By Darren Fonzseau · October 23, 2026
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Senator Bernie Sanders: you helped put the workers' compensation crisis in writing in 2015. I am asking you to put the federal solution at the center of your labor agenda today. A workers' revolution that does not fight for injured workers' federal rights is not a complete workers' revolution. A worker does not stop belonging to labor when an injury ends a career.
For ten years, I have asked my own side to put injured workers' federal protections on the table. I have made videos, written letters, raised questions, and used music to be heard. I am asking America to examine that record and ask why the demand remains unfinished.
I worked in healthcare as an aide for about fifteen years, as well as in hard labor. I cared for poor and wealthy patients alike. Three generations of my family have lived through workers' compensation fights, and I represented myself in my own struggle. I know what it means to help people, and what it means to need help. I eventually won a workers' compensation pension. That matters to my family. It also makes me determined that the next family should not have to fight alone.
Senators Bernie Sanders and Patty Murray: I hold you politically accountable for the follow-through. On October 21, 2015, you joined Bobby Scott in urging the Department of Labor to strengthen oversight of state workers' compensation. Your announcement recognized eroding benefits and costs falling on injured workers, families, and public programs. You recognized the problem. Show us the sustained effort to deliver a dependable national floor.
I will not erase that letter to make my criticism easier. It is evidence that you understood the problem. My question is what happened after the warning, and what you will commit to now.
In my experience, my demand was repeatedly pushed aside while healthcare reform took center stage. Senator Sanders, my charge is that your failure to sustain a public fight for this specific federal remedy reflects a political choice. I believe the silence I encountered was intentional. That is my allegation, not an established finding about your private motives or every action you have taken. Answer it with the record: which commission proposal, which federal minimum standards, which hearings, and what continuing campaign?
I also recall being urged to support Scott Stafne and Tamborine Borrelli while my demand for a federal solution was redirected toward alternatives. I want those exchanges examined in their original context: who recommended whom, in which election, and what commitments to injured workers were actually offered? I am not claiming that Sanders personally directed those recommendations. My challenge is to a political culture that could make room for alternative candidates and state proposals while leaving my central demand unanswered.
I call that political abandonment. In my judgment, a movement that gives business savings a place on its agenda while leaving injured workers' full protections unresolved has adopted priorities that fail the laboring class. That is why I say the movement has been co-opted by business priorities. Its leaders should answer with concrete commitments, and workers should judge the results.
If Medicare for All and Whole Washington can be on the table, why can't injured workers' federal protections be there too? After ten years of asking, I want a direct answer. In my judgment, a movement that treats those demands as distractions is failing the workers it claims to represent.
Healthcare belongs on the table. So do income, disability protection, rehabilitation, fair decisions, and support for survivors. Paying a medical bill cannot replace a paycheck. Affordable treatment does not automatically correct a disputed examination or give a family back the years lost fighting for recognition.
The grand bargain must be part of this accounting. Workers generally exchanged the right to sue employers for negligence for defined, no-fault compensation, while employers received protection from those lawsuits. My charge is that labor has continued losing ground in that bargain while our federal demand has waited. Publish a state-by-state account of the past decade: benefits reduced or expanded, barriers added or removed, and protections restored or lost. Where workers' side of the bargain has weakened, explain why employers should retain their side without a dependable remedy for the people harmed. WE CALL FOUL.
To Whole Washington, Medicare for All advocates, and nursing unions: put those commitments beside your healthcare campaign. Tell injured workers exactly what you will fight for. Premium relief can matter to a household. It cannot be the whole measure of solidarity.
In my experience, some healthcare coworkers resented caring for people receiving public benefits. I reject that attitude. I treated patients with the same concern regardless of their income. Solidarity means helping care for people who cannot pay. It also means standing with the injured worker who needs income and a fair decision. I want my fellow healthcare workers to stand beside us. An injured nurse and an injured construction worker both deserve a movement that follows them after the injury.
Representative Julio Cortes: I call foul when my request for federal protections goes unanswered while Whole Washington remains the answer I hear. Will you publicly support a national commission and enforceable federal minimum protections alongside your state healthcare agenda? Tell injured workers what you will do, and when.
