Bernie Sanders presidential campaign, 2016/Labor and employment

Bernie Sanders announced his presidential run on April 30, 2015.^[1]

CANDIDATE SUMMARY
Believes corporate greed drives outsourcing and the failure to pay workers a living wage
Supports guaranteed paid leave for workers
Opposes trade agreements because they are written by corporations to benefit corporations, not working Americans
Introduced legislation to increase the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour

On May 10, 2016, after winning West Virginia’s primary, Bernie Sanders discussed income inequality and criticized Hillary Clinton. According to The Oregonian, “Sanders noted that the Waltons, who own Walmart, are one of the richest families in the country. He added that Walmart employees are sometimes paid so little that they have to seek public assistance in the form of food stamps and Medicaid to make ends meet. He closed the anecdote by saying that one of the Waltons has donated ‘thousands and thousands of dollars’ to Clinton's campaign. Addressing the Walton family directly, Sanders added this zinger: ‘Instead of making campaign contributions to Secretary Clinton, pay your workers a living wage.’”^[2]

During a campaign event in Indiana on May 3, 2016, Sanders criticized “United Technologies, the parent company of Carrier” for their decision to “relocate 1,400 Indianapolis jobs to Monterrey, Mexico.” Sanders said, “I am going to tell United Technologies, you are not going to get away with this. You are not going to give former CEO a $171 million severance package. This is the type of greed that in fact is destroying the middle class in this country. … This is not a case where people think the workers here are not productive. The company acknowledges that. It is simply greed. They can make more money moving to Mexico paying people $3 to $4 an hour. It is unacceptable. … I think that the taxpayers of this country do not feel good about awarding profitable defense contracts to a company that is in the business of destroying thousands of lives. And I think that should be taken into consideration.”^[3]

During the ninth Democratic debate on April 14, 2016, Bernie Sanders was asked how he would promote American businesses around the world and promote the creation of jobs for Americans. Sanders replied, “There are some great businesses who treat their workers and the environment with respect. Verizon happens not to be one of them. And what we need to do is to tell this guy Immelt, who’s the head of General Electric, he doesn’t like me, well, that’s fine. He has outsourced hundreds of thousands of decent-paying jobs throughout the world... — cut his workforce here substantially and in a given year, by the way, it turns out that both Verizon and General Electric, in a given year, pay nothing in federal income tax despite making billions in profits. ...Well, for a start, we’re going to raise the minimum wage to 15 bucks an hour. And number two, while it is true we may end up paying a few cents more for a hamburger in McDonald’s, at the end of the day, what this economy desperately needs is to rebuild our manufacturing sector with good-paying jobs. We cannot continue to sustain the loss of millions of decent-paying jobs that we have seen over the last 20, 30 years, based on trade agreements of which Secretary Clinton has voted for almost every one of those. That has got to change.”^[4]

Sanders released a statement on September 7, 2015, to commend President Obama for issuing an executive order requiring paid sick leave for employees of federal contractors. Sanders said, “We have got to end the international embarrassment of the U.S. being the only major country on earth that does not guarantee paid leave to workers. Not only do workers need paid sick leave, they also need at least 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave and at least two weeks of paid vacation. In the richest country on earth, no one should force mothers to go back to work days or weeks after giving birth.”^[5]

Sanders joined workers from an Iowa food processing plant in a picket line on September 4, 2015. “We are sick and tired of the war against working families," Sanders said to the crowd, calling “corporate greed” unacceptable.^[6]

On July 22, 2015, Sanders introduced legislation to increase the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. Sanders said of the current minimum wage, "The simple truth is that working people cannot survive on the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, or $8 an hour or $9 an hour. If people work 40 hours a week, they deserve not to live in dire poverty."^[7]^[8]

In 2014, Sanders co-sponsored S 2223 - the Minimum Wage Fairness Act, which proposed increasing the federal minimum wage.^[9]

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