Democratic presidential candidates pledge to bolster unions

Associated Press

LAS VEGAS

Half a dozen Democratic presidential candidates declared unions to be a lifeline for the American middle class and pledged Saturday to strengthen workers’ rights to strike and organize and to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour.

But while the candidates decried the erosion of wages and union power in the U.S., few speakers at a Las Vegas union forum offered specifics on what policies they’d offer to bolster union ranks and raise pay.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who received the loudest cheers at the event, proposed bringing back card check, a top labor priority from 2008, to make it easier for employees to vote to join a union that was never implemented, even after Democrats’ win that year.

California Sen. Kamala Harris and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar said they would crack down on corporations that try to undercut labor organizing.

Klobuchar pitched her plan to require most companies to make a minimum retirement contribution for employees of at least 50 cents per hour and tougher enforcement of anti-trust laws to combat large corporations consolidating power. And former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke said he’d try to sell conservatives on a $15 minimum wage by making the case that employees who don’t have to juggle a second job to make ends meet are much more productive.

Harris called for a ban on “right to work” laws in some states barring companies and unions from signing contracts that require employees to pay union fees, but former Obama housing chief Julian Castro said, “It’s not as simple as waving a magic wand in Washington, D.C., and changing the state laws across the country.”

Instead, Castro said he would want to create federal grants and other incentives to encourage states to get rid of those laws.

Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper called for greater funding for child care and reversing a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that found government workers can’t be forced to contribute to labor unions, though he didn’t explain how he’d undo the high court’s decision.

Hickenlooper later told reporters it could be done legislatively through Congress.

Their pitch to show solidarity with workers came as union leaders and their backers worry that the 2020 field of at least 20 Democratic contenders is not spending enough time on bread-and-butter concerns.

Labor is a pillar of the Democratic Party, but many white working-class voters and union members in swing states backed Republican Donald Trump in 2016.

Democrats are working to win back those voters in the next presidential election, but party leaders and union members are telling candidates that they need to talk about issues that matter to working families.