via The Washington Free Beacon by Graham Piro
Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) has made fighting for increased worker pay a major part of his presidential campaign, but the campaign has not been as committed to taking care of its own workers.
The Sanders campaign's workers have been battling campaign management to give them the $15 minimum wage, which Sanders claims all workers must have, according to a report by the Washington Post. Internal communications from the Sanders campaign show field hires demanding an annual salary equivalent to a $15 hourly minimum wage. Earlier this year, the campaign's staff becamethe first major campaign in history to unionize.
The union representing the campaign staff prepared a draft of a letter to potentially send to Sanders's campaign manager, Faiz Shakir, this week. The letter blasted the campaign for paying "poverty wages."
"Given our campaign’s commitment to fighting for a living wage of at least $15.00 an hour, we believe it is only fair that the campaign would carry through this commitment to its own field team," the letter says.
It also calculated the hourly wage as $13 due to the fact that staffers were working up to 60 hours a week on the campaign.