Apparent failure to practice what it preaches regarding the minimum wage and overtime has come back to bite the Democratic Party — in federal court.
Yes, the party whose platform at its 2016 national convention in Philadelphia called for a national $15-an-hour minimum wage and expanded overtime rights is the target of a class-action lawsuit alleging that it failed to pay 40 to 50 of its “field organizers” nationwide the federal $7.25 hourly minimum and denied them overtime pay, according to multiple media reports.
“They got paid a flat salary of $3,000 a month, which isn’t even minimum wage for some of the hours they were working,” Justin Swidler, the plaintiffs’ attorney, told Philly’s CBS affiliate. He said they were working 80 to 90 hours a week in the late stages of Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
The Democratic National Committee and six state party organizations, including the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, are named as defendants. Neither the DNC nor the Keystone State party responded to Washington Examiner requests for comment.
That’s not surprising, as there’s little, if anything, either organization could say or do to blunt the obvious and embarrassing irony of this disconnect between Democratic Party rhetoric and alleged Democratic Party practices.
And that apparent failure is another indication that the “Fight for 15” rhetoric that Democrats share with their Big Labor boosters is about politics, not paychecks.
___
(c)2017 The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (Greensburg, Pa.)
Visit The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (Greensburg, Pa.) at www.triblive.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
—-
This content is published through a licensing agreement with Acquire Media using its NewsEdge technology.
Recent Comments