Sanders's proposal includes the sweeping labor law reform bill he proposed in 2018. (Photo: ALM)
(Bloomberg) –Bernie Sanders wants to fundamentally overhaul U.S. labor law by expanding workers' rights to organize and strike and establishing a new system of sectorwide bargaining. The Vermont senator unveiled the plan Wednesday as he and most other Democratic presidential candidates address the Iowa Federation of Labor's annual convention in Altoona. Organized labor is a key constituency and major source of Democratic votes, volunteers and campaign funds.
"What I believe is that we're not going to grow the middle class of this country unless we revitalize the trade union movement and unless we provide the opportunity for millions of workers to do what they want, and that is to join trade unions," Sanders said in an interview on Tuesday.
Sanders's labor platform includes ending "at-will" employment, so companies could no longer fire workers without showing they had "just cause"; extending collective bargaining rights to state and local government employees; and allowing federal employees to strike.
The plan would create a European-style sectoral collective bargaining system in which labor and management would negotiate minimum standards for entire industries, rather than only company by company. It would also halt, via executive order, pension benefit cuts that were made possible by a 2014 compromise signed into law by President Barack Obama, whose vice president, Joe Biden, is now the Democratic frontrunner. Sanders called the compromise a "middle of the night deal" and "an outrage."
Sanders's proposal includes the sweeping labor law reform bill he proposed in 2018, which would require companies to recognize unions once the majority of workers sign cards; abolish state "right-to-work" laws that prohibit mandatory union fees; ban mandatory workplace anti-union meetings; make it harder for companies to claim their workers are independent contractors rather than employees; and protect workers' jobs during work stoppages.
"What is a worker's line of defense? It is the right to strike," Sanders said. "That is the means that you have to tell your employer, 'Hey, we're serious.'"
His bill, which was co-sponsored in the Senate by rival presidential candidates Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand, would reverse key provisions of the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act considered by some scholars and union activists to have played a major role in organized labor's decline.
The new labor platform promises a "fair transition" to Sanders's signature Medicare for All policy, which has become a major flashpoint in the Democratic presidential race. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told reporters last month that "while we would like to see universal health care, we want to make sure that there is a role for employer-bargained plans in that plan, whatever it happens to be."
Sanders's proposal, according to his campaign, would require that savings from the transition to Medicare for All "result in wage increases and additional benefits for workers."
Sanders said in the interview there were "very very few, if any" union-negotiated plans that offer benefits as comprehensive as would Medicare for All.
While a less ambitious labor law proposal died in the U.S. Senate a decade ago under Obama, Sanders said he believes increased militancy in the labor movement and widespread popular support would help to get his legislation passed.
"I think workers are getting sick and tired of the decimation of the working class," he said. "I think the momentum is with us."
Sanders' plan got a warm welcome Wednesday from the Service Employees International Union, one of the biggest labor groups.
"It's great to see a strong plan from Bernie Sanders to overhaul our defective and outdated labor laws," SEIU President Mary Kay Henry said in an emailed statement. "This proposal is the latest sign that 2020 candidates can't ignore the millions of workers demanding leaders rewrite the rules so everyone can join a union, no matter where we work."
Read more:
© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
