Election 2020: Bernie Sanders cuts hours for staff to get, keep them at $15 per hour
Capitalism 1010 descended on the Bernie Sanders campaign.
Sanders pushes for a $15 minimum wage and has announced this weekend he will cut staffers’ hours so that they can effectively be paid a $15-an-hour minimum wage, prompting mockery from critics who say the move is more evidence that Sanders’ plan to raise the national minimum wage is hypocritical and would only lead to less work and more unemployment.
The Washington Post first reported last Thursday that Sanders’ field staffers were upset that Sanders’ employees made “poverty wages” due to overtime, extra days worked and standard salaries.
In response, Sanders told The Des Moines Register he was “very proud” to lead the first major presidential campaign with unionized workers, but also “bothered” that news of the internal strife had spilled into the media.
“I’m very proud to be the first presidential candidate to recognize a union and negotiate a union contract,” the Vermont senator and presidential candidate told the Des Moines Register in an interview Friday. “And that contract was ratified by the employees of the campaign, and it not only provides pay of at least $15 an hour, it also provides, I think, the best health care benefits that any employer can provide for our field organizers.”
“It does bother me that people are going outside of the process and going to the media,” he said. “That is really not acceptable. It is really not what labor negotiations are about, and it’s improper.”
Sanders said, ahead of a weekend Iowa campaign swing: “We are disappointed that some individuals have decided to damage the integrity of these efforts. We are involved in negotiations. And some are individuals that have decided to damage the integrity of that process before they were concluded.”
The union representing Bernie 2020 workers has been working this week on a new proposal to send the campaign, according to the Post. It asks that field organizers be paid $46,800 annually and regional field directors be paid $62,400 annually.
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photo screenshot of Bernie Sanders campaign ad
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