Source: United States Senator for Ohio Sherrod Brown
CLEVELAND, OH — Today, U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) joined a virtual roundtable with United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) members from throughout Ohio to discuss issues confronting workers due to the ongoing COVID-19.
“So many of you have been on the front lines of this pandemic, risking your lives so that Americans can keep food on their table and get their medicine and all their essentials,” said Brown at the roundtable. “Corporations try to get positive press off of their workers, while paying them poverty wages and in too many cases, failing to protect their safety. Workers don’t need a PR campaign – they need fair pay and protections on the job, and a union like UFCW to fight for them and be their voice.”
During the roundtable, Brown went on to discuss legislation he’s introduced and championed that protect workers’ right to organize and provide more economic security to working families.
The pandemic has made it clearer than ever that our economy is benefitting the biggest corporations and wealthiest individuals—while failing workers, and in particular women and workers of color. While wages are stagnant for the bottom 50% of workers, the top one percent of earners have seen their wages grow by 205 percent. This worsening income inequality has the deepest impact on women and workers of color, who disproportionately have jobs with lower wages and fewer, if any, benefits. That’s why Brown reintroduced the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act in February, comprehensive labor legislation to protect workers’ right to stand together and bargain for fairer wages, better benefits, and safer workplaces.
And while wages are stagnant for the bottom 50% of workers, the cost of childcare has exploded and been exacerbated by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Brown secured language to expand the Child Tax Credit (CTC) as part of the American Rescue Plan. By fighting to make these tax cuts for working families permanent, Brown wants to put our government back on the side of the people who make our country work. Brown helped write and pass the American Rescue Plan with these expanded CTC benefits, based on his bill the Working Families Tax Relief Act.
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