Last week, a woman by the name of Minyon Moore, a principal at a public affairs and
consulting firm known as Dewey Square Group, or DSG,
as I'm going to call it throughout the rest of the segment, was announced as
the chair of the 2024 Democratic National Convention, pretty big deal.
Now, I mentioned DSG or Dewey Square Group because of her involvement in it and
what what that actually means.
Because while the Democratic Party still loves to present itself and
market itself as the party that looks out for the little guy, for ordinary
workers in America, actions certainly speak louder than words, and they keep
choosing leadership that has very cozy ties to corporate interests, okay?
So Moore is a longtime party insider.
She's currently a co-chair of the DNC Rules and
Bylaws Committee, and she was also CEO of the DNC back in 2001.
Now, her consulting firm, okay, DSG,
has had some clients that really like to work against labor in various states.
And I wanna give you some specific examples,
beginning with Lyft in Massachusetts.
Lyft happened to be one of DSG's clients, and they spent quite a bit
of money to lobby against workers in the state of Massachusetts.
So last year,
DSG scored an eight figure payday from Lyft as part of a Massachusetts campaign
regarding the classification of app-based workers, so gig workers.
What the apps wanna do is essentially classify these workers not as employees,
but as private contractors.
And the reason why they wanna do that is so they can avoid having to provide
benefits, healthcare benefits, for instance, to these workers.
Now, Lyft and other companies launched a public influence campaign supporting
a proposed Massachusetts ballot initiative that would classify app-based
drivers as independent contractors among other policies.
Lyft contributed $14 billion to the state group backing the initiative in what
the Boston Globe called the largest political donation ever in Massachusetts.
Now, a study done by UC Berkeley kind of looked into what this ballot
initiative would do if it passes for these gig economy workers.
And the UC Berkeley study found this.
It said that five loopholes in the proposition would cut into workers wages.
They estimated drivers and riders working a typical 15 hours
work week would only make $4.82 per hour after costs,
while those working a 40 hours work week would make $6.74 an hour.
Which I don't think I need to tell you guys that is obviously even
lower than the current abysmal federal minimum wage of $7.25.
And by the way, that UC Berkeley study is right on the nose, because a similar
proposition passed in the state of California prop 22 back in 2020,
and it was devastating for those working in the gig economy.
So I was really happy to find what the fate of this proposition in
Massachusetts ended up being, I'll tell you what that is in just a moment.
But let's go back to the Dewey Square Group Minyon Moore's
consulting firm and how they played a role in all of this.
So apparently, DSG got a lot of that industry money in support of the measure.
The Lyft funded group named Flexibility and Benefits for Massachusetts Drivers,
paid DSG nearly $10.6 million in two payments in August and
September last year, according to state data from the office of Campaign and
Political Finance, making DSG by far its top vendor.
So this consulting firm that the now head
of the Democratic National Convention is part of, okay?
She's the principal at this consulting firm,
viciously worked against workers in the state of Massachusetts
in cahoots with DSG, DSG was doing their dirty deeds for them.
But luckily, last summer, a Massachusetts court threw out the measure and
prevented it from appearing on ballots.
So the fate of the measure ended up being excellent.
But the reason why I'm sharing these details with you is, again,
the person chosen to head the Democratic National Convention and
all the organizing around it, all the planning around it is the principal
at this consulting firm that works on behalf of these monied interests and
against the interests of ordinary Americans, ordinary workers.
I've got more for you.
Let's talk a little bit about the restaurant industry and
DSG's involvement with the restaurant industry.
So Dewey Square Group has other clients, like McDonald's, for instance.
As of its most recent political disclosure last year, McDonald's
was a member of the trade group, the National Restaurant Association,
which is now leading the battle against a California labor law,
the FAST Act, signed last year by Governor Gavin Newsom on Labor Day.
Now, the FAST Act is a priority for workers unions.
It would establish or has established a ten member fast
food council to oversee working conditions and fast food chains.
And it is also expected to increase wages for fast food workers.
But it is now being challenged by a statewide ballot measure,
which is expected to be on the ballot in November of 2024.
Now, DSG, that's Minyon Moore's consulting firm, has a history of
helping the restaurant association out with these kinds of measures.
DSG has worked with, also worked for the National Restaurant Association
as it opposed legislation guaranteeing sick leave for workers and
the pro-union employee Free Choice Act.
