When: 10:30 a.m. Monday March 2
Where: Garfield Park Lodge, 334 Burton St. SE 49507

On Monday, along with several other organizations from across the state, Our Kitchen Table will hold a press conference to support the Michigan’s Paid Sick Days campaign in conjunction with Mothering Justice and Progress Michigan.

The campaign specifically addresses Michigan workers’ need for paid sick days. According to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, more than 1.5 million Michigan workers — about 46 percent of the state’s private-sector workforce — are not allowed to take a paid sick day when they are ill.

Legislation was introduced earlier this month in both the State House and Senate. The organizations represented at the press conference are among those fighting for this basic worker right. Our Kitchen Table sees this issue as directly connected to its work with Food Justice, since the lack of paid sick days impacts the health of working class families and their ability to resist poverty. OKT has written about how workers within the food system are some of the lowest paid in the country.

Our Kitchen Table joins this fight as one more step in the battle for worker rights and economic justice. We know that standing in solidarity with others fighting for justice is essential, as laid out in our principles of Food Justice, where we state that need for an intersectional analysis of all justice issues.

As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. noted, “no one is free while others are oppressed.”