Who is "The Dignity of Work" candidate now?

[MH1]

As we all know by now, Sherrod Brown announced he is not running.

I am interested to know which candidates come closest to understanding and supporting workers' issues the way Brown does.

I have already tentatively excluded some based on what I know. But rather than list those -

Other candidate supporters, make your case.

Ground rules:

* only positive points about how a candidate supports the working class, workers' rights, protections against discrimination and abuse, worker safety issues, access to good jobs, etc.

* please provide links to credible sources that support your assertions.


Thanks. Have at it.

[WeekiWater]

1. K&R

The Accountable Capitalism Act — real citizenship for corporate persons
The conceit tying together Warren’s ideas is that if corporations are going to have the legal rights of persons, they should be expected to act like decent citizens who uphold their fair share of the social contract and not act like sociopaths whose sole obligation is profitability — as is currently conventional in American business thinking.

Warren wants to create an Office of United States Corporations inside the Department of Commerce and require any corporation with revenue over $1 billion — only a few thousand companies, but a large share of overall employment and economic activity — to obtain a federal charter of corporate citizenship.

The charter tells company directors to consider the interests of all relevant stakeholders — shareholders, but also customers, employees, and the communities in which the company operates — when making decisions. That could concretely shift the outcome of some shareholder lawsuits but is aimed more broadly at shifting American business culture out of its current shareholders-first framework and back toward something more like the broad ethic of social responsibility that took hold during WWII and continued for several decades.

Business executives, like everyone else, want to have good reputations and be regarded as good people but, when pressed about topics of social concern, frequently fall back on the idea that their first obligation is to do what’s right for shareholders. A new charter would remove that crutch, and leave executives accountable as human beings for the rights and wrongs of their own decisions.

VOX

Legislation Accountable Capitalism Act

[MH1]

4. Interesting. That was S. 3348 in the last Congress.

Went nowhere; had no cosponsors. (Doesn't mean at all that it wasn't a good idea)

If I understand correctly, the objective of this bill was to put more control of corporations - including their political contributions - in the hands of workers; and to make explicit that large companies must operate for the public good.

[WeekiWater]

8. There wasn't much good for workers that went anywhere in the last Congress.

Brown is ahead of the game on this issue and few even grasp the concept. You won’t find s candidate on our side that comes close to Brown in this area. He builds a lot of his thoughts around MLKs concept of didnity in work.

Great op. I’m sure you will get some excellent replies as some of our candidates touch on some important aspects of the concept. None are as all encompassing as Brown.

[MH1]

11. What I like about Brown

(in addition to him getting the essence of the "dignity of work" concept), is that he also seems to understand that there is value in a partial solution when that is all you can get. Each step of progress helps some people. You get as much as you can. But you don't waste efforts on stuff that has absolutely zero possibility of success. Do what is doable. At the same time, don't use it as a cop out, make an effort to do as much as possible that really helps.

It's hard to put into words and yes, some will call it "incrementalism"; but those increments HELP PEOPLE. I'll take "increments" that help some people, over grand schemes that go nowhere and never help anyone at all. And the fundamental is that the increments are moving us in the right direction.

(It's okay to have some legislation like the one you posted, that goes nowhere. The problem is if that is all someone ever does. Our legislators need to know how to make what progress they can, when they can.)

[WeekiWater]

12. No doubt.

Warren has a solid list of legislation and amendments to legislation that positively impact workers that have passed. She gets into the sausage making. Like Brown she has big ideas but doesn’t fear incrementalism.

[marylandblue]

20. I am not fully on board, but Inslee seems the best with practical solutions

Climate change is his issue, but he is an all around progressive. On climate change, his big plans, like a carbon tax, failed. But he also successfully implemented more incremental changes on energy efficiency and investing in green technologies.

So he seems like someone who will try a lot of ideas from small to large, hoping that at least some will stick.

[MH1]

21. Thanks, I like the sound of that.

Inslee is on my list to research.

[wasupaloopa]

2. All of them. All Dem candidates have belief in the

dignity of work.


