How can we build a coalition on progressive issues?

One of the big challenges for progressives is how we connect up campaigning on different issues to build effective coalitions for change. This is central to the mission of Liberal Conspiracy, recognizing that there are too few spaces where progressives from different perspectives come together to forge strategies for change.

The recession now brings this into sharp focus. There may be an opportunity to challenge the dominance of deregulation, to question inequality at the very top, and remake the public case for the role of the state.

Another instinct will be ‘charity begins at home’: the enormous effects on the developing world of rising food and energy prices have been a very minor theme of political and media discussion given a financial crisis and economic recession. This is the crucial year for a post-Kyoto climate change deal – by Copenhagen this December. Will the deal we need be credit crunched?
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Waiters must get the tips we give them

Throughout my teenage years and early twenties I had many jobs as a waitress, in a number of different restaurants. Sometimes fun, with friendly customers, plenty of staff camaraderie and after-work drinks, other times gruelling with hot hours spent in a nasty uniform trying not to look embarrassed as I handed over another overcooked/overpriced/much delayed by a fight between the chefs, pizza.

Part of what drew me to these jobs was the tips – by smiling, being helpful and pandering to odd food requests I could significantly increase the amount I took home at the end of a ten hour shift thanks to the generosity of some of those I waited on. Lucky, since these jobs usually had pretty low hourly rates.

But I was furious when I realised the last restaurant I worked in not only paid a low hourly rate but actually took money from my tips as a top up to the minimum wage.
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