Job Security

Job Security

I will give priority to preventing loss of jobs overseas. This includes providing better training and education for our prospective workforce. It means making policy choices that some jobs will be kept at home because national security and economic security are more important than maximizing profit.

Pension security is an extension of job security. I will look to ensure that corporations are not permitted to raid their pension funds, leaving them inadequate to meet commitments.

Fairness demands addressing the unconscionable differences between the amount corporate executives pay themselves and what they pay workers. CEOs now pay themselves an average of 431 times what they pay the average worker. If a worker's pay had increased at the same rate the executive's has that worker would be making $101,000. The CEO of EXXON MOBIL collected $70 million in compensation his final year and an extra $400 million in retirement benefits.

The minimum wage of $5.15 per hour has not been increased in more than nine years. At that wage, a full-time worker earns less than $11,000. I will fight to increase that wage as I've done in the General Assembly. Congress has increased its pay through a cost of living escalator, nearly $30,000 since the minimum wage was set at $5.15. Apparently Congress understands the increasing cost of living but not for the lowest paid workers. This is shameful.

I have consistently supported legislation that has helped Memphis prosper as America's distribution center. The airport is the economic engine of the 9 th District. Many Tennesseans improve worker skills through lottery-funded grants at Tennessee Technology Centers.

http://www.cohenforcongress.com/issues-jobs.html