RIPDA gives Mike Araujo the Progressive Hero award

Mike Araujo of Restaurant Opportunities Center RI and the One Fair Wage Coalition was given the Progressive Hero award by the RI Progressive Democrats of America (RIPDA) last night at a fundraising event held at Ogie’s Trailer Park in the West End of Providence. RIPDA Coordinator Sam Bell presented the award, noting that the award is usually given to a politician.

Araujo, in his acceptance speech, radicalized the event by calling attention to the ongoing labor struggles of hotel workers downtown, saying, “I can’t help but think that, right now, downtown, there’s a picket line going on because there are hotel workers being treated unfairly by The Procaccianti Group… We all profit from [the abuse of low wage workers]when we don’t think about it…

“As a movement we’ve never been courageous enough to say that we’re going to bend back the teeth of capitalism by organizing, we’re going to break off the fangs of militarism by teaching, and we’re going to share the wealth that we all build together by organizing every worker into a union that can defend them through their own means.”