Elizabeth Warren on Jobs Massachusetts Senator; former head of CFPB; Dem. Presidential Challenger

Require green technology be built by American union jobs

WARREN: This is one of the best parts about the Green New Deal. It's not only about setting the targets on green so that we save this planet. It's about a new deal for people who work. It's about worker justice. I have a green manufacturing plan. There is an estimated $17 trillion market for green around the world--what can we do? And I've got a three-part answer to that.

1. Make the big investment in science and research and development, the things we do best here in America.
2. We say to the world, "you can produce whatever we come up with, you can apply it, but whatever is manufactured from it, you have to manufacture right here in the U.S. That will produce an estimated 1.2 million new union manufacturing jobs.
3. There are places where we're going to need to harden our infrastructure. The oceans are rising. We need our workers to have the good, well-paying jobs as part of that.

New jobs part of fighting climate change; it's all connected

Unions will help rebuild America's middle class

Workers earning $7.25 cannot keep above poverty line

I'm pretty hard-core about this issue. The way I see it, no one in this country should work full-time and still love in poverty--period. But at $7.25 an hour, a mom working a forty-hour-a-week minimum-wage job cannot keep herself and her baby above the poverty line. This is wrong--and this was something the U. S. Congress could make better if we'd just raise the minimum wage. We could fix this now.

How to advance when "flex work" requires 24/7 availability?

How does the guy in the stockroom sign up for auto-repair classes at a nearby vo-tech school if McDonald's won't give him his schedule more than a week in advance? Working two or three jobs is an economic necessity for them as they try to support their families, but with shifting hours in most places, it's hard for them to piece together schedules that will let them show up when called. Some say they look for all-night cleaning jobs so they can have their days free to take second and third jobs.

Republican majority could ring death knell to unions

For decades, Republicans had been fighting unions on virtually every issue that touched working people--the minimum wage, paid family leave, fair scheduling laws, access to affordable health care, Medicaid, Medicare, and on and on. Republicans had also assaulted unions head-on by trying to shut down the National Labor Relations Board, which deals with companies that violate labor laws, and by attacking the Department of Labor's efforts to protect unions.

Make it easier for workers to organize

Minimum wage workers haven't gotten a raise in 7 years

Before CFPA, banks themselves chose bank regulators

And there was another ugly problem: Guess who picked the regulators who had oversight responsibility for the individual banks? Often it was the banks themselves. The results shouldn't have surprised anyone: regulators often tried to outdo each other to be the friendliest, which shifted their role from watchdog to lapdog.

So credit regulation was a tangled mess, and enforcement was spotty at best. We needed an agency--one agency--that would be responsible for writing new rules, for updating the rules as lenders changed their practices, and for enforcing the rules. [That became the CFPA, Consumer Finance Protection Agency, chaired by Warren].

Unions fight for their workers; not like corporate lobbyists

Often enough during the campaign, I would hear the phrase "corporate and labor influence in politics," as if "corporate" and "labor" were somehow two sides of the same coin. Really? Does anyone believe that an army of lobbyists fighting for tax loopholes and special breaks for one corporation is the same as the unions fighting for Social Security and equal pay?

Say the word long and loud: "Union!"

Social Contract: Americans don't become wealthy in isolation

She continues: "Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea? God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along."

Make it easier for workers who want to organize

Hardworking families are the real economy

Raise the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour by 2016.

Congressional summary: Increases the federal minimum wage for employees to:

1. $8.20 an hour beginning 6 months after enactment
2. $9.15 an hour beginning 1 year later,
3. $10.10 an hour beginning 2 years later, and
4. an amount determined by increases in the Consumer Price Index, beginning annually after 3 years.

• Increases the federal minimum wage for tipped employees to $3.00 an hour beginning 6 months after enactment, with annual CPI adjustments.

Proponent's argument in favor (RaiseTheMinimumWage.com): The federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour remains decades out of date, and the federal minimum wage for tipped workers--$2.13 per hour--has not increased in over 20 years. The minimum wage of the past provided significantly more buying power than it does today. The minimum wage of $1.60 an hour in 1968 would be $10.56 today when adjusted for inflation.

Opponent's argument against: (Neil King in Wall Street Journal, Feb. 24, 2014): The CBO concluded that a jump in the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour could eliminate 500,000 jobs. For Republicans, the report provided ammunition that a higher minimum wage would kill jobs. Democrats pointed to the CBO's findings that the higher wage would lift 900,000 people out of poverty. But both sides missed a key finding: That a smaller hike from the current $7.25 to $9.00 an hour would cause almost no pain, and still lift 300,000 people out of poverty while raising the incomes of 7.6 million people.

Congressional Budget Office report: Once fully implemented, the $10.10 option would reduce total employment by about 500,000 workers, or 0.3%. Some people earning slightly more than $10.10 would also have higher earnings, due to the heightened demand for goods and services. The increased earnings for low-wage workers would total $31 billion. Accounting for all increases and decreases, overall real income would rise by $2 billion.

Let Senate cafeteria workers organize their own union.

Excerpts from Letter from 31 Senators to the Compass Group: Senate cafeteria workers are currently pushing for a union through the majority sign up process, but their employer, the Compass Group, has resisted the drive, even after the NLRB upheld charges against the company regarding discriminatory behavior. Although the Compass Group promised the NRLB they would end further unlawful intimidation, the Compass Group has discouraged their organizing campaign.

We request there that the Compass Group commit to reaching an agreement with the union seeking to organize these workers, and recognize the union as the worker's exclusive bargaining representative on the basis of majority representation of signed authorization cards.

OnTheIssues explanation: At issue is how the workers would unionize: the controversial aspect is the "majority of authorization cards," known as "card-check," which makes unionization much more likely.

Opposing argument: (Cato Institute, "Labor's Day is Over," Sep. 6/2009): Card-check would effectively abolish the secret ballot in workplace elections for union representation. It would also require employers to submit to binding government arbitration if they cannot reach an agreement with union representatives, forcing companies to submit to contracts that may imperil their very survival.

Opposing freedom argument: (Heritage Foundation, "Card Checks Block Free Choice," Feb. 21, 2007): Union activists argue that publicly signing a union membership card in the presence of union organizers, known as card-check organizing, is the only way that workers can freely choose to unionize. However, with card checks, union organizers know who has and has not signed up to join the union. This allows them to repeatedly approach and pressure reluctant workers. With this technique, a worker's decision to join the union is binding, while a decision to opt out only means "not this time."