Saru Jayaraman speaks at The 35 Bioneers Conference on March 26, 2026 in Berkeley. Image courtesy of Bioneers.
Every year, the Bioneers conference takes place in Berkeley and hosts an extraordinary group of scientists, artists, authors, and activists. From the Native-led Indigeneity Program, which brings tribes together from across the nation, to the Youth Leadership Program that enables students to attend on scholarships, it is a place where like-minded people gather to share solutions. Here, attendees can rub shoulders with changemakers like Michael Pollan and Dolores Huerta. This year, marking its 35th gathering, brought a wide range of inspiring speakers.
Among them was author and Oscar-nominated filmmaker Julian Brave Noisecat, an enrolled member of the Canim Lake Band Tsq'secen of the Secwepemc (Shuswap) Nation in British Columbia, Canada, who grew up in Oakland. His talk came in the form of a Coyote story or, as he described it, his people’s version of the “Aeneid, the Odyssey, and the Iliad all rolled into one.”
Through skillful storytelling, he drew a parallel between Coyote in an 11,000-year-old story and his own father, while underscoring the importance of the stories people carry. He showed how oral tradition helps communities remember and sustain cultural identity, while also preserving knowledge of events from the distant past. The location of the ice dam in the story that Coyote breaks corresponds to the same place where scientists have recently determined an ice dam broke 11,000 years ago.
Julian Brave Noisecat at the Bioneers Conference on March 26, 2026. Image courtesy of Bioneers.
Many speakers delivered talks that informed as much as they inspired, but it was Saru Jayaraman of One Fair Wage who struck a particularly resonant note. At a time when the price of food, rent, gas, and nearly everything else is rising, wages have stagnated. People with lower incomes often work up to three jobs just to get by. Poverty is the fourth leading cause of death in the United States. According to Jayaraman, half of Americans earn less than what is required to live comfortably in even the lowest cost parts of the country. In short, the nation is in an affordability crisis.
In 2024, the far right capitalized when Donald Trump delivered on No Tax on Tips. While appealing on paper, the policy did not reach most service workers. Two-thirds of tipped workers do not earn enough to pay income tax. “They saw him campaign on it and deliver on it, and they told us, ‘At least he thinks we are important enough to pander to. The other side does not think we are important enough to include in minimum wage increases,” Jayaraman said.
One Fair Wage is a national organization of restaurant and service workers, along with responsible restaurant owners, working to raise wages closer to the cost of living and end subminimum wages nationwide. The group partners with more than 100 labor unions and organizations across the country. With so many people struggling to meet basic needs, the climate crisis often recedes behind more immediate concerns.
“We are fighting for a Living Wage for All. If workers earned wages that truly met the cost of living, $25 nationwide and $30 in higher cost regions, they could work one job instead of three, and have the time and capacity to engage with the climate crisis. When I ask restaurant workers what they would focus on if they could work one job, many say they would turn their attention to climate issues.”
The takeaway from this year’s Bioneers is a sobering reminder that meaningful progress depends on supporting one another across all levels of society. If people continue to struggle, and if the rights of communities and the natural world are eroded, the consequences will be shared by all.
