Issue Position: Support Working Families

Rob Hogg supports state policies that help workers, families, and the middle class, and he opposes policies that hurt them in favor of wealthy special interests.

Senator Hogg is proud that he voted to raise the minimum wage in 2007, and he supports raising the minimum wage again as part of a high-wage economic development strategy. His high-wage economic development strategy includes more research and development, more education and job training, more start-up assistance, more infrastructure investments, more community improvements, and more local foods, food processing, renewable energy, clean water, and natural resource investments.

Unfortunately, over the last two years, the Republican majority in the Iowa Legislature and Governors Branstad and Reynolds have taken away workers' rights and local minimum wage increases, and have undermined local economic development policies in favor of out-of-state special interests.

Specifically, they took away local minimum wage increases in Linn, Johnson, Polk, Wapello, and Lee Counties (HF295). They took away collective bargaining rights for Iowa's public service workers (city, county, state) (HF291). They circumvented "Buy American" and "prevailing wage" rules for road projects (HF203). They took away local control over worker qualifications for construction projects (SF438) as well as the ability to support local workers through lease-purchase agreements (HF2253). Perhaps most seriously, they created new barriers and reduced compensation for injured workers (HF518).

Rob Hogg supports restoring workers' rights, improving work safety, increasing the minimum wage, and promoting high-wage jobs with good benefits through a better economic development strategy for our state.

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