What Occupy Wall Street Protesters And NBA Players Have In Common (Seriously!)

What do Occupy Wall Street protesters have in common with NBA players who are on strike? At first glance, not much. Few basketball stars are worried about avoiding foreclosure, and the people camped out in Zuccotti Park aren’t signing multimillion-dollar endorsement deals with Nike. But as Roosevelt Institute Fellow Dorian Warren tells CNN’s American Morning, they’re all being exploited by the richest of the 1 percent.

Dorian explains that the driving force behind the NBA strike is that team owners are raking in bigger profits than ever while claiming there’s not enough to go around when it comes time to compensate the players who are doing the actual work. Sound familiar? The difference between basketball players and most American workers is that the athletes still have a strong union that’s ready and willing to fight for their interests.

To read more about the strike and why it represents an opportunity for solidarity rather than resentment, check out Dorian’s recent Washington Post op-ed, co-written by Princeton’s Paul Frymer.

Cross-Posted From The Roosevelt Institute’s New Deal 2.0 Blog

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