Workers' and Labor Rights

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Workers are the backbone of our economy and our society. Workers provide our food, build our roads, construct our schools, keep our communities clean, ensure our hospitals are running, and more. 

But outdated labor laws written by ultra-wealthy corporations have hampered our fundamental right to join together and negotiate for better wages, benefits, and working conditions.

I know the value of a union. As an un-unionized teacher, I made less than $29,000 per year while unionized teachers less than a mile away earned better pay and better benefits. 

That's why I'll be a fighter for the fair treatment of all workers and unions. Here's my plan:

• End Anti-Union Laws: Unions allow workers to come together and collectively bargain for better wages, benefits and working conditions. Studies show that unionized workers are paid more and have better benefits than non-unionized workers. But in Arizona, only 5% of workers are part of a union, compared to 11% of workers nationwide. Why? Because corporate interests and their lobbyists have done everything they can to pass laws that make it harder to form a union in our state. In office, I would work to overturn these so-called "right to work" laws that weaken unions and tilt the balance of power toward big corporations and rig the system at the expense of working families.
• Enact Paid Family Leave:  The United States is one of the only countries in the world that doesn’t guarantee paid family leave for when a worker needs time to care for a new child, a seriously ill family member, or recover from their own serious illness. I would work to create the Arizona Paid Family Leave Program, a state insurance program that provides wage replacement (a percentage of one’s income) to eligible workers, including independent contractors and undocumented workers, when they take time off of work to care for a seriously ill family member or to bond with a new child. Under my plan, workers who contribute to the Arizona Paid Family Leave Program would be entitled to eight weeks of 80% pay while taking time off from work to care for a newborn, adopted or foster child, or ill family member.
• Equal Pay for Equal Work: While pay discrimination based on gender or race has been formally outlawed, one big issue that stands in the way of equal pay for equal work is pay secrecy. Pay secrecy is a workplace policy that allows employers to prohibit employees from discussing how much money they make. But when employees are forbidden from talking about pay, it makes pay discrimination difficult to spot. That's why I would introduce a bill banning pay secrecy policies—helping end the silencing of workers and uprooting the culture of pay discrimination. 
• Increase the minimum wage to $15/hr: While ultra-wealthy corporations are making billions of dollars in profit and evading taxes, the people who do the real work are struggling to survive. In a modern, wealthy society like Arizona, no person should have to worry about where their next meal comes from or whether they can afford a roof over their head. As a first step to combatting this worker exploitation, I will fight for legislation increasing Arizona's minimum hourly wage to $15. 
• Protect Low-Income Workers from Extreme Heat Hazards: In Arizona, outdoor workers such as construction workers, farm workers, and landscapers, make up 22 percent of the total workforce. These essential workers—who are disproportionately immigrants, Latinos, and Black people—often work in triple-digit temperatures and are 35 times more likely to die from heat exposure compared with the general population. In office, I would push for a bill creating heat protective standards for Arizona’s heat-exposed workers that shield them from unsafe workplaces. I would ensure the legislation protects whistleblowers who expose unsafe working conditions from retaliation from their employers. 
• Create a Statewide Office to Combat Wage Theft: Wage theft is when an employer doesn’t pay you what you're owed. That could look like paying you for fewer hours than you actually worked, denying you overtime, or something else. Wage theft is the most prevalent type of property crime: More money is withheld from paychecks each year than all robberies, burglaries, and car thefts combined. In office, I plan to work on legislation creating a new statewide office that will proactively recover millions of dollars in unpaid wages for Arizonans. This will boost the local economy, get more money into our people's pockets, and crack down on greedy corporations.