Walz Twists Some Labor Claims

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Delivering remarks at a labor union conference in California, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz stretched the facts with several labor-related claims.

• Walz said Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance “has never cast a vote on a pro-worker bill in his life.” Walz was referring to the AFL-CIO scorecard, which lists legislation supported by the union. Vance, who has been in the Senate for less than two years, cast five votes opposed by the union.

• Walz said that former President Donald Trump “cut overtime benefits for millions of workers.” The Trump administration actually extended the number of salaried employees eligible for overtime pay, but not to nearly as many workers as his predecessor, President Barack Obama, had sought. No one had their existing overtime benefits cut.

• Walz falsely claimed to be “the first union member on a presidential ticket since Ronald Reagan.” Trump, a three-time GOP presidential nominee, was a member of a labor union that represents tens of thousands of media professionals.

Walz, the Democratic nominee for vice president and a former member of a teachers’ union, spoke to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union at its convention in Los Angeles on Aug. 13.

‘Pro-Worker’ Votes

Walz said Vance is “one of four senators – four – that has never cast a vote on a pro-worker bill in his life. Not once.” 

That’s a bit of an overstatement that requires some context. 

For starters, Vance never held public office until his election to the U.S. Senate in November 2022. Vance took office on Jan. 3, 2023.

So, Walz was talking about less than two years when he said “his life.” 

As for Vance’s voting record, the Harris campaign told Washington Post Fact Checker Glenn Kessler that Walz was referring to Vance’s AFL-CIO scorecard, which lists just seven “key votes” on legislation supported by the union. Vance didn’t cast a vote in two of the seven instances. Of Vance’s five votes, four of them were against President Joe Biden’s nominees, and one was in support of a House resolution that sought to overturn Biden’s student debt relief program. 

So, Walz was referring to a few votes in less than two years. 

We also note that Vance, who represents Ohio, has taken some actions that some might consider “pro-worker.” 

In October, Vance visited striking members of the United Auto Workers in Toledo, Ohio. 

“Today, I will join striking UAW workers on the picket line in Toledo and stand with them in their fight for higher wages and long-term survival,” Vance wrote in an opinion piece for Newsweek.

Vance, a member of the Senate Banking Committee, also issued a press release last spring in support of a bipartisan bill – the Failed Bank Executives Clawback Act. The bill, sponsored by Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, would have required “federal regulators to claw back up to three years of compensation received by big bank executives, board members, controlling shareholders, and other key decision-makers in the event of a failure or resolution,” according to a press release issued by Warren. 

Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, supported the bill, writing on X that “[t]axpayers and working people should not foot the bill for mismanagement.”

In March 2023, Vance also joined as an original co-sponsor of the Railway Safety Act of 2023 – a bipartisan bill that was introduced by Ohio’s senior senator, Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, after the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. 

That legislation was designed to improve “safety requirements for rail carriers and trains transporting hazardous materials,” according to a legislative summary of the bill. 

The bill, which included a requirement that each train have at least two crew members, had the support of the Transportation Workers Union. 

“The whole industry is a disastrous, dangerous mess with derailments every day, staff shortages and many other problems caused by terrible management and greedy owners,” John Feltz, TWU’s railroad director, said at the time. “Congress must pass the Railway Safety Act as quickly as possible.” 

Trump’s Overtime Pay Rule

Walz said, “As president, he [Trump] cut overtime benefits for millions of workers.” That’s not quite right. More accurately, Trump did not extend overtime benefits to as many workers as his predecessor, President Barack Obama, had sought. No one had their existing overtime benefits cut.

Although federal law generally guarantees hourly workers overtime pay — time-and-a-half for any hours worked over 40 hours in a week — there is a so-called “white-collar exemption” for salaried workers who earn more than a certain threshold. In May 2016, the Obama administration issued a rule that sought to double that salary threshold from $23,660 to $47,476 per year (and automatically update it every three years to keep pace with rising salaries). That would have made an additional 4.2 million salaried U.S. employees eligible for overtime pay, according to Labor Department estimates at the time.

The rule was scheduled to become effective on Dec. 1 of that year, but it never went into effect due to lawsuits filed by 21 states against the Labor Department that claimed the rule was unconstitutional. A judge in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas found the rule was unlawful and granted a nationwide preliminary injunction.

The Trump administration delayed the case before finally squashing the Obama administration rule and finalized its own rule in September 2019, increasing the salary threshold for guaranteed overtime pay to $35,568 per year.

Then-acting Labor Secretary Patrick Pizzella boasted that, “For the first time in over 15 years, America’s workers will have an update to overtime regulations that will put overtime pay into the pockets of more than a million working Americans.”

As Vox wrote on Sept. 24, 2019, “It’s a win for the estimated 1.3 million workers who will now be compensated for putting in long hours — but it’s a bitter defeat for the 2.8 million others who would’ve also gotten overtime under the original rule proposed by the Obama administration.”

“While the administration may be trumpeting this rule as a good thing for workers, that is a ruse,” Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank partly funded by labor unions, wrote in a statement issued the same day. “In reality, the rule leaves behind millions of workers who would have received overtime protections under the much stronger rule, published in 2016, that Trump administration abandoned.”

“It’s worth noting that if the rule had simply been adjusted for inflation since 1975, today it would be roughly $56,500,” Shierholz wrote. “This is more than $20,000 higher than the Trump administration’s level! I estimate that roughly 8.2 million workers who would have benefited from the 2016 rule will be left behind by the Trump administration’s rule.”

The Biden administration subsequently issued a rule, to raise the salary threshold for overtime pay to those earning up to $43,888 per year, effective July 1, and to $58,656 per year on July 1, 2025. The rule faces legal challenge from employer groups.

There is certainly room for political disagreement about whether the Trump rule went far enough in raising the salary threshold for overtime pay guarantees. But it is misleading for Walz to say that Trump “cut overtime benefits for millions of workers.” Workers who were guaranteed overtime pay under existing law did not have their overtime benefits cut. The Trump administration rule extended overtime pay to more workers, just not to nearly as many workers as Obama had proposed.

Candidates Who Were Union Members

Walz, a former teacher who was once a member of the National Education Association, wrongly claimed to be the only presidential or vice presidential nominee for a political party to be a member of a labor union since the 1980s.

“[H]ere’s a fact they shared with me as I came here to make this opportunity to say thank you,” Walz said. “I happen to be the first union member on a presidential ticket since Ronald Reagan.”

ABC News reported that Walz repeated the claim at a fundraiser later that day, “apparently unaware it was false.”

Until February 2021, Trump, who has been the GOP presidential nominee three times, was a member of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, a union that represents about 160,000 media professionals, including actors, recording artists and broadcast journalists.

Trump quit the union when faced with potential expulsion for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

“Your organization has done little for its members, and nothing for me – besides collecting
dues and promoting dangerous un-American policies and ideas,” Trump wrote in his resignation letter.

After his resignation, he was barred from being able to rejoin the union in the future.

Trump, who has appeared in dozens of TV shows and movies, first joined the SAG in 1989, before SAG and AFTRA merged in 2012. Former President Ronald Reagan, who was an actor before going into politics, served seven terms SAG president.

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