Highlights of Senator Boxer's Record Supporting Labor

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The working men and women of America are the backbone of America’s economy. Laws like the minimum wage, child labor laws and equal opportunity employment have helped America develop a strong middle class.  Throughout her career, Barbara Boxer has been a staunch advocate for the right to organize and the fight for fair wages and benefits.

• Restore Free Choice for Workers: Senator Boxer is a strong supporter of the Employee Free Choice Act, which would allow workers, not employers, to choose the method of organizing a union. 

• Preserving Overtime: Senator Boxer voted against proposals to abolish the 40-hour work week, an attempt to allow employers to avoid paying overtime.  She fought the Bush Administration proposal to overhaul long-standing overtime laws, which would have resulted in millions of Americans losing their overtime pay.

• Promoting Equal Pay for Equal Work: Senator Boxer has worked to end pay inequities in the workplace.  She fought for the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act to ensure that victims of wage discrimination can seek justice.  The act was the first signed into law by President Obama on January 21, 2009. And, she cosponsored the Fair Pay Act to prohibit pay discrimination on the basis of sex, race, and national origin.

• Protecting the Right to Join a Union: When the National Labor Relations Board supported efforts to reclassify some workers as “supervisors” – the effect of which was to deny them the right to join a union – Senator Boxer supported overturning this decision.  In 2007, she took an active role in protecting the right of contract immigration processing workers in Orange County to organize in the wake of harsh anti-union intimidation tactics by a private government contractor.

• Supporting Collective Bargaining: Senator Boxer supported giving workers for the Transportation Security Administration the same collective bargaining rights as other federal workers.  She supported legislation to allow public safety officers the right to collectively bargain.  And she opposes so-called “Right to Work” legislation, which would allow people to refuse to pay the union dues associated with the benefits from collective bargaining.

• Ensuring Fair Pay: Senator Boxer is a long-time supporter of the Davis-Bacon Act, which requires that workers on federal contracts be paid the local prevailing wage, and she has fought repeated efforts to allow federal contractors to skimp on paying their workers.

• Increasing the Minimum Wage: For 10 years, Senator Boxer was a leader in the effort to increase the minimum wage to reduce the wage stagnation that was affecting 13 million workers.

• Extending Unemployment Compensation: In 2008, Senator Boxer supported legislation to extend unemployment benefits for an additional seven weeks – and for 20 additional weeks in hard-hit states like California.  In 2009, she supported the economic stimulus package, which provides funding for states to make 500,000 more Americans eligible for unemployment benefits.