Sen. Brown proposes sweeping changes
WASHINGTON — Sen. Sherrod Brown wants voters to feel that Democrats are the party of working Americans — and he’s got 77 pages aimed at showing them why.
The Ohio Democrat will announce a sweeping plan aimed at improving conditions for working Americans in a speech at the John Glenn College of Public Affairs on the campus of Ohio State University this morning. The plan includes everything from increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour to giving companies a tax break when
they commit to staying in America, hiring in the United States, and giving good wages and fair benefits to their workers.
The overall goals are twofold. First, Brown wants to offer specific solutions to the problem that Americans are working harder but earning less.
Second, he wants policymakers to change the assumption that businesses are what drives the economy. He argues that workers are the true economic drivers, and “if work isn’t valuable for workers, Americans can’t earn their way to the middle class.” Without a strong middle class, he argues, the economy cannot grow.
He said the case for improving conditions for workers makes itself: Despite an increase in median wages and a drop in poverty in 2015, wages and benefits have
declined or stagnated for U.S. workers for decades, with workers earning less each hour but doing more. Between 1973 and 2013, for example, productivity increased 74.4 percent, but hourly compensation increased only 9.2 percent.
At the same time, his report found, “work is less valuable for workers because businesses are no longer investing in their workforces as a critical component to the long-term success of their companies.” Instead, he said, companies are focused on “cost-cutting, long-term profits and leaner business models.”
Employers often use alternative work arrangements to keep wages and benefits low, including through temporary workers, subcontractors and independent contractors who often receive lower wages and fewer benefits and protections.
“Hard work must provide a path to the middle class for the U.S. economy to grow,”
the report states.
In an interview, Brown said the nation has “failed” workers by focusing too much on the richest people in the country at workers’ expense. He said he’s not sure how they’ll move to make the report’s goals a reality, but the goal at this point is education.
“We all think too much in immediate terms,” he said, adding he hopes his report helps policymakers step back and take a broader look at how to make sure workers are valued.
“Republicans always argue that tax cuts trickle down, that you reward the wealthiest people to create jobs, but it never really works that way,” he said. “Helping corporations doesn’t mean workers are helped.”
His plan includes a patchwork of pro-worker initiatives, including paying overtime to executive, administrative and professional workers making less than $47,476 a year; making sure
workers are able to earn up to seven paid sick-leave days a year; and establishing at least 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave through a national paid-leave fund.
It also aims to give workers more power, providing employees in key service sectors with advance notice of their schedules; expanding collective bargaining rights and barring large employers; from using the independent contractor classification to get around labor laws and boost profits.
Brown also wants to crack down on wage theft, which can include forcing people to work off the clock; refusing to pay workers the minimum wage; denying workers overtime pay even after they work more than 40 hours a week; stealing workers’ tips; or knowingly misclassifying workers to avoid paying fair wages.
He’d also expand access to retirement programs for parttime and low-wage workers, along with small-business owners; improve retirement savings opportunities for independent contractors; and give workers a tax credit to match their retirement contributions.
Finally, he wants to require companies to reimburse taxpayers when their employees have to rely on federal assistance programs because their wages are too low and give companies a tax break when they commit to staying in the United States, hire in America, and provide good wages and fair benefits for their workers.
Brown is up for re-election next year. A spokeswoman for his opponent, Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel, said mandates such as the $15 minimum wage would be a job killer.
“If anything, it will increase unemployment by pricing out entry-level jobs,” said Erica Nurnberg, the Mandel spokeswoman.