LAS VEGAS – Many of the heavy hitters running for the 2020 Democratic Party presidential nomination will be on hand at a Saturday forum on labor issues in Las Vegas.
Hear an audio report from Suzanne Potter.
Speakers at the National Forum on Wages and Working People include Senators Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris and Amy Klobuchar, former Congressman Beto O’Rourke, former U.S. HUD Secretary Julian Castro, and former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper.
Danielle Gibbs Leger is the executive vice-president for communications and strategy with the Center for American Progress Action Fund, a co-sponsor of the event. She says candidates will be asked how they plan to improve conditions for working people.
“Economic and political power is increasingly controlled by the wealthy few, corporations and billionaires, and most Americans have been left out of the economic prosperity of the past several years,” says Leger. “So, we are really looking forward, to talk about what they’re going to put forth.”
The Service Employees International Union is also co-sponsoring the event.
Candidates will be asked for their thoughts on how to make it easier to join a union, in the wake of a damaging Supreme Court decision last summer. The high court decided that government workers who don’t belong to a union cannot be required to pay for collective bargaining, even when they benefit from it.
Leger sees Nevada as the perfect place to bring up such issues as collective bargaining and the need to raise the federal minimum wage.
“Iowa and New Hampshire are very important, but they don’t necessarily represent the diversity of the rest of the country,” says Leger. “So, we thought it was important to hold this in a place that has that diversity, has a union workforce who are going to be asking these leaders how they’re going to improve their lives.”
The event will take place at The Enclave in Las Vegas. It is invitation-only, but it will be live-streamed online, on the website ‘workersforum.org.’
