Republican Party on Jobs Party Platform

Wage discrimination bill is regulatory overreach

Republicans: Oppose wage discrimination bill as regulatory overreach, with all but seven House Republicans voting against it.

Democrats: Prohibit wage discrimination on basis of sex. Bill made it easier to sue for wage discrimination and required Department of Labor to conduct studies to eliminate pay disparities. Senate hasn't considered.

ObamaCare slows employment growth; discourages fulltime work

Another harmful feature of Obamacare coincides with troubling trends in the labor market. For example, more than 6.4 million Americans are now working part-time because they cannot find full-time work; that is over two million more than the amount seen before the recession. And there is reason to believe Obamacare has stalled progress in reducing that figure. New data shows a decline in the average hours worked per week by lower-wage employees and many more employees working just below 30 hours per week.

NLRB is skewed in favor of special-interest unions

It is hard to imagine a federal agency that has imposed more radical change on America's workplaces than the political appointees at the National Labor Relations Board. Since 2009, the NLRB has consistently pursued an agenda that favors union activism while turning a blind eye to the concerns of employers and rank-and-file union members.

Task Force Solution: Hold the rogue NLRB accountable to workers and employers.

House Republicans will conduct aggressive oversight of the NLRB's attempts to implement regulations skewed in favor of special-interest union supporters. House Republicans will advocate for legislative solutions that overturn the board's extreme agenda & restore labor policies that have served workers and employers well for decades, including guaranteeing fair union elections, reinstating the traditional joint employer standard, and ensuring bargaining units promote the best interests of all workers.

Support employee ownership over union elites

The current Administration has chosen a different path with regard to labor, clinging to antiquated notions of confrontation and concentrating power in the Washington offices of union elites.

The best jobs program is economic growth

Recognize that people depend on land for livelihood

Small business deserves better treatment from government

Increasing minimum wage makes country uncompetitive

The debate itself was quite extraordinary. In effect, Republicans argued that miserable wages are good for America because they keep the country competitive. For workers, of course, this "competition" means a race to the bottom: responding to wages paid in China, sometimes as low as $0.20/hour.

While Republicans claimed that a small increase in the minimum wage would lead to job loss, their argument hid a more important issue. The major crisis of the current period is not unemployment, but the rapid decline in working-class wages. While unemployment remains too high, the more serious problem is that real wages for American workers have declined by 16% over the last 20 years.