Booker’s New Labor Plan Boosts Organizing Rights, Equal Pay

In the midst of the largest United Auto Worker strike in more than a decade, Senator Cory Booker released a plan this morning to bolster unions and protect worker’s rights.

The plan includes strengthening collective bargaining rights for Iowa’s 129,000 workers who are represented by a union, raise the minimum wage to $15 to benefit 386,000 Iowa workers and to close the pay gap because women in Iowa earn $.79 per every $1 earned by men.

Booker’s plan will also repeal President Donald Trump’s nearly $2 million in tax cuts for the richest 1 percent and put money back in the pockets of workers. In Iowa, more than 1 million adults and 505,000 children will be helped by Booker’s proposed “Rise Credit.”

Booker’s plans include:

-Increasing opportunities for worker organizing, including new models like sectoral bargaining

-The ability to work without fear of discrimination or harassment (This includes protections for LGBTQ Americans, older workers, pregnant workers, contractors, interns and trainees)

-The right to equal pay for equal work

-Eliminating the special lower tax rate for hedge-fund managers and wealthy workers

-Making sure the wealthy people who are holding onto assets are taxed fairly 

-Passing estate tax reform, which would change the law that allows the extremely wealthy pass on up to $22.8 million to their heirs for free

“I learned the power of collective action from my grandfather who was an assembly line worker and UAW union rep in Detroit,” said Booker in a news release. “He showed me how, when workers stick together, injustices can be corrected and real progress can be made. That’s something I’ve carried with me my whole life — and today, as I stand with workers who are fighting for fairer wages and better benefits across the country, I’m outlining how my administration will ensure that our economy leaves no one behind.”

In all, Booker’s plan will protect union rights for all workers, including gig economy workers, and would end anti-union “right to work” laws. Booker’s new plan also changes the way we tax capital gains in this country and would reform the tax code so wealth won’t come before work.

He also calls for increased opportunities for workers to collectively bargaining by encouraging new models such as sectoral bargaining.

by Paige Godden
Photo by Julie Fleming
Posted 9/18/19