A spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the California Democrat would back efforts by congressional staffers to unionize, after she appeared to sidestep a question on the topic earlier Thursday.
“Like all Americans, our tireless Congressional staff have the right to organize their workplace and join together in a union. If and when staffers choose to exercise that right, they would have Speaker Pelosi’s full support,” spokesman Drew Hammill said in a statement on Twitter.
At Pelosi’s weekly press briefing on Thursday, reporter Pablo Manríquez of Latino Rebels had asked whether she would support efforts by staffers on Capitol Hill to unionize.
“Well, we just unionized at the [Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee] and I supported that, yeah. I supported that,” Pelosi said, before moving on to the next question.
Pelosi was referring to the announcement last week that a majority of employees at the House Democrats’ campaign arm had voted to unionize and form what was described as the Democratic Party’s largest collective bargaining unit.
That move came on the heels of Democratic National Committee employees announcing in early January that they planned to unionize.
Congressional staffers have raised concerns for years about salary levels are not keeping pace with the high cost of living in the nation’s capital. Roll Call reported that a survey conducted last month by the Congressional Progressive Staff Association found 39 percent of the 516 House and Senate staffers who responded said they had taken out loans to cover everyday living expenses.
A whopping 86 percent of non-management respondents and 80 percent of managers also said there’s a “toxic work environment in Congress.”
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
