Empower Workers

Our mobilization for World War II created unprecedented levels of new wealth in America by building a whole new industrial economy. When Roosevelt did this, he unequivocally stood by unions so that the wealth from this new economy would be shared, creating the middle class. Today, we see an unprecedented level of the wealth our economy creates going to the owners and shareholders instead of the workers, and this upward transfer of wealth is decimating our middle and working class. We must reverse this, especially as we embark on a mission to create vast amounts of new wealth by building a new, clean economy. As your Congressman, here is how I plan to make sure workers get their fair share of the prosperity they are building:

• Pass the Raise the Wage Act to increase the federal minimum wage and index it to local cost of living, setting it at $25 in San Francisco.
• Support every American’s right to join a union by passing the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act.
• Promote sectoral bargaining — where workers across an entire industry negotiate wages and conditions together, not just at individual companies — to raise the wages of millions of Americans.
• Crackdown on wage theft — the most common form of theft in the United States — by making intentional and repeated wage theft a felony punishable with jail time.
• Guarantee every worker the legal right to bathroom, water, and rest breaks.