Workers for Bernie Sanders Campaign Paid Poverty Wages
by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org – Home – Stephen Lendman)
Sanders’ political record is pockmarked with hypocrisy, belying his lofty progressive advocacy.
Like the vast majority of others in Washington, his soul is for sale at the right price. He’s the most popular US con man, a progressive socialist in name only.
He’s a member of the Senate’s millionaire club. According to the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), over 70% of Senate members are millionaires, many hugely wealthy, saying:
“(M)ost never needed to worry about the pressures” the vast majority of Americans face. “Senators get richer” unlike their constituents back home struggling to get by.
Sanders parlayed his national prominence into book deals that made him a millionaire. Forbes magazine reported that he made “nearly $5 million in the past 10 years,” based on an analysis of his tax returns.
Most of it came from lucrative book deals, material ghost-written for him, making him more capitalist pig/opportunist than a progressive socialist.
He’s a member of America’s 1%, the nation’s rich and powerful he rails against while campaigning.
His “Our Revolution: A Future To Believe In” rehashes the mumbo jumbo rubbish he used while campaigning in 2016, stuff not worth reading, saying one thing on the stump, doing another in Congress.
He’s wealthy enough to own three homes despite earlier tweeting: “How many yachts do billionaires need? How many cars do they need? Give us a break. You can’t have it all.”
He’s not giving back his share. His criticism of America’s rich is pure baloney. He downplayed his own wealth, saying “I wrote a best-selling book. If you write a best-selling book, you can be a millionaire, too.”
According to Thrift Books, six titles bear his name, all likely ghost-written for him. Besides his Senate pay, perks, and other sources of income, royalties largely made him wealthy.
According to Forbes, there’s more from pensions, annuities, dividends, capital gains, Social Security payments, and miscellaneous income.
He’s a member of America’s privileged class — while paying his campaign workers poverty wages.
Despite campaigning for a federally guaranteed $15 minimum wage for all US workers, until yielding to pressure, Sanders paid his organizers and other employees $13 an hour for 60-hour workweeks.
What he rhetorically supports for all US workers hasn’t been the standard he followed for his staffers.
After a prolonged dispute at least since last May, between him and the union representing his workers, an agreement was reached to pay field organizers an annual salary equivalent of $15 an hour.
Union spokesman Jonathan Williams said “(b)oth the campaign staff and management have engaged in this process in good faith and achieved a mutually agreed upon outcome.”
A Sanders campaign statement said:
“We have and will always be committed to the fight for fair pay, decent work conditions, and a strong labor movement — for our own workers and those all across this country (sic),” adding:
“We’re proud to have successfully negotiated with the union in good faith (sic) to raise the pay of field organizers, while continuing to ensure our campaign staffers are being paid a living wage (sic).”
The above statement failed to explain that he kicking and screaming resisted paying his staffers equitably, arguing for weeks or months against it, yielding only under sustained pressure.
In how he treated his own workers, he breached his living wage income campaign advocacy for all US working Americans.
It was and remains typical Sanders, saying one thing, doing something entirely different, what hypocrisy is all about.
A Final Comment
When it comes to Israeli abuses of long-suffering Palestinians, Sanders largely supports the Jewish state.
He largely ignores its institutionalized racism, its apartheid rule, its ruthless persecution of an entire population for not being Jewish, and preemptive wars at its discretion.
Saying “Israel, 100%, must have the right to exist in peace and security, and not be subjected to terrorist attacks” ignored reality.
The Jewish state’s only threats are invented. No real ones exist. Its policies threaten regional peace and stability.
He’s dismissive of the rights of ordinary people at home and abroad while pretending otherwise.
If elected president, he intends leaving the US embassy in Jerusalem. Trump illegally moved it there, a UN recognized international city.
A December 2017 General Assembly resolution declared the move “null and void,” demanding he rescind the order.
Like the vast majority of others in Congress, Sanders supports powerful interests while pretending otherwise.
Why not, he’s one of the capitalist pigs he pretends to oppose.
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