Protections for Working People

I don’t come from wealth or privilege. Every member of my family – including me as a teenager – had to work to survive. I got my first part-time job earning minimum wage when I was 15 sweeping under street viaducts on the north side of Chicago and cleaning green spaces. I got my second job when I was 16 years old working nights after school and weekends at a call center on Davis Street in downtown Evanston. I am proud to be running for Congress as a working class candidate and full time legislator who respects the dignity in work and the livelihoods that depend on it. I saw it when my grandmother worked two back-to-back 8 hour jobs to feed her children. I saw it when my mom had to take on a part-time job in her last year of life in order to sustain her salon and pay off tens of thousands of dollars in student loans. I knew the dignity of work when I waited tables late into the evenings and around the clock on weekends as a 20-something woefully underpaid staffer on Capitol Hill. What I was paid on the Hill was far too little to pay for rent and food and credit card debt from basic expenses, all while helping my mom afford to raise my younger sister.

I’m proud to be a strong champion for working people as an Illinois State Senator. In 2023, I was honored to be a cosponsor of the Paid Leave For Workers Act which gives workers up to 40 hours of paid leave a year for any reason. I also strongly supported the Illinois Workers Rights Amendment of 2022 which guarantees workers in Illinois the right to collectively bargain wages, hours, and working conditions. These are the kind of worker protections we need to fight for at the federal level. Labor unions have fought hard for generations of American workers to have a shot at safe working conditions, livable wages, health care, and retirement benefits. I would work in coalition with organized labor to protect worker rights and expand protections for unionized workers.

I also would champion the right of gig workers and other dynamically-scheduled workers to unionize and have more control over their work schedules. We must remove systemic abuses that rob these workers of their full earnings and time with their families and communities outside of work (often in service of publicly-traded companies or draconian private companies answering to their shareholders and investors).