Raise the Wage Act 2019: House majority looking to lift millions out of poverty

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headshot of NCL Health Policy intern Alexa

By NCL Health Policy intern Alexa Beeson

June 16 marked the longest period the United States has gone without an increase in the federal minimum wage. The federal wage floor was last raised a decade ago, in 2009. The current minimum wage is just $7.25 an hour, which is a poverty wage by federal standards, but tipped workers and people with disabilities often make even less. Worse yet, the value of this wage has decreased by 13 percent since its enactment due to inflation.

Many states have increased their minimum wages, including some red states like Arkansas and Missouri. These states have done so through the popular-vote referendum process. There is widespread support from all Americans–Democrats and Republicans alike–on this issue. In fact, 70 percent of Republican voters want a raised federal wage floor. There are still 21 states, however, whose workers receive only the bare minimum federal wage or, even worse, a tipped wage.

The U.S. House of Representatives, now led by a Democratic majority for the first time in many years, will be taking up the Raise the Wage Act (H.R. 582), and there is a companion bill by the same name in the Senate (S. 150).

The Raise the Wage Act will incrementally lift the federal wage floor to $15 an hour over the next five years. If enacted, the legislation would reduce levels of poverty across the nation without driving vulnerable populations into unemployment. It will also help decrease the wage gap between minimum and median wage workers. The House is expected to have a roll call vote on H.R. 582 before the August recess. If it does pass in the House, the act will have a hard time making it through the Republican-controlled Senate. However, this is still a progressive step in the right direction.

This act will also end subminimum wages for tipped employees. If employees make less than the $7.25 federal minimum wage, including tips, employers are supposed to add the rest to their paycheck. However, some employers fail to do so. The affected employees can make as little as $5 less than the minimum wage. The way the system works now, customer gratuities act as wage subsidies that we believe should be covered by the employer. For those concerned with whether raising the minimum wage will stop customers from tipping, studies show that eliminating the tiered wage system will not stop patrons from leaving tips.

Raise the Wage will end the subminimum wage for people with disabilities, some of whom make mere pennies an hour. Subminimum wages act as a form of legalized discrimination, and this bill will make it impossible for employers to get new special exemptions to pay their employee’s subminimum wages. It will also end current exemptions because all wages will be increased to $15 an hour in the next seven years.

Some fiscally conservative groups have claimed that raising the wage to $15 an hour would lead to high unemployment or business closures, with small businesses burdened by the extra costs. However, studies contradict those claims. Many show that raising the minimum wage would have little or no impact on employment. A study conducted by the University of California at Berkeley Institute for Research on Labor and Employment found that when the town of Berkeley raised the minimum wage, it actually saw a decrease in unemployment and a reduction in poverty. Further research showed that wage increases in 51 counties over 45 states had no adverse effect on employment hours or weeks worked.

NCL has been a long-standing advocate for fair minimum wages. In the early 1900s, the League’s General Secretary Florence Kelley ran a minimum wage campaign, which passed laws in 14 states. We are encouraged to see the House of Representatives taking affirmative steps to raise the federal minimum wage.

Alexa is a student at Washington University in St. Louis where she studies Classics and Anthropology and concentrates in global health and the environment. She expects to graduate in May of 2020.

Labor Day reflections: Challenging time for U.S. workers – National Consumers League

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As another summer winds down, and we plan for one last extended weekend before turning the page onto fall, Labor Day offers a time to reflect on the increasingly challenging environment that working families face securing fair wages, benefits, and working conditions.

Currently 16,000 members of the United Steelworkers union are waiting to hear whether they’ll be going on strike when their employment contract with U.S. Steel expires in just days. Union and management are reported to be at a near-stalemate over a new contract that the union has described as “extremely insulting” and would offer marginal wage increases for workers, who would be locked into a proposed 7-year term.

For the first time, incarcerated workers are courageously raising their voices, and are in the middle of a multi-week, nation-wide strike organized in response to the slave-labor wages they are forced to accept as further punishment for their lives behind bars. It’s shameful that we treat prisoners like chattel.

