Fighting for Workers
A strong economic foundation for our workers requires fair and secure workplaces. I grew up in a union household. My dad worked as a Public Lineman for the Snohomish County PUD and worked hard to give our family of five a better life. Labor literally put a shirt on my back and food on our table. I carry that history to work with me every day as I fight for labor.
OVERALL
- Support the right to organize.
- Support the ACA and making sure everyone has affordable health care.
- Support repeal of the Cadillac tax.
- Support strengthening OSHA and labor standards and ensuring rest breaks.
- Support strengthening our environment.
- Support expanding protections to women and working families.
- Support raising the minimum wage.
- Support retirement security, Social Security and Medicare.
JOBS
TIGER CUBS
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Support bringing infrastructure dollars to medium-sized cities.
Apprenticeships
- Support the next generation of labor work.
- Introduced the Youth Access to American Jobs Act to create ten pilot pathways that engage students in STEM-related fields from their junior year in high school through community college and into an apprenticeship.
FAA Reauthorization
- Support striking ATC privatization and make targeted reforms to FAA procurement and personnel.
- Championed the inclusion of a Youth Access to American Jobs in Aviation Task Force at the FAA, to improve access to STEM-based apprenticeships and help encourage students to pursue jobs in aviation manufacturing, maintenance and engineering.
- Cosponsored the Promoting Women in Aviation Industry Act to promote programs that provide education, training, mentorship, outreach and recruitment of women in the aviation industry.
Surface Reauthorization
- Support bills to repair and strengthen the nation’s roads, bridges, highways and transit systems to put people back to work.
- Support the Highway Trust Fund and support legislation to increase the gas tax to pay for it.
- Cosponsored the Positive Train Control Implementation and Financing Act, which among other provisions, provides over $2.5 billion in grants for intercity and commuter passenger railroads to implement positive train control and rail safety technology.
- Cosponsored the National Infrastructure Development Bank Act to help finance a range of transportation, environmental projects, energy, and telecommunications projects.
- Cosponsored the Water Quality Protection and Job Creation, to invest $25 billion over five years in wastewater infrastructure and other efforts to improve water quality and create thousands of new, living wage construction jobs.
NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD (NLRB)
- Voted to uphold the power of the NLRB to streamline the union organizing process in March 2015.
- Voted against legislation that would have hurt the NLRB’s decision-making abilities.
- Voted against a bill to prohibit the NLRB from taking any action that requires a quorum of members.
- Voted against limiting the NLRB enforcement powers. The legislation would curb the labor board’s legal authority by prohibiting it from ordering a company to relocate its workers.
DAVIS BACON/WAGES
- Opposed efforts to eliminate Davis Bacon Protections construction projects.
- Supported restoring cuts made in 2014 on per diem cuts for service members.
- Supported continuing prevailing wage standards.
- Supported raising the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2024 giving more than 41 million Americans a pay increase.
- Supported Paycheck Fairness Act to ensure equal pay for equal work.
HOURS
- Supported requiring a minimum of 10-hr rest periods for flight attendants, as well as fatigue risk management plans.
- Supported the Schedules that Work Act to allow low-wage workers to request for schedule flexibility without retaliation.
- Supported making sure truckers get meal and rest breaks.
HEALTH/SAFETY
- Supported providing airline ticket and gate agents with the same legal protections from assaults as flight attendants and flight crews.
- Supported Clean Ports: Allows ports to require stronger clean air standards for trucks servicing them.
- Opposed truck size increases: do not allow larger trucks on the road.
- Cosponsored the Safe Freight Act of 2017, prohibiting the operation of a freight train or light locomotive engine used in the movement of freight unless it has a crew of at least two individuals, one of whom is certified by the FRA as a locomotive operator and the other as a train conductor.
JONES ACT
- The Jones Act exists for a good reason. It sustains and protects maritime & shipbuilding industry, creates jobs and helps with national defense.
- Champion of the Jones Act, and have successfully opposed many attempts to weaken it.
- Joined a bipartisan letter to the Transportation Department and Department of Defense in support of bolstering the U.S.-flag merchant marine by fully enforcing “Ship American” laws for government-impelled cargo.
- Joined a bipartisan letter to the National Economic Council and National Security Council requesting the administration revoke previous CBP interpretations of the Jones Act that would allow for foreign-flag vessels to transport cargo between U.S. points.