Socialist or not, most politicians live by the credo, ‘Do as I say, not as I do.’
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has come under fire from own 2020 presidential campaign workers for not adhering to his own promises a little bit earlier — one of those promises being a $15/hr. federal minimum wage.
According to the Washington Post:
Campaign field hires have demanded an annual salary they say would be equivalent to a $15-an-hour wage, which Sanders for years has said should be the federal minimum. The organizers and other employees supporting them have invoked the senator’s words and principles in making their case to campaign manager Faiz Shakir, the documents reviewed by The Washington Post show[…]
A draft letter union members earlier had prepared to send Shakir as soon as this week said that the field organizers “cannot be expected to build the largest grassroots organizing program in American history while making poverty wages. Given our campaign’s commitment to fighting for a living wage of at least $15.00 an hour, we believe it is only fair that the campaign would carry through this commitment to its own field team.”
The thing is that the workers, salary-wise, already were making around $15/hr., but they claim that because they work extra hours — as much 60 total hours a week — what would be their hourly wage drops to $13/hr.
It’s human nature. Whenever you give people something, eventually they will always demand more. Keep in mind that Sanders’ field organizers are part of a union, so besides working extra hours without extra compensation, they also have to give a cut of their salary to the union who have complained on the workers’ behalf.
In response, the Sanders campaign issued a Thursday evening statement praising itself for the campaign’s union contract.
“We know our campaign offers wages and benefits competitive with other campaigns, as is shown by the latest fundraising reports,” Shakir said, according to the Post. “Every member of the campaign, from the candidate on down, joined this movement in order to defeat Donald Trump and transform America. Bernie Sanders is the most pro-worker and pro-labor candidate running for president. We have tremendous staff who are working hard. Bernie and I both strongly believe in the sanctity of the collective bargaining process and we will not deviate from our commitment to it.”
The “Fight for $15” has been raging on for a few years now, ramped up by Sanders himself. So it’ll be interesting to see where the Sanders campaign goes from here in terms of compensation for its employees.
H/T: Fox News