And the courts continue to batter workers, spurred on by a Chamber of Congress and a business community that attack working folks’ right to organize at every turn. Earlier this summer, a narrow 5-4 anti-worker and anti-union ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in Janus v. AFSCME, found hat unions cannot collect “fair share fees” from workers who have not joined the union but receive the benefits of organizing—a major blow to unions in their efforts to improve working conditions for all employees.

In Washington, DC, where NCL is headquartered, we are fighting alongside restaurant and other hourly workers to preserve Initiative 77 from being rescinded by the D.C. City Council. Initiative 77, a worker-led campaign that passed by a 56 percent to 44 percent margin, would raise the paltry $3.89 hourly tipped wage by $1.50 a year until it reaches $15 by 2025. After its passage, seven members of D.C. City Council pledged to overturn the initiative, undermining the 46,000 DC voters who supported it.

Wage theft, misclassification, and other employer abuses continue to plague our workforce, but at the National Consumers League, which was founded by a group of Progressive-era women concerned about factory conditions for workers—including children’s—we will continue to fight for worker protections alongside our allies to ensure that protections for America’s working families are strengthened, not eroded.

Earlier this year, we observed the 80th anniversary of the Fair Labor Standards Act with a national conference. This landmark legislation—which NCL helped to pass in 1938—provided our nation’s basic minimum wage and overtime pay laws, lifted wages, and improved working conditions. But advocates agree that the FLSA is in dire need of updating, and many of the problems facing workers today could be addressed by an FLSA for the 21st Century.

This Labor Day, we are grateful for the improved quality of working conditions for many of our nation’s employees, but we lament the constant attacks on unions, workers’ rights, and fair and equitable working conditions for so many. The struggle continues, and we are proud to be part of it.

D.C. City Council Angers Voters by Moving to Overturn Initiative 77 – National Consumers League

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By NCL Public Policy intern Melissa Cuddington

After the passage of Initiative 77, seven members of D.C. City Council pledged to overturn the initiative, essentially suppressing the will of the voters. This move by the City Council has further outraged D.C. voters, who already feel disenfranchised. Considering the 80,000 DC voters who weighed in on this issue, its no wonder.

In the past few weeks, there has been controversy surrounding Initiative 77 and its hope of survival in D.C. City Council. Initiative 77, a worker-led campaign that passed by a 56% to 44% margin, would raise the minimum tipped wage by $1.50 a year until it reaches $15.00 by 2025. Currently, in the District of Columbia, the minimum tipped wage is a mere $3.33. Employers are allowed to pay tipped workers this small amount if tips make up the difference. Therefore, if tipped workers make at least $13.25 in tips, the current minimum wage, then employers are “off the hook” for covering the difference.

According to a recent article in The Washington Post, even those who voted against the initiative agreed that the City Council should not negate the will of the people. Those interviewed for the article responded with heated comments saying, “it enrages me,” and, “the City Council shouldn’t assume an electorate…doesn’t know what they are voting for.” These are not isolated responses; many voters have reached out to their City Council members, strongly protesting the possibility of repeal.

NCL supported the OFW campaign but regardless, it is not democratic or just for the City Council to overturn the decision of the voters. Many, including the leading group in this effort, Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC United), have accused the City Council of voter suppression and stomping on democracy. 

NCL believes in Initiative 77 and shedding the distinction between a tipped and minimum wage. We also strongly believe that civic participation is the foundation of our democracy. If the City Council moves to overturn this measure, it will send a very negative message to voters about the importance of the democratic process and the value of their voice in it.

80 years of the Fair Labor Standards Act and its unfinished business – National Consumers League

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The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938 is celebrating its 80th Anniversary this year. The work of the National Consumers League (NCL), founded in 1899, and Florence Kelley, laid the groundwork for this landmark worker protection legislation. The FLSA set the first federal regulations for child labor, minimum wages, and maximum hours laws. It was signed into law by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whose labor secretary, Frances Perkins, started her career with the NCL.

