John Edwards for President-Building One America By Rewarding Work

Building One America By Rewarding Work

"No one who works full-time should live in poverty. By honoring and rewarding work, we will lift up millions of Americans and build a stronger, more productive America."
– John Edwards

Today, John Edwards begins his three-day Road to One America tour with stops in Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Tennessee. The tour is intended to shine a light on the places and real people who struggle with poverty, as well as highlight real solutions that will help give millions of poor low-income Americans a chance for a better life.

During today's stops, Edwards will announce two new initiatives designed to help ensure that workers are paid and treated fairly in the workplace. The initiatives include: (1) a new labor taskforce to target industries with the worst abuses of minimum wage, workplace safety and overtime laws; and (2) protecting workers' health by providing seven paid sick days a year.

These new initiatives are part of his agenda to reward work with a higher minimum wage, stronger unions, new protections for home health care workers and universal health care, Stepping Stone jobs and smart trade policies that work for workers as well as corporations.

Today's Stops on the Road to One America

Canton, Mississippi is one of many Delta towns dominated by the poultry processing, one of the most dangerous and poorly rewarded industrial jobs in America. Mississippi poultry workers are paid poorly and most lack health benefits. The industry is one of many in America that increasingly violate legal protections, such as minimum wage and hour laws, and misclassify employees as independent contractors in order to strip them of basic protections. A Labor Department study of the poultry industry nationally found that out of 51 plants surveyed, 100 percent had not paid employees for all hours worked and one-third took illegal deductions from pay. [MPOWER, 2007; BLS, 2006; USDA, 2005; UFCW, 2007; DoL, 2001]

Marks, Mississippi is in Quitman County, where one out of every three residents is in poverty. In 1968, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. started his Poor People's March at the Road Side Park in Marks, which would eventually bring over 7,000 Americans to Washington, DC. Today, the Quitman County Development Organization is a local community center creating economic opportunity with many of the solutions John Edwards has proposed nationally, including affordable housing and a credit union offering low-fee banking, small business loans, and alternatives to payday loans to help working families save and get ahead. [QCDO, 2007]

West Helena, Arkansas has seen women in the area—like millions of women nationally—increasingly working in underpaid home care jobs. Home health aide is America's fastest-growing profession. Ninety percent of home care workers are women, and one out of every four is a single mother caring for young children. The undervaluing of this career contributes to the reality that of the 37 million Americans living in poverty, 21 million are women. In Arkansas, the typical hourly wage for home health aides is $8.13, and nationally 25 percent lack health benefits. Half of all home care workers are living in a low-income family, and they are disproportionately rural. [BLS, 2004; SEIU, 2003; BLS, 2006; Carsey Institute, 2007]

Memphis, Tennessee is where Dr. King went on a detour from the Poor People's March to stand with Memphis sanitation workers' striking for fair wages. His campaign for justice came to a tragic end during that detour in April 1968. The Metropolitan Inter-Faith Association was founded that same year, and has worked to bring together residents from all walks of life to lift Memphis families out of poverty. The Association is in the racially and economically segregated Peabody-Vance neighborhood of Memphis, which has a 60 percent poverty rate and a 15 percent unemployment rate. MIFA's programs include teen job services, college prep, services to the elderly, legal counseling and debt management. [City of Memphis, 2007; MIFA, 2007]

John Edwards' Plan to Reward Work: New Initiatives

Enforcing Labor Protections: In many industries, violations of our most basic labor laws have become the new way of doing business. The Department of Labor has found that the countless businesses do not adhere to minimum wage and overtime laws. In fact, in the United States today, there is only one wage and hour inspector for every 150,000 employees, half of inspections are conducted by fax and telephone, and up to 30 percent of employers misclassify their employees to avoid paying taxes, benefits and worker's compensation. [DOL, 2007, 1998, 2001, 2001; NELP, 2007]

To help protect workers, Edwards will revive the Department of Labor, creating a new taskforce to target the industries with the worst abuses of minimum wage and overtime laws. To stop the misclassifying of employees as independent contractors, he will require companies to document their payments to subcontractors, increase penalties for employers who routinely pay "off the books," and give workers more rights to question their status. He will also make workplaces safer by boosting funding for OSHA inspectors, updating OSHA practices for the new service economy, restoring ergonomic standards, strengthening whistleblower protections and extending OSHA protections to all workers.

Paid Sick Days for All: Nearly half of all private-sector workers, and nearly 80 percent of low-wage workers, must forgo pay to miss even a single day due to illness or caregiving. John Edwards believes that protecting the health of workers is not only important for families, but also best for the health of the community. Edwards' new initiative will help ensure that all employees have at least seven paid sick days a year, with pro-rated leave for part-time workers. [IWPR 2007]

Building on Edwards' Pro-Work Agenda:

Raise the Minimum Wage: Edwards will set a national goal of a minimum wage that equals half the average wage. He will raise the minimum wage by 75 cents a year until it reaches $9.50 in 2012, and then index it to so that it automatically rises each year along with average wages, ensuring that all workers share in America's growth. He will also restore the minimum wage for tipped workers to half the full minimum wage—the minimum wage for these workers has stood at $2.13 since 1997.
Strengthen Workers' Right to Organize: Edwards believes that unions are essential to building the future middle class. The right to choose a union is poorly enforced, full of loopholes, and routinely violated by employers. He will enact the Employee Free Choice Act to give workers a meaningful right to choose a union, vigorously enforce labor laws and ban the use of permanent replacements for striking workers.
Take Care of the Caretakers: Millions of care providers—overwhelmingly women—work long hours without overtime or benefits and at hourly rates sometimes below the minimum wage, and the occupation is projected to grow faster than any other job in America. Edwards will amend the Fair Labor Standards Act to include home health care workers, effectively reversing the Long Island Care at Home v. Coke decision that excluded them from these protections. He will also extend collective bargaining rights to home care workers and strengthen Medicaid's support for long-term and home-based care. [Washington Post, 6/12/2007; BLS, 2004]
Guarantee Universal Health Care: Nearly 60 percent of low-wage workers lack health insurance. Edwards has a truly universal health care plan that will guarantee affordable coverage to every family. Employers will have to help cover their employees, the government will make insurance affordable with new reforms and subsidies, and all Americans will buy insurance. [Commonwealth Fund, 2004]
Help Low-Income Families Find Work and Join the Middle Class: Edwards has set a national goal of eliminating poverty within 30 years. He will cut taxes on low-income workers by expanding the earned income tax credit for single workers and reducing its marriage penalty. He will create 1 million Stepping Stone jobs to help people struggling to find jobs gain skills and work experience. He will also expand affordable housing near good jobs, rather than concentrating it in high-poverty neighborhoods far from opportunity.
Help Low-Wage Workers Save with Work Bonds: Edwards will offer a new tax credit to help low-income, working Americans save for the future. The credit would match wages and savings up to $500 per year and be directly deposited into a savings account. Edwards has also proposed expanding the Savers Credit to match the savings of low-income families.
Enact Smarter Trade Policies: Trade deals need to make sense for American workers, not just corporations. Edwards will insist on strong labor and environmental standards, vigorously enforce American workers' rights, and help workers and communities hurt by global competition.