Month: September 2026

A Call for Urgent Action on AI Safety and Accountability

Posted on September 16, 2026

The window for action is closing rapidly.

For too long, Congress has taken no action regarding the serious economic and environmental risks of Artificial Intelligence. Only when the stark, existential threat to human survival was impossible to ignore did national leaders begin to take notice.

This summer, Senator Bernie Sanders sent a letter directly to the CEOs of OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta. He reminded them that each had previously committed to pause development if their systems became too dangerous to safely control. He asked them to honor their own words: “In the interest of humanity, stand by your words. Pause AI development. It is not too late to avoid disaster.”

The letter concluded: “If you do not take appropriate action now, my colleagues and I in the U.S. Senate will.”

Now that AI developers are expressing alarms about human extinction, Congress is finally starting to listen. Public hearings are happening and many bills are being drafted. But the pressure has to keep coming.

That’s why we’re asking you to write to your U.S. Representative and your two U.S. Senators and tell them the AI race needs a pause, and the public-interest—the common good, not private profit—needs to be protected.

The build-out of potentially AI-induced extinction-level technologies cannot be left to a handful of billionaires playing God with the future of humanity.

Advanced technical safeguards—like requiring companies to retrain models to delete dangerous nuclear and biological knowledge, keeping agents off open networks, and installing kill switches—are of dire consequence and must be passed immediately. Congress needs to enact a moratorium on new data centers, ban “superintelligence” models and mandate third-party independent evaluators be embedded in all the tech companies.

In addition, Congress cannot continue to disregard the human cost of an unregulated AI. They must not focus solely on existential threats while ignoring the immediate crises facing our workforce, our health care, our privacy, the natural resources of our local communities and the risk of cyber-attacks to our financial, transportation and medical systems.

If Congress fails to act now, the unregulated expansion of AI will result in the loss of millions of jobs. Because our economic system relies heavily on employment-based insurance coverage, these job losses will directly cause a catastrophic loss of healthcare coverage for millions of families. And because Social Security and Medicare are funded by payroll tax, the security of our seniors is in jeopardy.

Artificial Intelligence is the most powerful, transformative technology in human history. While it offers immense potential to accelerate economic growth and uncover medical and scientific breakthroughs, it presents unprecedented economic, environmental, technological, and existential risks.

So far, Congress has done nothing to prepare for or mitigate these and many more impacts on our lives, our livelihoods and our communities. Let them know that is unacceptable.

Our economy, our environment, and our democracy depend on whether the public, we the people, have a say in what AI is for, what AI does, and what AI is never allowed to do.

The Sanders Institute will expand on some of the issues raised in this email in the coming days. We’d be interested in your thoughts.

Please join us in urging Congress to take action to protect our lives, our livelihoods and our communities.

Thank you,

Jane O’Meara Sanders
The Sanders Institute

Josh Fox, award-winning filmmaker and environmental activist, joins the Sanders Institute

Posted on September 10, 2026

We are pleased to share the news that Josh Fox, award-winning filmmaker and environmental activist, is joining the Sanders Institute as our newest Fellow.

For nearly three decades, Josh’s films and journalism have confronted the environmental crisis, challenged corporate power, and inspired people worldwide to take action. Demonstrating the power of art to build movements and effect change, his work embodies the truth-telling and moral urgency that reflects our principles at the Sanders Institute.

Josh’s landmark documentary “Gasland” helped galvanize a movement against fracking and other forms of extreme fossil fuel extraction, playing a pivotal role in banning it in New York State and the Delaware River Basin, the water source for 16 million people. His latest film, “The Welcome Table,” which premiered on HBO just this summer, is an epic spanning five continents that examines how climate change could displace billions of people and cause the largest mass migration in human history.

Josh has dedicated his life and extraordinary creative talent to telling the truth about the environmental crisis, exposing the powerful interests standing in the way of change, and lifting the voices of communities fighting for their future. His honors include an Academy Award nomination, five Emmy nominations and an Emmy Award.

Josh will be integral to the Sanders Institute’s storytelling as we continue to elevate environmental issues and climate policy.

