Pay a living wage which reflects real value of work
Ten Key Values: (#6) Community Based Economics
We recognize it is essential to create a vibrant and sustainable economic system, one that can create jobs and provide a decent standard of living, for all people, while maintaining a healthy ecological balance.
A successful economic system will offer meaningful work with dignity, while paying a “living wage” which reflects the real value of a person’s work.Source: Ten Key Values as ratified at 2003 Green Party Convention , Nov 19, 2003
Support a Living Wage
We advocate reinvesting a significant portion of the military budget in family support, living wage job development, and work training programs. Publicly funded work training and education programs should have a goal of increasing people’s employment options at living wage jobs.
We support public funding for the development of living wage jobs in community and environmental service, for example, environmental clean-up, recycling, sustainable agriculture and food production, sustainable forest management, repair and maintenance of public facilities, neighborhood-based public safety, aids in schools, libraries and childcare centers, and construction and renovation of energy-efficient housing. We oppose enterprise zone ‘give aways’ which benefit corporations more than inner city communitiesSource: Green Party Platform, at 2000 National Convention , Jun 25, 2000
America’s 25+ million jobless is intolerable
The Republicans are right when they point to America’s 25+ million jobless and ask whether the President is serious in proposing job training as his primary remedy. The Democrats are right when they respond that the Republicans have proposed no real jobs alternatives of their own.
Five years after Obama’s historic mandate, the conditions of the great mass of Americans remains intolerable. And yet to hear his 5th State of Union address, an uninformed listener might think America’s problems are limited and manageable.
The reason for this dissonance is that this State of the Union was not delivered by the man elected in the mandate of 2008. This State of the Union might as well have been given by a robot, or an actor, or a media spokesperson. In fact, a media spokesman is what this President of the United States has long since become. His is a voice that modulates the reality experienced by an ever more disconnected political establishment for a polity that grows smaller by the year.Source: Green Party response to 2014 State of the Union , Jan 30, 2014
$10.10 federal contractor minimum wage still not living wage
The big announcement by the president that he will by executive order raise the minimum wage under federal contracts to $10.10 an hour is really a dud. The reality is that $10.10 is still not a living wage, so rather than ending poverty wages he continues them with a little less poverty. But, to make it worse even these poverty wages are an empty promise. The executive order will only apply to future contracts. That means all the existing federal contractors can continue to pay the existing poverty wage. Of the millions of federal contract employees living in poverty perhaps 200,000 will be helped by the president.Source: Green Party response to 2014 State of the Union , Jan 30, 2014
Pay liveable wages, not just minimum wage
The Green Party’s national platform endorses the liveable wage and the guaranteed basic income: “All workers, temporary or permanent, must be paid a living wage. We support the enactment of living wage laws that apply to all workers.”
Green Party activists noted that a minimum wage that matched current productivity growth would be more than $16.50 an hour and said that this figure should factor into the calculation for a liveable-wage guarantee. Greens said that enacting a liveable wage would boost the economy by providing millions more Americans, especially low-income families, with spending power.
The Green New Deal, advocated by Green candidates including 2012 presidential nominee Jill Stein, calls for the creation of millions of new green jobs that pay liveable wagesSource: Green Party press release, “Liveable wage, not just minimum” , Mar 8, 2013
Irreducible right to form a union without hindranceThe right to organize unions, bargain freely and strike when necessary is being destroyed by employers and their representatives in government. Today, nearly one out of ten workers involved in union organizing drives is illegally fired by employers who wage a campaign of fear, threats, and slick propaganda to keep workers from exercising a genuinely free choice.
The Green Party supports the irreducible right of the working people, without hindrance, to form a union and to bargain collectively with their employer. This right was guaranteed under the National Labor Relations Act of 1935.
We support the right of workers, without penalty, to inform other workers on the premises of a union being formed. This includes advertising and recruiting.
Source: Green Party Platform adopted, July 12-15 2012 in Baltimore , Jul 15, 2012
Source: Green Party on Jobs
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Green Party Platform on the Issues
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