In 2009, DSG was paid $772,110 by
the National Restaurant Association, according to The Intercept.
And they have other questionable clients as well, okay?
So what are those questionable clients?
Biodiesel companies.
So let's talk about that.
In 2017, Dewey Square Group received almost $1.2 million
from the national Biodiesel Board.
And in 2019 and 2021, DSG received another 1.5
million from the biodiesel group for consulting.
Now, the issue with that is biodiesel has been
linked to basically cutting down trees,
deforestation in order to use the land as farmland,
in order to essentially create the biodiesel, right?
So it's actually linked to climate change.
And this group that this woman, Minyon Moore,
is part of the principal of is essentially fighting on behalf of this
industry along with other corporate interests, right?
Finally, let's get to the creme de la creme, the private healthcare industry,
because this consulting firm also did a lot of work for them.
For instance, since 2013, DSG has spent nearly $2.5 million for
the tenant healthcare hospital company in lobbying Massachusetts on
nurse safe staffing requirements and other issues.
So the hospital industry has been fighting legislation in the state that has
sought to cap the number of patients that nurses can be assigned to at a given time,
going back to a bill that passed in 2014, applying a cap for
nurses in intensive care units.
Which makes a lot of sense, right?
Nurses are burnt out, healthcare workers are burnt out,
understandably so, as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
Many of them have an unmanageable workload with an unmanageable number
of patients that they have to provide care for.
And so, the nurses unions wanna make sure that they have a cap to,
by the way, not just look out for the nurses, but
also ensure that the patients are getting an adequate quality of care.
But the healthcare companies, the private hospital companies,
they don't like that cuz they don't wanna have to hire more nurses.
They just wanna take the nurses they have and
just load them up with as many patients as they possibly can.
And so they have DSG group essentially work on their behalf in scrapping
any policies that could cap the number of patients that these nurses have.
In 2021 and 2022, Tenant Healthcare was engaged in a ten month
standoff against the nurses union at St. Vincent Hospital in Worcester,
which the company owns, as nurses stayed on strike to demand a series of changes,
including nurse to patient ratios.
Following the strike, Tennant partnered with the anti-union national Right
to Work Legal Defense Foundation to attempt to have the union decertified.
But the hospital nurses voted in March of 2022 to preserve their union.
And guess what?
There's more.
DSG is linked to yet another client.
In 2021, DSG began lobbying for
Molina Healthcare on a senior care program in the state.
The Fortune 500 company is a member of healthcare industry lobbying group
America's Health Insurance Plans, AHIP, which, during Biden's first year
in office, proposed a public health, or I should say opposed, not proposed.
They opposed a public health insurance option, which is probably part of
the reason why we haven't really heard much from Biden about a public option.
Something he campaigned for, something he ran on, and
then immediately forgot about as soon as he was elected into office.
So, look, I give you all this information to say, when the Democratic Party
is puzzled by ordinary Americans turning their backs on them,
refusing to vote for them.
And they don't understand why,
because they love to market themselves as the party that looks out for
the little guy, just understand that people aren't stupid.
And when you go out of your way to name individuals who have these massive
conflicts of interests.
I mean, Minyon Moore being in bed with these corporate interests as a result of
being a principal over at this consulting firm, that is the kind of conflict of
interest that should have raised red flags for the Democratic Party.
Hey, maybe we don't want this woman to be the person leading
the Democratic National Convention, especially at a time when you
have Joe Biden trying to present himself as FDR, right?
He took advantage of Marjorie Greene comparing him to FDR, used her own
words in a political ad to boast about how he's being compared to FDR.
But you actually have to look out for the workers to do that, and
optics also matter.
So maybe take a good hard look at the leadership in the party.
Maybe take a good hard look at the people that you're in bed with and
question whether or not it makes sense to work alongside people who have
a financial interest in working against ordinary workers in this country.
I think that's super important for the Democratic Party.
Hopefully they realize that.
My guess is, they won't, but we'll see.
I just don't understand how they can have all of these issues with all of these
various peoples, not just Minyon Moore.
I mean, look at Biden's cabinet, it is full to the brim with individuals who
worked as consultants, had think tanks prior to the Biden administration.
And take a look at who their clients are.
And when you take a look at who their clients are, you have to ask yourself,
who are these individuals actually looking out for?
Is it the American people or is it the moneyed interests that they worked
with and represented as clients before the administration?