Labor commissioner candidate wants to use position to protect workers

ALBANY – For Georgia Labor commissioner candidate Michelle “Michi” Sanchez the desire to protect Georgia’s workers has a personal edge, and she said the position would be one in which she could continue her passion for improving people’s lives.

Sanchez, who is in a runoff with Nikki Porcher in the Democratic runoff election Tuesday, campaigned in Albany on Wednesday. 

Working with an attorney who dealt with the labor issues of the largely migrant workers in the chicken processing facilities in her native Gainesville in her 20s, Sanchez said she saw laborerss who had been severely injured working in those dangerous positions.

“I saw things like workers’ claims being denied, being fired from their job,” she said. “That was one of my first experiences with worker mistreatment.”

Inspired by Bernie Sanders in 2015 during his campaign for the 2016 Democratic nomination for president and by local Democrats, Sanchez ran for state House District 30 in 2016, performing 9 percentage points better than Hillary Clinton did in the district that year.

“I learned two things: I wanted to continue seeking justice, and I never wanted to run for public office again,” she said. “I decided to work behind the scenes, organizing, advocacy work. I did lobbying for different causes, pushing for people and their rights.”

During the COVID-19 pandemic the candidate organized to help protect poultry workers who were forced to work with personal protective equipment and to take on additional job shifts

It took a couple of personal incidents to pull Sanchez back into electoral politics. 

Her late daughter, Hayley, had taken a gap year after graduating high school to figure out what she wanted to do and avoid spending money on a college degree that may not have benefited her. 

At 20, Hayley was promised a job by an employer who did not keep that promise and was devastated by the setback, Sanchez said. Later, her daughter was offered a job and was misclassified and shifted to a 90-day period in a lower-paying position. 

Things got worse for Hayley, and the legal system brought no justice for her at that job, the candidate said. If elected, Sanchez said assisting workers who have faced similar challenges or work-related issues like having pay withheld illegally or who have been misclassified would be high among her priorities. 

Sanchez also said she would work to make the office’s online presence more accessible for speakers of other languages.

Georgia has been rated for years as the best state in which to do business, she said, but worker protections should now be a focus of the next Labor commissioner.

“My life work has been centered on working-class families of Georgia and fighting for equality and justice,” Sanchez said.