When Martin Heinrich was in seventh grade, he learned a lesson about labor relations. His mother worked in a non-union auto-supply factory; when management informed the workers that their hours were going to shift from five days a week to six, there wasn’t much they could do. When they then moved to seven days a week—the new schedule was three weeks on and one week off—there still wasn’t much the workforce could do in response. They were living in the tiny town of Cole Camp, Missouri, and Missouri was, his parents knew, hardly over-protective of workers’ rights. Martin’s mom lost her weekends, and her son ended up having to keep order in the house, cooking and cleaning for the rest of the family.
Heinrich’s dad, by contrast, was a unionized lineman—one of the front-liners called to duty when big storms swept in through the mid-west and knocked down power lines. When his employers needed him to work long hours, he was paid overtime. “He had a contract, and he had respect,” Heinrich remembers three decades later, as he explains why labor issues have remained so important to him as he has climbed his way up the political ladder, from the Albuquerque, New Mexico city council to the U.S. House of Representatives, and, this past November, to the United States Senate.
It’s why he went to bat for a higher minimum wage in Albuquerque when he was a councilman, and it’s why, as a freshman senator, he has been pushing for a hike in the federal minimum wage.
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