Would you give Josh a warm Sanders Institute welcome by signing our welcome card?

As a Fellow, Josh joins a network of thought leaders advancing bold, progressive solutions to the challenges of our time. You can see a full list of our fellows here.

This Labor Day, let’s honor the workers who built this country

Posted on September 4, 2026

In 1886, workers around the country launched a general strike, with a simple demand: “Eight Hours for work. Eight hours for rest. Eight hours for what we will.”

In 1894, Pullman railroad workers organized a nationwide railroad strike in response to wage cuts. President Grover Cleveland used federal troops to break it.

In 1902, 140,000 coal miners in Pennsylvania struck for higher pay and shorter hours. President Theodore Roosevelt intervened as a mediator rather than backing the mine owners, resulting in a victory for the union.

In 1914, striking coal miners and their families set up a tent colony outside a Rockefeller-owned mine in Ludlow, Colorado, with very different results. The Colorado National Guard and private security forces set the tents on fire, killing 25 people.

In 1919, Black sharecroppers in Elaine, Arkansas joined the Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America,  gathered for a meeting only to be attacked by armed men and, later, by soldiers.

In 1921, the West Virginia Coal Wars saw armed confrontations between 10,000 miners and 3,000 strikebreakers and, eventually, the U.S. Army.

In 1936, auto workers in Flint, Michigan occupied their factories, forcing General Motors to recognize the union.

Most of these, and many more attempts to organize, were met with deadly violence.

And yet, workers continued to organize. And they won.

The eight-hour day. The weekend. The minimum wage. Child labor laws. Workplace safety rules. Social Security. Medicare. The right to bargain collectively. The 40-hour workweek.

So many things that we now take for granted, every single one was won because working people stood together and demanded it.

And every single one was opposed, often with violence, by the wealthy and elite of their time.

Today’s war on workers still rages on from the shop floor to the Senate floor.

According to a recent report by the Economic Policy Institute, U.S. employers spend roughly $1.7 billion a year on union-avoidance consultants and law firms to keep workers from organizing and bargaining for better pay and working conditions.1

SpaceX, Trader Joe’s, and Starbucks corporations have all filed lawsuits asking the Supreme Court to declare the 1935 National Labor Relations Act, which protects the right to organize, unconstitutional.2

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the most powerful business lobby in Washington, spends tens of millions of dollars every year opposing every effort to increase the minimum wage, paid-family leave bill, and other pro-worker reform that comes before Congress.3

Recent reporting shows that the 20 largest donors in the midterm elections have already spent over $1.2 billion in federal races, overwhelmingly backing anti-union, anti-worker candidates.4

But workers are fighting back – and winning.

  • Today, 7 in 10 Americans approve of unions, the highest public approval in six decades.5
  • 16.5 million American workers were represented by a union in 2025 – the highest number in 16 years.6

Every gain working people have ever made in this country has been won by struggle. By people whose names we do not know, in places we have never heard of, fighting battles they did not always win.

Despite a long history of corporate campaigns trying to undo those gains, workers in red states and blue states, from factories to fast food restaurants and across party lines, are organizing and winning.

The collective effort will not be easy, and we are not going to win overnight. But if we continue to stand together, we can honor those who paved the way before us and once again show that the labor movement is the most powerful force for ordinary people in the history of this country.

That is what – and who – we celebrate this weekend.

In solidarity,

David Driscoll, Co-Founder/Executive Director
The Sanders Institute

If you or someone you know is thinking about organizing, here are some resources that can help:

 

If you want to show up to support workers action this weekend, the AFL-CIO’s Workers’ Labor Day lists actions and events in your area.

1 EPI: U.S. employers spend roughly $1.7 billion annually on union avoidance
2 The Guardian: Trader Joe’s and Starbucks are helping Elon Musk undermine the US government
3 Open Secrets: US Chamber of Commerce
4 New York Times: Meet the Megadonors Who Have Poured $1.2 Billion Into the Midterms
5: Gallup: Labor Union Approval Relatively Steady
6: EPI: Workers’ resolve drives increase in unionization in 2025