Kansas City is a special place, in the middle of the map and the heart of the nation – home to the most dominant professional football team in the country where mega pop stars fly private jets to visit. Kansas City is home to the winningest team in the National Women’s Soccer League with the first stadium built for a women’s professional sports team in the world. In just two years, Kansas City will be home base for the World Cup. There’s no denying Kansas City is on the rise, but KC isn’t special because of where it sits on a map or the buildings or celebrities that decorate its streets – Kansas City is special because of the unions and people here who fight like hell to ensure Kansas City remains home where they can thrive.
What used to be considered flyover country is now a hot commodity. Kansas City is now home to some of the fastest rising rents in the country. Many of our students in K-12 move multiple times in a school year to find housing, and we’re home to the highest student mobility rate in the state of Missouri. Our city grows, yet our transit system steadily shrinks with routes to Gladstone, Grandview, and Raytown all cut within the last year. Due to lack of transportation, many of our kids fail first period and student tutors find it hard to stay late due lack of bus service. The cost of skyrocketing rents, utilities, and personal vehicles because of lack of transit keep workers overworked and tired, preventing them from realizing their freedom and preventing unions from building with a workforce ready for development and training.
Solidarity and liberation go hand in hand. Community organizers, tenants, workers, and organized labor are one in the same. There shouldn’t be a conflict of interest between them. Community organizers are fighting for the human rights needed to sustain organized labor: great jobs with thriving wages, quality healthcare, dignified affordable housing, robust public transit, and green infrastructure for a sustainable future are all economic justice issues. Solidarity across labor and organizing lines is the only way to build our collective power. On this Independence day, remember that organized labor and community organizing must work hand in hand to fight for the freedom of the worker in Kansas City.