It is one thing to campaign for a state healthcare plan. It is another to treat that campaign as an answer to every injured worker's demand. In my experience, that substitution has helped keep our federal fight off the table. I want the record examined, rather than another referral that leaves the central question unanswered.
I believe years of delay have harmed labor and put added pressure on public disability and healthcare systems. The 2015 congressional warning specifically addressed costs shifting toward SSDI, Medicare, and Medicaid. I also want an investigation into any burden falling on veterans and VA care; I am not presenting a measured VA cost estimate here. Workers and patients deserve an accounting of who pays when employers' responsibilities are not met.
We cannot have an honest national discussion about inequality, homelessness, and addiction while leaving injured workers out of it. Ask what happens when an injury ends a paycheck, when benefits are disputed, and when a family must survive a prolonged appeal. Investigate how failures of protection contribute to hardship. These crises have many causes; that is a reason to examine workers' compensation, not an excuse to ignore it.
Do not answer a worker's suffering with "you have a process" and close the conversation. A process must be judged by its fairness, accessibility, timeliness, and results. In my experience, the fight felt stacked against the person already hurt. Show the public whether workers can secure treatment, keep a roof over their heads, and obtain a meaningful correction when a decision is wrong. A right that cannot be used in time is a promise that needs repair. WE CALL FOUL, AMERICA.
When employers describe savings, workers deserve clear answers about responsibility. What protection will remain? Who will pay? Who will correct a wrongful denial? Who will ensure that workers do not lose income protections while the discussion focuses on medical financing?
My mixed-status family is part of this story too. For roughly twenty years, I have wanted the lasting security that broad legalization and amnesty could bring. In my judgment, the left's emphasis on enforcement battles, including more recent calls to "defund ICE," has too often displaced the campaign for AMNESTY. A funding slogan cannot give my family lawful status. Where is the sustained campaign to change the law and keep families together? I want Democrats to face their own record as well as oppose Republican policies. Defend families today, and fight for broad legalization, amnesty, and family unity with the same urgency. Put the bill, the organizing, and the path to passage before the public.
My parents and my service in AmeriCorps taught me to speak up when people are harmed. One person can make a difference. That promise should not expire when one person's questions make a movement uncomfortable.
Here is my demand: a modern National Workers' Compensation Commission with injured workers represented; enforceable federal minimum protections; fair review of medical evidence; and broad legalization and AMNESTY alongside universal healthcare. Name the sponsors. Seek the hearings. Publish the next steps. Report back to the families waiting.
Sanders. Murray. Our Revolution. Whole Washington. Nursing unions and every labor organization: answer the worker after the applause ends.
Ten years of asking is enough. Put the complete demand on the table.
WE CALL FOUL.
Workers Won't Be Silent.
Suicide prevention belongs in this demand for accountability. A Washington State study published in 2025 found elevated suicide risk among workers with lost-time injuries compared with workers whose injuries involved medical benefits alone, including after accounting for pre-injury depression. That association does not establish that a particular denial, doctor, or politician caused an individual death. It does demand attention to injured workers' mental health and the circumstances surrounding prolonged financial and medical insecurity. I want serious investigation of deaths and distress during workers' compensation, SSDI, and VA benefit disputes, with case-specific evidence and findings made public where appropriate. No family should be dismissed with the words "you have a process."
Research source: Applebaum and colleagues, Occupational Injury and Suicide in Washington State, Adjusting for Pre-Injury Depression, American Journal of Industrial Medicine, February 2025.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39690720/
Source: Murray, Scott, Sanders Urge Stronger Oversight of State Workers' Compensation Programs, October 21, 2015.
https://www.murray.senate.gov/murray-scott-sanders-urge-stronger-oversight-of-state-workers-compensation-programs/
Author's record: Calling Out Sheepdog Sanders — Film Script, September 2026.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EdFMowdHoKfz3FOuTCA_CTQlmjXmkCjGpJO75hkOZu0/edit
Editorial note: First-person political opinion, prepared with AI assistance. Darren's account of ten years of appeals is attributed to him. The selected materials do not establish secret coordination or anyone's private motives. No request for comment was sent for this edition.