Bloomberg news is reporting that the ongoing issue of pay and hours in the Bernie Sanders campaign has hit another bump in the road:
xBREAKING: Sen. Bernie Sanders' 2020 presidential campaign has been hit with an unfair labor practice complaint alleging illegal employee interrogation and retaliation against staffers. https://t.co/BYEAh696rF
— Bloomberg Law (@BLaw) July 23, 2019The linked article is an interesting read
Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) 2020 presidential campaign has been hit with an unfair labor practice complaint alleging illegal employee interrogation and retaliation against staffers.
A copy of the charge has not yet been made public, but the agency’s July 22 docket lists five potential violations of the National Labor Relations Act. The charge also alleges that the campaign unlawfully discharged an employee, modified a labor contract, and engaged in illegal discipline.
Charges to the NLRB can be filed by “any person” and don’t have to come from a campaign staffer or someone directly affected by the alleged labor law violations, according to the board’s website. The NLRB has yet to make a determination about whether there is any merit to the allegations.
At this time it unclear if the charges have any merit, however, there has been considerable reporting on the base issue — that Sanders has, as a major component of his presidential campaign, supported Unions. Yet the unionization of his own campaign has been riddled with problems stemming from hours worked and paid of his own staff.
From Vox.com dateline July 20, 2019: The controversy over Bernie Sanders’s low-paid field staffers, explained
People with families to support generally don’t take low-level jobs on political campaigns, and consequently, it’s unlikely that many Sanders campaign staffers are eligible for social assistance benefits. But as a report this week by Sean Sullivan at the Washington Post revealed, Sanders’s campaign pays many of its staffers — primarily in the traditionally low-paid field department — less than the $15 per hour he (along with most Democrats) has set as a proposed national pay floor.
The underlying issue is that while the Sanders campaign’s collective bargaining agreement with its staff union sets hourly pay above $15, there are also salaried workers on the team.
Field staff earn $36,000 a year, which would be above minimum wage on a standard workweek, but Sanders field personnel say they’re actually working about 60 hours a week — for an hourly wage of $13. Long hours are typical of campaign work (you have a limited span of time in which to win the thing, after all), but these particular positions fall into a kind of legal and sociocultural black hole. The norm in America was that low-status workers would be paid an hourly wage and thus be eligible for overtime pay if they worked long hours. Salaried workers wouldn’t necessarily get overtime for pulling long shifts, but salaried work was associated with high-skill, high-status, well-compensated white-collar work.
UPDATEh/t to catguardian for the link to the actual NLRB complaint filed
www.nlrb.gov/case/25-CA-245250
Bernie Sanders for President 2020
Case Number: 25-CA-245250 Location: Bettendorf, IA Date Filed: 07/22/2019 Region Assigned: Region 25, Indianapolis, Indiana Status: Open Docket Activity| 07/19/2019 | Signed Charge Against Employer* | Charging Party |
The Docket Activity list does not reflect all actions in this case.
* This document may require redactions before it can be viewed. To obtain a copy, please file a request through our FOIA branch.
Allegations 8(a)(1) Concerted Activities (Retaliation, Discharge, Discipline) 8(a)(3) Discharge (Including Layoff and Refusal to Hire (not salting)) 8(a)(3) Discipline 8(a)(5) Repudiation/Modification of Contract [Sec 8(d)/Unilateral Changes] 8(a)(1) Interrogation (including Polling) Participants| Charging Party Individual | ||
| Charged Party / Respondent Employer Bernie Sanders for President 2020 | Des Moines, IA 50309 |