Yesterday, I offered up three questions for moderators to use during the Presidential Debates to question Donald Trump on employment law issues.
Today is Secretary Hillary Clinton’s turn.
- Secretary Clinton, the National Labor Relations Board has been quite active in the Obama years; in fact, despite the failure of Congress to pass the Employee Free Choice Act (of which you were an original co-sponsor), many of the ideas from that bill have made its way to regulations from the NLRB including new speedy elections. You have indicated that you will “fight to strengthen the labor movement” on your website. What additional changes would you like to see to the nation’s labor laws and why isn’t what we have now enough?
- You have indicated that you will also “protect workers from exploitation, including employer misclassification, wage theft, and other forms of exploitation.” Yet our federal and state laws already prohibit the use of independent contractors as employees and cover the so-called “wage theft” examples. What are you going to do differently, if anything?
- In a speech yesterday, you spotlighted a constituency that we haven’t heard much about during this election cycle — those with disabilities. And you have indicated that you want to fulfill the promise of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Beyond eliminating the sub-minimum wage that is allowable under current law, would you make any changes to the ADA itself? And in “fulfilling the promise” of the ADA, would you ask the Department of Justice make enforcement a top priority of its strategic plan?
I’m under no illusion: These topics are unlikely to get discussed. We’ll probably hear more about e-mails and taco trucks. But perhaps someone somewhere will press the candidates on these important issues.