None of them leaves out the working class in their speaches.

Understanding the reality robotics and it’s a effect on jobs is important.

[MH1]

5. Yes, but some don't have a clue about certain issues. And some do.

They are not all the same.

I will refrain from posting any specifics myself about specific people. I am looking for others to (try to) make the case for why their candidate is excellent in this issue area.

[Garrett78]

14. Yep. There's no great divide among our candidates over labor, climate change, health care, etc.

[MH1]

15. Actually, there IS a great divide on an issue I care about

so-called "skilled" worker visas, and how big corporations use them to exploit workers.

Where does your candidate stand on that issue?

Sherrod Brown gets it. Bernie Sanders* also. I am hoping to find out about others. I am aware of one who is definitely against us, and have strong suspicions about 2 others. Not naming names here though.

The "skilled" worker visa program is something I know about, and serves as a proxy for me to gage candidates' comprehension of non-union labor market issues. Union issues aren't the only worker issues. "Get more jobs unionized" is just not an immediate answer to all labor market issues.

Here's a link to a post I did about just one harmful aspect of the program:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100211889910

FWIW, Trump pretends to get it, but he is a fraud and obscene on so many levels. And the changes he's made to pander to this voting interest group are just tweaks around the edges and not very meaningful really. But if Dems throw skilled American workers under the bus, back up and roll over us a few times ... I'll still vote Democrat (grudgingly and pissed-offedly at that point). But a lot won't.


* Please note I am not a one issue voter. (there are reasons Sanders is not my choice at this time, but this thread is not about that.) I'm hammering this issue lately because it seems most Dems DON'T get it. Despite posts here saying all our candidates are "great!" on worker issues. They aren't.

Oh and also, I really think we will lose in 2020 if Dems blow it on this issue (it's still not the popular vote that counts, remember). I was right about the 2016 election: "if Dems do X, we will lose." Dems did X, we lost. I don't want to be proven right again.

[Uncle Joe]

3. Why Organized Labor Must Back Bernie Sanders

Bernie Sanders is an anomaly in US politics.

He has demonstrated a constancy of principles for more than forty years, guiding him to work in the interests of working people. Sanders hates personal political opportunism. He faced arrest as a young man, not for a photo op and name recognition, but because he hates injustice and believes in our society’s democratic ideals. Workers losing their homes, their families, their work, their self-esteem, and mistakenly labeling themselves as failures rather than victims of social, economic, and political forces allied against them — Sanders sees these as crimes against the spirit of humanity.

(snip)

Sanders’s breadth and depth of understanding the realities that working people face is without peer in the US legislature. His struggles to help ordinary people are many and well-known: an unjust tax system, expansion of Social Security, free college tuition, Medicare for All, an infrastructure program that can create millions of jobs, a shift away from dependence on fossil fuels and towards sustainable energy, a trade program that recognizes and rewards the worth and value of labor, an end to Citizens United, greater support for the public sector, child care for working parents, pay equity, greater protections to form and join labor unions, workplace health and safety safeguards, affordable housing, elevating human rights as an inviolate element in trade policies, empowering worker, and an industrial regulatory regime that privileges worker skill enhancing over skill degrading technologies. He knows that a robust commons, the cultural and natural resources of a given society, is a necessity for social cohesion, necessary for a functioning democracy, and that it should and must be expanded and protected from privatization schemes.

(snip)

It was not that labor’s top leaders were unaware of Sanders’s pro-worker agenda. And it was not that organized labor did not have heartfelt respect for Sanders. I witnessed that respect as a vice president of the AFL-CIO. When Sanders entered our Executive Council asking for our consideration of his endorsement, he was greeted with an overwhelming standing ovation.

(snip)

A Sanders campaign will be about resuscitating the hope of the American people, speaking to the best of the idea of the American dream. It is a chance for us to reclaim national ideals lost. And it demands that we be authors of our own destiny, to transform our country. By fighting for Bernie, the American labor movement can play a decisive role in this transformation.

(snip)

https://jacobinmag.com/2019/02/organized-labor-unions-bernie-sanders-president

Thanks for the thread MH1.