So 80 years later, NCL thought it would be useful to review the history and impact of the FLSA by inviting experts from across the country to speak. NCL and the American Constitution Society cosponsored our Unfinished Business: The Fair Labor Standards Act 80 Years Later” at Georgetown University Law Center March 28.

At the outset, it’s important to note that worker rights are under attack all the time: the trucking industry is trying to lower the age to allow teens as young as 18 to drive 80,000 pound rigs because there’s a manufactured labor shortage, thanks to threats to immigrant workers from ICE and the Trump Administration. Indeed, the state of New Hampshire is increasing the hours to 56 that teens can work each week when they aren’t in school.

That said, the conference attendees were able to cheer the recent victory—and how great advocacy prevented eroding restaurant workers’ salaries—when Congress included in the Omnibus bill signed by President Trump last week a prohibition on restaurant owners’ keeping workers’ tips. Saru Jayaraman, who spoke at the conference, and the Restaurant Opportunity Center, launched an all-out campaign to protect $5.8 billion in tips and, with the help of democrats in Congress, won these protections.

The conference included a panel on the history of the FLSA, testimony from three hourly workers talking about the sexual harassment and wage theft they experience daily on the job, a keynote by Obama-era DOL Wage and Hour Director David Weil – who brought with him many of his former DOL colleagues, and a rousing keynote from SEIU International President Mary Kay Henry. Panelists also talked about efforts to erode worker protections – like states preempting localities that want to raise their local minimum wage or making employees sign forced arbitration papers that prevent them from going to court if there’s discrimination or wage theft on the job. By the way, NCL wants forced arbitration banned in labor and consumer contracts, but that is a hard sell in a conservative Congress.

Gaps in the law and erosion of the FLSA were very much at the top of our conference agenda. Workers labor on farms sometimes up to 90 hours a week during the harvest with no protections. They should be making overtime pay.

Other agenda items:

  • Adding paid sick leave and vacation leave to federal law
  • Banning forced arbitration contracts for workers
  • Enforcing the FLSA for gig economy jobs like driving for Uber or Lyft
  • Resisting incentives to turn employees into independent contractors
  • Adding restaurant workers to be covered by the FLSA
  • Expanding overtime pay
  • Enforcing the law against persistent violators and double the penalties
  • Legalizing private class-action suits under the FLSA
  • Changing policy to make sure immigrants aren’t exploited and allow them to take the thousands of vacant jobs where there’s much demand

While the list of unfinished business is long, everyone agreed that the worker reforms brought by passage of the FLSA in 1938 provided desperately needed protections that helped workers in America improve their experience as workers, their incomes, and their quality of life. Setting the agenda is critically important because – like the victory on tipping – we have to be ready to move quickly to get provisions enacted when opportunities come up. The NCL is proud to be continuing our 118-year history of advocating for workers’ rights with this conference.

National Consumers League statement on today’s U.S. Supreme Court argument on Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association – National Consumers League

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January 11, 2016

Contact: Cindy Hoang, National Consumers League, cindyh@nclnet.org or (202) 207-2832

Washington, DC–The National Consumers League, the nation’s pioneering consumer and worker advocacy group, has released the following statement about Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, scheduled to be argued before the Supreme Court today.

Friedrichs v California Teachers Association is a case handpicked by special, powerful anti-worker interests asking the Supreme Court to overrule a longstanding precedent established under Abood v. Detroit Board of Education.

Last fall, NCL joined a Friend of The Court brief, signing on with the Leadership Conference for Civil Rights and the National Women’s Law Center, arguing that the Court should uphold Abood v. Detroit Bd of Ed (1977), holding that public sector collective bargaining agreements may include “fair share” provisions. The brief details how unions provide one of the most successful vehicles for providing economic and professional opportunities for women, people of color, and LGBT individuals, including lowering the income gap and increasing access to basic benefits like health insurance and parental leave, and providing important protections against discrimination.

