you have to take on debts in order to get a job—and then you have to toil for years to pay it off— that’s the definition of indentured labor.

As long as student debt stays on the table, every contract win going forward is undermined. Until student debt is canceled (and college is made free), every dollar workers win at the bargaining table is sapped by loan payments/ballooning interest.

Student debt even robs workers of the freedom to pursue socially meaningful employment. High debt loads discourage folks from low-income backgrounds from taking on socially necessary work: public interest law, teaching, social work, rural dentistry or family practice medicine.

If Biden wants to be the ‘most pro-union president’, canceling student debt with a flick of a pen will ensure that workers keep their hard-earned dollars in their pockets – not in the banks of loan servicers.

Canceling student debt circumvents the gridlock of Congress, and eliminates the kind of malarky tactics workers are used to seeing from employers bent on undermining union power, such as concessionary bargaining, unfair labor practices, and drawn-out arbitration processes.

Think about it: If done right, Biden could sign a piece of paper to cancel student debt, and workers everywhere get a life-saving pay raise.

Also: Student debt gives employers a major advantage over workers in negotiations and makes workers less likely to fight back against poor working conditions.

Fearing the risks, workers who rely on a steady paycheck to service overwhelming debts are more hesitant to rock the boat by participating in workplace organizing campaigns, labor strikes, and other actions that build worker power.

Student debt also drives workers to seek second (or 3rd, or 4th) sources of income in the gig economy to stay on top of payments. The growth of the gig economy gives companies easy access to cheap labor, allowing employers to avoid paying workers fairly or providing benefits.

This dynamic undermines organized labor and limits the ability of unionized workers to demand better conditions.

Debt robs workers of their leisure time. As wages decrease/debt increases, workers spend more hours/weeks of their lives working. Debt has undermined one of labor’s biggest wins: the weekend.

Which union member would not want to send their children to a tuition-free, quality college?

We don’t know any, and we bet you don’t either.