Issue Position: Labor Issues

Issue Position

Minimum Wage

For too many years Congress has turned a blind eye to the plight of those on minimum wage and refused to address the plight of minimum wage earners. A full-time minimum wage worker in 2006 earns only $10,712 - which is $5,888 less than the $16,600 needed to lift a family of three out of poverty. After the longest period in the history of the law without a minimum wage increase - over 9 years - America's poorest working families must get the raise they need and deserve.

That is why Congressman Conyers is an original co-sponsor of the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007 and strongly supported Speaker Pelosi's plan to bring up an increase the minimum wage in the first 100 hours of the 110th Congress.

The Fair Minimum Wage Act will increase the federal minimum wage to $7.25 per hour in three steps over two years. Under the bill, sixty days after enactment, the wage would rise from the current $5.15 per hour to $5.85 per hour. One year later, it would rise to $6.55. And a year after that, it would finally rise to $7.25 per hour.

The Employee Free Choice Act

Protecting the fundamental right of workers to organize is among Mr. Conyers' most important priorities. Workers who are able to freely choose to form a union enjoy higher wages, greater access to health care, a more secure retirement, as well as greater respect in their workplace.

Mr. Conyers is an original sponsor of the Employee Free Choice Act which would help further these goals by protecting the right of workers to exercise their free choice to form a union free from coercion. The EFCA allows for the certification of a union if the National Labor Relations Board finds that a majority of employees at a job site have signed written authorization forms designating a union as their exclusive bargaining representative.

Kentucky River decision

On September 29, 2006, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued a series of rulings which threaten to deny 8 million Americans the fundamental right to organize and collectively bargain. In three decisions, known collectively as the " Kentucky River" cases, the Board has redefined what it means to be a "supervisor." In these " Kentucky River" rulings, of the Board has provided employers with a roadmap for reclassifying workers as supervisors in name only and stripping them of their fundamental rights. Under these new rules, huge swaths of workers - particularly in the health care industry - could be reclassified as supervisors by their employer.

Under the National Labor Relations Act, the distinction between an employee and a supervisor is the difference between workers' rights and no rights at all. Supervisors have no right to organize, bargain collectively, or engage in any other kind of concerted activity with fellow employees to improve their workplaces.

For example, under the NLRB's rulings, a nurse who simply tells an assistant to clip a patient's toenails and is held accountable for the assistant's work could be deemed a supervisor - even though this nurse has no authority to hire, fire, discipline, or reward. The same holds true for other skilled workers who often provide guidance to less skilled workers and apprentices. Indeed, even though the National Labor Relations Act explicitly guarantees the rights of professional employees to organize, unfortunately the current NLRB has rendered all of those rights at risk.

Congressman Conyers is committed to not let the NLRB turn back the clock to the 19th Century and strip millions of workers of their fundamental rights, like collective bargaining. In the 110th Congress Representative Conyers will fight for legislation that will override the NLRB's ruling and restore those rights to ensure an America and an economy that will work for everyone.

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