The National Consumers League believes that Abood is based on the constitutional principle that those covered by a union contract should be required to pay their share of fees. When employees elect a union to represent them, everyone who benefits from a negotiated contract should contribute to the costs of securing that contract, even those who might not agree with every union position.

Indeed, there are communities right here in Washington that work within this current fair share regime to very positive effect. In Montgomery County, MD, the superintendent, along with the three unions in the county, actually all sit at the table together each year to create a budget that aims to keep necessary cuts away from directly affecting students.

“It’s unfortunate that the Supreme Court is revisiting Abood, a case that has stood for 35 years. Since our founding in 1899, the NCL has supported the rights of workers to organize, be represented by a union, and have a communal voice that allows them to have an equal say over working conditions, benefits, and health and safety,” said NCL’s Executive Director Sally Greenberg. “That means that those benefitting from these contracts should contribute their fair share in dues and fees. The current system benefits the whole community because it brings better public services, stronger public schools, and more vibrant communities. If the Court bans fair share, it will make it more difficult for teachers, firefighters, and nurses to negotiate for wages, benefits, and improved public services. We call on the Supreme Court to uphold the constitutionality of Abood v. Detroit Board of Education and affirm the obligation of all covered by union contracts to pay their fair share.”

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About the National Consumers League

The National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is America’s pioneer consumer organization. Our mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad. For more information, visit www.nclnet.org.

Summer grill season is here! Think American union-made – National Consumers League

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With the unofficial start of summer right around the corner, it’s time to start thinking about firing up the grill and looking forward to our favorite summer foods. This summer, make your grocery shopping mean more than just great food and support good paying American jobs. As a consumer, you can support the actions of thousands of hard working Americans by buying American-made products and union-made products. 

Check out the list below and try to serve some union-made treats this Memorial Day weekend and all summer.

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Text MADE to 235246 for more union-made-in-America product lists.
Our list comes courtesy of Union Plus, the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM), the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) and the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor’s website Labor 411.

Anti-union propaganda leads to defeat for UAW – National Consumers League

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Last Friday the workers at a Volkswagen plant in Tennessee voted against joining the UAW. In the weeks and months leading up to this vote, VW had agreed to stay neutral and over half the workers had indicated they were in favor of union membership. But that all changed due to a sustained propaganda campaign lead by Bob Corker the notorious anti-union Senator from Tennessee and the Koch brothers.

They, and their right wing allies, believe that if Tennessee  – a right-to-work (for less) state – opens the door to the union, the rest of the South will open up to labor.

Other threats were lobbed – Senator Corker claimed to have been told by an unnamed top company executive that a vote against the union would guarantee that Chattanooga would be chosen as the production site for a new line of SUVs — the union denied it. State officials apparently said if the plant were unionized, the legislature would refuse to appropriate an estimated $700 million in state subsidies necessary to build out an SUV plant.

I don’t understand why these Southern politicians are so threatened by the union. European companies, like VW, which stayed neutral in this discussion, are used to the notion of workers and employers having a place at the table; they support the concept of worker representatives sitting down with management and arriving at mutually beneficial policies, including work rules, wages, safety and health requirements, and vacation benefits. Everyone understands that there’s money to be made  – a lot of it – by both workers and industry. What is so infuriating about so many American businesses, and this campaign against UAW so demonstrates this problem, is that they don’t get that sharing the wealth is GOOD for companies and workers. So many American companies are all about grabbing profits for their higher ups and skimping on wages and benefits whenever possible.  Here was a chance to change that paradigm with the company’s support.

But because this is the US, that wasn’t to be.

The anti UAW propaganda was effective, comparing Tennessee to Detroit and scaring the current VW workforce, which currently makes a good salary, by blaming the UAW for Detroit’s current financial disaster.  Talk about blaming the victim! Workers making decent wages and benefits are to blame for Detroit’s decades of mismanagement and white flight?  It makes no sense but it’s a potent sound bite.

