On Labor Day, remember who puts workers first

As the chairwoman and vice chairman of the Democratic Party of New Mexico’s Labor Caucus, we have seen firsthand the difficult year New Mexico’s workforce has experienced.

Health care workers are serving on the front lines of the pandemic; educators have ensured students are fed, supported and continue to learn during remote schooling; and, along with transit workers, grocery store employees and other essential workers, we kept our communities going. Many workers have struggled — balancing work with caring for sick family members, redefining what child care looks like and trying to get by with insufficient benefits or less than a livable wage.

This Labor Day, as we celebrate working New Mexicans and reflect on the gains we have made together through the labor movement, we also must point out the obvious: The New Mexico GOP continues to fail the working people of New Mexico.

Throughout this pandemic, the Republican Party of New Mexico has reminded us again and again that they do not have working people’s interests at heart. GOP legislators have voted repeatedly against paid sick leave, against raising the minimum wage and against critical protections for workers, while providing no solutions of their own to help keep New Mexicans safe during these unprecedented times.

State Rep. Rebecca Dow is asking the people of New Mexico for a promotion. She wants to be governor. But her record shows she is out of touch with working New Mexicans. As we struggled to overcome a pandemic, she voted against the 2021 Healthy Workplaces Act, which guarantees paid sick leave for all New Mexico employees. This is a pattern for Dow, who also voted against the 2019 bill that led to statewide minimum wage increases in 2020 and 2021.

Dow is marching in lockstep with Republican leadership. She and the other GOP gubernatorial candidates have made it clear they will not stand up for New Mexicans.

The story is the same for Republican leaders across the state. U.S. Rep. Yvette Herrell has a long history of voting against minimum wage increases for New Mexico workers. Since joining Congress, she has continued that trend, voting against the bipartisan Paycheck Fairness Act, which would help reduce the wage gap by giving all workers more power to fight for equal pay. State GOP Chairman Steve Pearce, a former state House representative and ex-member of Congress, has one of the most astonishing anti-worker stances of all: voting against increasing the minimum wage when it was only $4.25 an hour. Pearce has even said he wishes businesses would be able to pay below the minimum wage to give workers “discipline.”

If these GOP officials had their way, who knows if New Mexico workers would even have a minimum wage, or access to any paid leave at all, let alone commonsense health and safety protections during the ongoing public health crisis. For years, the GOP has been chipping away at worker protections, and those efforts have only escalated during the pandemic.

Despite the GOP’s attempts to hold us back, workers made significant gains this year. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and other Democratic leaders in New Mexico have ensured crucial worker protections like a livable wage and paid sick leave, among other proworker legislation, have been passed in our state.

In difficult times such as these, it’s more critical than ever to elect leaders who will protect our workers and stand with our unions. Republicans claim they want to represent us, but they’ve made their stance perfectly clear: When things get tough, the GOP’s policy is simply to leave workers behind.

Despite the GOP’s attempts to hold us back, workers made significant gains this year. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and other Democratic leaders in New Mexico have ensured crucial worker protections like a livable wage and paid sick leave, among other pro-worker legislation, have been passed in our state.