[MH1]

6. I agree, from what I know, Sanders is pretty good on labor issues.

Thanks for the info.

I am hoping others step up too.


(Sanders was one of only 4 cosponsors of S.180 in the last session. S.180 = H-1B and L-1 Visa Reform Act of 2017. The others aren't running. Sigh.)

[WeekiWater]

28. .

https://www.democraticunderground.com/128716075#post4

[Nanjeanne]

7. At every Sanders rally so far - he has included labor in the opening speakers. In

Iowa tonight is

Link to tweet

[MH1]

17. "Labor" is not equal to "Union"

Union is a big part of labor, but unionized labor issues are not the only labor issues.

There are a huge number of working people in this country who are not unionized and will not be unionized any time soon, for various reasons. Our candidate needs to understand and work for those folks too, with positions that are good for union and non-union alike, at all levels of the opportunity ladder.

Sanders co-sponsored S.180 in the last session, along with Brown and too few others. That was a good start on fixing the H-1B and he was right. I hope he doesn't back away from that.

[Nanjeanne]

23. Sorry should have said labor both union and not.

Happy now?

[MH1]

24. I went to the link

and the speaker shown there was union.

Didn't mean to jump on you, just seeing what seems to be conflation of union and labor, too often among Dems. Or, exclusion of other workers from "labor" when "labor" is treated as synonymous with union.

[Nanjeanne]

25. Yes that was one speaker in Iowa last night

She was great by the way.

He also talked about Big Ag vs farmers in Iowa. Th

Lots of good stuff.

[kcr]

26. Hmm. Kind of a weird nit to pick.

I'm not sure I've ever once seen a discussion on unions where the intention was to exclude workers. Quite the opposite, in fact.

[MH1]

27. Except unions (sadly) comprise a relatively small part of the workforce.

It is important to support and hopefully expand unions. But focussing on "labor" issues only through the lens of unions, misses a very large part of the voting public.

Sorry that you think it's weird. I think it's an essential point for Dems to understand and convey in their platforms.

[kcr]

29. Yes, it's important to support unions.

Too important to play games with semantics and deemphasize them in the discussion. I'm sorry, but I do think that's a weird way to support unions.

[MH1]

30. Do you think it is important to support non-unionized workers as well? nt

[EveHammond13]

9. all of them

[MH1]

10. I hope so, but

I have facts about certain candidates that unfortunately don't fully support that hope. I don't want to post those though; I would rather hear specific positive points from people supporting the various candidates, rather than posting about what I consider to be their negatives.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

13. Biden. He is against guaranteed income and for people working for a living and for

helping those who can not. Might be too centrist - but mainstream thinking. Which is what we need to get rid of the devil incarnate.

Love Sherrod Brown. Hope he's someone's VP pick. Even though Ohio is probably a lost cause. Repuke leaders, suppression, plus trump approval at a whopping 48%. It's a new map for us. One that includes AZ, TX then maybe GA.

[MH1]

19. I'm hoping we have a great Prez-VP ticket and Brown stays in the Senate

I supported him for Prez because a) he is right on some key issues, showing he "gets it" and b) I think he is the best general election candidate by far, while still being very progressive in his ideals and goals. I am not certain yet but leaning toward Biden as the next in line at least for the GE electability.

I either want Sherrod as President or keep that critical Senate seat. Not interested in him as VP. Also I think the GE moves a bit away from "slam-dunk" without Brown so all the more reason we need him to keep that Senate seat.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

22. Agree. Why did he bow out? I think he could

Be swapped with Biden as checking the boxes we need to win. There are certain states like Ohio, Florida that desperately need Dem governor's too. They control elections. Sure we can try but strong headwinds.

[Demsrule86]

16. Biden without a doubt. He appeals to the same voters Brown does.

[MH1]

18. Thanks, to you and the poster above you.

I will be looking more into Biden.

Do you know where he stands on H-1B? (so-called "skilled" worker visa programs)

[Demsrule86]

31. I don't know.