Empowering The American Worker Through Decentralized Finance
by Larry Williams Jr.
American workers have endured an unrelenting erosion of rights and power for decades. From stagnant wages to shrinking unions, the gig economy’s precarity to the looming threat of AI-driven job loss, the modern worker faces a system tilted hard towards capital and away from labor. Yet even as faith in organized labor reaches historic highs among younger generations, worker organizing remains chronically underfunded. The tools, infrastructure, and imagination needed to sustain a 21st-century labor movement are lagging far behind.
But a new opportunity to empower organized labor is emerging from an unexpected source: stablecoins—a class of digital assets pegged to the U.S. dollar and newly legitimized through landmark federal legislation. By establishing a regulated framework for digital dollars, Congress has opened the door for us to harness decentralized finance (DeFi) for worker power. For the very first time, the same technology that transformed global capital markets can be used to build transparent, censorship-resistant financial tools that protect and empower workers. The passage of stablecoin regulation represents a historic milestone, finally separating the real-world utility of digital dollars from the speculative frenzy that has dominated the crypto landscape.
Seizing a Generational Moment
The progressive movement once led the charge to create cooperative banks, credit unions, and social insurance programs. That same spirit can be revived through digital finance. The passage of stablecoin legislation can give labor a seat at a table long dominated by Wall Street and Silicon Valley. If worker advocates act now by building regulated, pro-labor infrastructure, they can help shape the next era of economic democracy.
This is, however, a fleeting window and the public appetite for worker power is surging. Open Frontier, a new pro-labor nonprofit, will take up this mission to develop decentralized financial systems that empower workers, fund organizing, and ensure that the gains of technology flow not just upward, but outward to the people who make the economy run.
The Unprecedented Attack on the American Worker
Over the past half-century, collective bargaining rights have been hollowed out and union density has been decimated. Union membership has fallen from more than one in five workers in the 1970s to roughly one in ten today. As union power waned, wealth inequality has soared: the share of income captured by the top 1% has doubled, while real wages for most workers have barely budged.
Paradoxically, this crisis comes as labor’s balance sheets have never looked stronger. Between 2010 and 2023, organized labor’s net assets increased 225% to more than $35 billion, even as membership continued to decline. In 2021, unions held more assets than nearly every U.S. foundation but much of this capital sits dormant rather than fueling new organizing. Meanwhile, the broader financial system remains fragile, favoring bailouts for corporations while workers face austerity, inflation, and pension insecurity.
The Funding Crisis in Organizing
Labor is losing the long game by fighting short-sighted, short-term battles. Corporate and conservative movements patiently deploy vast amounts of capital to shape policy and public opinion through think tanks, legal networks, and political infrastructure that took decades to build, while worker organizations rely on episodic campaigns and emergency fundraising. The result is an asymmetrical battlefield: the Right invests for generations; labor scrambles for grants.
This chronic underfunding prevents unions from sustaining long strikes, meaningfully organizing emerging sectors like tech and logistics, or experimenting with new models of worker ownership. The movement remains reactive, defending the remnants of 20th-century labor power instead of building the foundations of a one for the 21st century.
The Stablecoin Opportunity
That can change. Recent stablecoin regulation marks a historic turning point, separating the utility of digital dollars from the speculative chaos that has defined much of crypto. With oversight and consumer protections now in place, stablecoins offer something profoundly practical: a programmable, transparent, and secure form of digital money that can move instantly across borders without dependence on traditional banks.
For labor, this opens a frontier of financial freedom. Regulated stablecoins enable decentralized strike funds: pools of capital that can be deployed rapidly and transparently, immune from political interference or financial censorship. They facilitate mutual aid networks that let workers help one another directly, without intermediaries. They underpin worker-owned digital cooperatives, such as ride-share or delivery platforms where drivers and couriers are co-owners, paid in digital dollars settled on open ledgers. The call is simple: join us. Policymakers, unions, and rank-and-file workers alike can help design the financial architecture of the future. Through pilot projects, policy advocacy, and education, we can ensure that digital dollars serve democratic ends. The next labor movement won’t just demand a fair share of the economy — it will build it.