LABOR AND UNIONS

BRIEF SUMMARY​​

• Rebuild unions and workers’ power by repealing Taft-Hartley, strengthening collective bargaining, and protecting the right to organize, strike, and secure a first contract through card check and first-contract enforcement.

• Hold union-busting corporations accountable with serious penalties, strong OSHA enforcement, whistleblower protections, and aggressive action against wage theft.

• End worker misclassification and gig exploitation by enforcing employee status and extending full labor protections to all workers.

• Expand sectoral bargaining so workers can negotiate fair wages and standards across entire industries, not just workplace by workplace.

• Require strong labor standards for any company doing business with or receiving aid from the federal government, including prevailing wages, project labor agreements, and respect for unions.

• Protect the collective bargaining rights of teachers, nurses, firefighters, and other public servants.

• Defend immigrant workers by ensuring immigration status cannot be used against workers organizing.

• Modernize labor law for a changing economy by strengthening enforcement agencies, expanding worker voice in corporate governance, supporting portable benefits, and protecting pensions and retirement security.​

ISSUE EXPLANATION​

Working people built this country, but for decades our political and economic systems have been corrupted to favor corporate power at the expense of workers, unions, and small businesses. Lobbyists and wealthy donors have hollowed out labor protections and rewritten the rules to weaken collective bargaining, suppress wages, and concentrate power at the top. I believe rebuilding the middle class starts with rebuilding unions and restoring real democratic power in the workplace. That means repealing the Taft-Hartley Act, strengthening collective bargaining, protecting the right to organize and strike, and ensuring workers can form unions through card check and secure a first contract without endless corporate obstruction. Unions are not a special interest—they are one of the strongest antidotes to corruption and one of the most effective tools we have for raising wages, improving working conditions, and creating broadly shared prosperity.

Corporate union-busting and labor law violations are not accidents; they are business strategies enabled by weak enforcement and political influence. That must end. I support aggressive enforcement of labor laws, fully funding OSHA, the NLRB, and the Department of Labor, strong whistleblower protections, and treating wage theft and workplace safety violations as serious crimes. Companies that intimidate workers, retaliate against organizers, or violate labor standards should face meaningful penalties and lose access to federal contracts and subsidies. Public money should never reward employers who break the law or silence workers—it should go only to companies that respect workers’ rights.

The economy has changed, but labor law has been deliberately kept outdated to benefit powerful corporations. I support ending worker misclassification and gig-economy exploitation by enforcing employee status and extending full labor protections to all workers. I also support expanding sectoral bargaining so workers can negotiate fair wages and standards across entire industries, not just one workplace at a time. Public-sector workers—including teachers, nurses, firefighters, and other essential workers—must have their collective bargaining rights fully protected from political attacks that are often driven by austerity narratives and anti-union ideology rather than fiscal reality.

A pro-worker economy also requires direct public investment, not corporate welfare disguised as economic policy. I support investing in workers and communities through apprenticeship programs, workforce training, and support for small businesses, instead of funneling subsidies and tax breaks to large corporations that outsource jobs and bust unions. I also support a Federal Jobs Guarantee so that anyone willing and able to work can access a dignified job with a living wage, healthcare, paid leave, and training—while rebuilding infrastructure, caring for seniors, strengthening communities, and meeting real public needs.

Workers deserve long-term security, not just short-term paychecks in a system designed to maximize shareholder value. I support modernizing labor law to include stronger enforcement, worker representation in corporate governance, portable benefits that follow workers across jobs, and robust protections for pensions and retirement security. As productivity rises, workers—not executives and shareholders alone—should share in the gains through higher pay, better benefits, and more time with their families, rather than longer hours and greater insecurity.

Finally, a fair labor system requires a fair tax system. For too long, we have taxed work heavily while allowing massive concentrations of wealth and corporate power to escape responsibility through loopholes, lobbying, and regulatory capture. I support reforming the tax code to tax wealth and corporate concentration more fairly, so working people are no longer asked to carry the burden alone. An economy that values labor over exploitation and democracy over corruption is not just fairer—it is stronger, more stable, and better for everyone.