Joe Biden will be a pro-worker president: Day 39 in 100 days of loving Joe Biden

by GoodNewsRoundup

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(This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday, Aug. 17, 2020 Monday, Aug. 17, 2020 at 4:04:16am PDT

Joe Biden has a long history of caring about working people and his plans for is presidency show that he will only continue to support us.

Recently, we talked about how Biden will raise the minimum wage. But that is only a small part of what Biden will do to help workers. Here are some other things taken right from his plans.

First Biden will:

Invest in communities by widely applying and strictly enforcing prevailing wages. When President Obama put Vice President Biden in charge of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), Biden made sure that Davis-Bacon Act and Service Contract Act standards were strictly enforced, requiring that the prevailing wage be paid to construction workers and service workers on all projects funded by ARRA. As president, Biden will build on this success by ensuring that every federal investment in infrastructure and transportation projects or service jobs is covered by prevailing wage protections.

Biden will also

Stop employers from denying workers overtime pay they’ve earned. The Obama-Biden Administration fought to extend overtime pay to over 4 million workers and protect nearly 9 million from losing it. The Trump Administration reversed this progress, implementing a new rule that leaves millions of workers behind. Since Trump walked away from protecting these middle-class workers, they have lost over $2.2 billion in foregone overtime wages. As president, Biden will ensure workers are paid fairly for the long hours they work and get the overtime they have earned.

And in this modern economy Biden promises to

Ensure workers in the “gig economy” and beyond receive the legal benefits and protections they deserve. Employer misclassification of “gig economy” workers as independent contractors deprives these workers of legally mandated benefits and protections. This epidemic of misclassification is made possible by ambiguous legal tests that give too much discretion to employers, too little protection to workers, and too little direction to government agencies and courts. States like California have already paved the way by adopting a clearer, simpler, and stronger three-prong “ABC test” to distinguish employees from independent contractors. The ABC test will mean many more workers will get the legal protections and benefits they rightfully should receive. As president, Biden will work with Congress to establish a federal standard modeled on the ABC test for all labor, employment, and tax laws.

Biden will take the side of workers over corporations:

Eliminate non-compete clauses and no-poaching agreements that hinder the ability of employees to seek higher wages, better benefits, and working conditions by changing employers. At some point in their careers, 40% of American workers have been subject to non-compete clausesThese employer-driven barriers to competition are even imposed within the same company’s franchisee networks. As president, Biden will work with Congress to eliminate all non-compete agreements, except the very few that are absolutely necessary to protect a narrowly defined category of trade secrets, and outright ban all no-poaching agreements.

Biden will not only protect worker’s rights, he will also protect their health and safety

Increase workplace safety and health. No one should get sick, injured, or die simply because they went to work. Every worker has the right to return home from work safely. But Trump has attempted to weaken several occupational and safety regulations established during the Obama-Biden Administration. As president, Biden will reinstate these critical safety protections and ensure all appointments to committees and advisory boards under OSHA intimately understand the consequences of not having functional safety standards in place. He will direct OSHA to substantially expand its enforcement efforts.

and he will end awful practices which deprive workers of their day in court

Ensure workers can have their day in court by ending mandatory arbitration clauses imposed by employers on workers. Sixty million workers have been forced to sign contracts waiving their rights to sue their employer and nearly 25 million have been forced to waive their right to bring class action lawsuits or joint arbitration. Biden will enact legislation to ban employers from requiring their employees to agree to mandatory individual arbitration and forcing employees to relinquish their right to class action lawsuits or collective litigation, as called for in the PRO Act.