Suppliers threatened to boycott TN if VW unionized. Is giving workers a voice really so scary? Yes, to Southern politicians and business. But Steve Pearlstein in the Washington Post points out that:

[I]n the faster-growing and more prosperous regional economies of the North and West, companies are trying to boost performance by increasing employee engagement and empowerment, not suppressing it. Their business strategies are based not on assuring a steady supply of cheap labor but on increasing the number of highly paid and highly skilled workers. Rather than trying to nullify federal labor law and crush what remains of the much-diminished union movement, these companies, like VW, are looking at new models of workplace cooperation and collaboration.

That’s more likely the wave of the future. And the South, and Senator Corker, the Koch’s, and their ilk – will be left behind If they continue this all out attack against empowering workers and giving them a voice.

Go union-made for the Big Game – National Consumers League

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With the Super Bowl nearly upon us, it’s time to start thinking about all the fun foods we might indulge in at Super Bowl parties. Everything from chips and dip to hotdogs and beer, Americans love having a good time while watching the Big Game.This year, consider buying union-made products – it’s easier than you may think and you can support American workers and American business.

This year it’s important to remember that when buying goodies for the big day, we look to include union-made products that support good-paying American jobs. That list is a bit bigger than one would suspect, especially with the pervasive assumption that nothing is made in the USA anymore. Consider serving some of these union-made items at your Super Bowl party.

And, at halftime, consider working off some of those calories with some backyard football featuring the same union-made game balls used in the Super Bowl – Wilson footballs. While cheering on your favorite NFL player, a member of the NFL Players Union, please take the time to think about all the things you enjoy that are brought to you by union jobs.

Snacks

  • Better Cheddars
  • Bugles
  • Chex Mix
  • Chips Ahoy!
  • Corn Nuts
  • Crunch & Munch
  • Delimex taquitos
  • Doritos
  • Frito-Lays chips & snacks
  • Ghirardelli chocolates
  • Heinz baked beans
  • Hormel chili
  • Kraft snack products
  • Lay’s potato chips
  • Oreos
  • Oroweat buns
  • Planter’s Nuts
  • Ritz Crackers
  • Rosarita refried beans
  • Sara Lee buns
  • Snyder of Berlin
  • Tostitos
  • Wheat Thins
  • Wise snacks

Meats

  • Armour sausages
  • Ball Park hot dogs
  • Butterball poultry
  • Eckrich sausages
  • Healthy choice poultry
  • Hebrew National hot dogs
  • Hormel hot dogs
  • Hormel poultry
  • Johnsonville brats
  • Nathan’s hot dogs
  • Oscar Meyer hot dogs
  • Tyson poultry

Condiments

 

  • French’s mustard
  • Gulden’s mustard
  • Heinz ketchup
  • Hidden Valley Ranch
  • Land O’Lakes butter
  • Lea & Perrins Worcester sauce
  • Old El Paso
  • Open Pit BBQ sauces
  • Pace salsa & picante sauces
  • Vlasic pickles

Soft drinks

 

  • Barq’s Root Beer
  • Coca-Cola
  • Minute Maid
  • Pepsi
  • Sprite
  • Welch’s

Beer

  • Anheuser Busch
  • Bud Light
  • Budweiser
  • Busch
  • Icehouse
  • Labatt Blue
  • Leinenkugel’s
  • Michelob
  • Miller High Life
  • Miller Lite
  • Milwaukee’s Best
  • Molson
  • Pabst
  • Rolling Rock
  • Shock Top

Liquor

 

  • Bacardi Rum
  • El Jimador Tequila
  • Jim Beam
  • Knob Creek
  • Seagram’s
  • Wild Turkey

Make it a union-made Halloween! – National Consumers League

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Have you bought candy to give out to trick-or-treaters on Halloween yet? Later this month, children across the country will cheerfully announce their presence at doorways hoping to receive sweet treats. While Halloween certainly belongs to children, adults get to make some decisions too—especially when it comes to buying treats that are American- and union-made. 

