"Make no mistake, those profiting from the status quo have been pitting workers against each other for centuries, and it is a strategy designed to stop us from realizing our collective power," union leader Lisa Brown writes. "There is a good reason that those on top want to stop workers from building this collective power – because when we organize together, we win."

Our role in the progressive movement in Maryland is to build power for working families and workers in the workplace – hence the observances of Labor Day. Now that Labor Day has passed, most schools are back in session and … local governments are back in business and need to be checked by grassroots progressives. Read about a bill hearing in Anne Arundel County Council TONIGHT, below.

After a successful Town Hall in Prince George’s challenging Rep. Steny Hoyer to get on board with Medicare for All (HR 1384) or get out of the way, the Maryland Progressive Healthcare Coalition is revving up plans for Montgomery County and Baltimore action. In this account from Progressive Breakfast, Sameena Mustafa describes the kind of grassroots, engaged activism it takes to move the needle when the people’s needs are set aside for the profit of big corporations and the political system they have captured.

At Progressive Maryland (and with our progressive allies) we work for environmental justice, reform of the criminal justice/policing system  and cutting the school-to-prison pipeline, fair elections that loosen the grip of big money on our politics, and reform of the systems that keep our families trapped in poverty in the midst of wealth.

While activists fight around the country to lower the prices greedy Big Pharma charges for high-priced drugs, an innovative panel in Maryland to cut those excessive prices is stalled by the governor's refusal to release its appropriated funding.

Gov. Larry Hogan has waved the no-tax flag in front of his base at the Maryland Association of Counties beach blast in Ocean City. Assembly Democrats are digging in for a fight to improve the state's schools in spite of Hogan's resistance.

Medicare for All remains atop this week’s agenda as we tackle the deep need in Maryland and around the nation for comprehensive, universal health care – and the three Maryland members of Congress who have not joined the 118 Democratic co-sponsors of HR 1384, Reps. Steny Hoyer, Dutch Ruppersburger and David Trone. We challenged Rep. Hoyer to sign on at our Town Hall this past Saturday, as you see below (and you can watch it preserved on livestream).

On Saturday, August 17^th, 2 - 4pm, The Maryland Progressive Healthcare Coalition will convene a Medicare For All Town Hall in House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer’s Congressional District 5. Doctors and policy experts will highlight the pitfalls of the current system and explain Medicare For All. As a coalition of healthcare activists and progressive organizations throughout the state, our goals are to educate the public and challenge the Congressman to stand with his constituents, not with the healthcare industry.

 Medicare for All tops this week’s agenda as we tackle the deep need in Maryland and around the nation for comprehensive, universal health care – and the three Maryland members of Congress who have not joined the 118 Democratic co-sponsors of HR 1384, Reps. Steny Hoyer, Dutch Ruppersburger and David Trone. Hoyer faces questions about it in his own district this Saturday, Aug. 17 -- see more below.

Join Progressive Maryland and 2018 Gubernatorial nominee Ben Jealous on Saturday, September 7 in Prince George's for an organizing conversation on the issues in our criminal justice system, mass incarceration and the current realities of structural racism in our legal system.