This year, the National Consumers League and its labor allies are calling on parents to be smart about the candy they purchase, and try to buy union- or American-made products made by workers who are paid a living wage.

A few labor-friendly candy manufactures include Nestle, Ghiradelli Chocolates, Gimbals Fine Candies, Just Born, Necco, Jelly Belly’s Candy Company, and Pearson’s Candy Company. One fly in the ointment, however, is child labor, which can be found in the supply chains of chocolate companies. Many chocolate companies have taken steps to trace their cocoa purchasing to reduce child labor from their supply chains.

At Union Plus, consumers can view a list of union-made candy choices provided by the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM); snack foods by members of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW); or fruit and nuts from members of the United Farm Workers of America (UFW).

So get out there and vote with your pocketbooks and support worker-friendly candy manufacturers this Halloween!

Labor Day: Demanding legal wages for hardworking Americans – National Consumers League

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End-of-summer barbecues, final trips to the beach, and the hectic start of the school year are usually what come to mind with the arrival of Labor Day. But with an increasingly erratic economy, high unemployment rates, and attacks on unions making headlines, this year’s Labor Day is the perfect time to examine the many challenges currently facing the American workforce.

Labor Day was originally started by the labor community not only as a means to celebrate their union accomplishments, but also as a day for workers to air grievances and discuss strategies for securing better working conditions and salaries. Labor advocates certainly have their fair share of grievances to air this season as major corporations continue to rake in $100 billion profits while reducing employee health benefits and pensions; workers are being forced to go on strike to demand fair treatment; and employee class-action lawsuits are stacking up in courts.

One troubling labor issue that hasn’t received much attention is wage theft, in which an employer illegally underpays or fails to pay an employee at all. Wage theft affects all sectors of the workforce; both white and blue-collar workers in industries across the board are vulnerable to this particular type of violation.

Wage theft can occur in a variety of different ways, all of which illegally rob employees out of what’s rightfully theirs. Wage theft tactics include:

  • Unpaid overtime
  • Employee misclassification
  • Minimum wage violations
  • Forcing employees to working off the clock
  • Making illegal deductions from pay
  • Not paying employees at all

Employee misclassification is one of the most common forms of wage theft and has incredibly far-reaching consequences, victimizing everyone from workers to Uncle Sam. With employee misclassification, an employer illegally mislabels an employee as an ‘independent contractor’ instead of an ‘employee,’ in order to be exempt from paying payroll taxes, unemployment insurance, and workers compensation—resulting not only in diminished capital to federal and local governments but saddling employees with additional IRS taxes in the process.

A typical misclassification scenario works like this: a Plano cable TV installation company in Texas was paying its workers on a piece-work basis and offering a flat rate for every cable installation they completed. The Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division conducted an investigation and determined that installers should have been classified as nonexempt employees, entitled to time-and-a-half their regular rate of pay for overtime hours worked. DOL sued on the workers behalf and the company has been ordered to pay $270,696 in back over­time to the 114 workers it illegally classified as independent contractors.

While wage theft can occur in any industry, certain industries are notorious for paying their workers below the legally required minimum wage. Restaurants, hotels, and janitorial and construction companies have a high frequency of underpaying their workers for both minimum wage and overtime.  Unfortunately, it’s still legal to pay someone below the minimum wage if they’re working in agriculture or are mentally disabled.

This Labor Day, let’s honor America’s workforce by demanding that all employers, regardless of industry or color of their workers’ “collars,” pay each and every worker the compensation they’ve rightfully earned.

To bring some much needed attention to this critical issue, NCL has launched a year-long Special Project on Wage Theft to raise awareness about the nature of wage theft in the United States and educate consumers, workers, businesses, and governments about wage theft issues. Stay up-to-date on the latest wage theft battles by following us on Twitter and Facebook.