A fair day’s work should mean a fair day’s pay.
The forty-hour work week. Overtime pay. Workplace safety standards. Employer-provided health benefits. Paid leave. The minimum wage.
Nearly every protection working people count on today was won by organized labor, by workers who stood together and demanded to be treated fairly.
Erik knows what it means to do an honest day’s work. He’s laced up his work boots in the morning and come home exhausted. He has never been a member of a union, but has worked in the trades. He’s been a laborer on a stucco crew, concrete crew, window crew, siding crew & more. He drove a box truck overnight delivering auto parts later in life to help provide for his family.
He’s also been a small business owner, so he knows the challenges companies can face when finding a balance between treating workers fairly while meeting a bottom line. Erik has family members who have benefitted from being a part of organized labor and understands their role in Western Minnesotans’ lives.
Unions helped build the American middle class.
That is not a political opinion. It is history.
But for decades, workers’ rights have been under steady attack. Corporate interests have spent enormous resources trying to weaken unions, restrict collective bargaining, and make it harder for workers to organize.
The result is visible everywhere: wages that do not keep up with costs, more power concentrated at the top, and working people asked to do more while getting less.
Erik believes it is time to shift the balance back toward the people doing the work.
We can do better by protecting the right to organize, strengthening collective bargaining, enforcing labor law, and making sure federal investment supports good local jobs.
Erik’s Priorities
Erik will fight to:
- Protect the right of workers to organize and bargain collectively
- Stop employer intimidation and retaliation against workers trying to form a union
- Strengthen penalties for companies that violate labor law
- Make sure workers who vote to unionize can actually get a first contract
- Protect prevailing wage standards on federally funded projects
- Support fair wages, safe working conditions, and strong benefits
- Respect public-sector workers, trades workers, healthcare workers, agricultural workers, teachers, service workers, and everyone who keeps our communities running
- Rebuild the middle class by rebuilding workers’ bargaining power
…by standing with workers the way workers have always stood with each other: protecting the right to organize, bargain collectively, work safely, and earn a fair wage for a fair day’s work.
Protect the Right to Organize
Workers should have the right to form a union without fear.
That means no intimidation. No retaliation. No delay tactics. No forcing workers into anti-union meetings designed to pressure them out of exercising their rights.
Erik believes workers who want to organize should have a meaningful, legally protected path to do so.
The decision to form a union should belong to workers — not to employers trying to scare them out of it.
Strengthen Collective Bargaining
A union is only as strong as the ability to bargain.
Too often, workers vote to unionize and then face months or years of delay before ever getting a first contract. That is not good-faith bargaining. It is a union-busting tactic.
Erik supports reforms that help workers secure a first contract after a union is certified.
When workers choose to organize, employers should be required to come to the table, bargain honestly, and respect the outcome.
Enforce Labor Law
Rights do not mean much if there are no consequences for violating them.
Right now, too many companies treat labor law penalties as the cost of doing business. They can interfere with organizing, retaliate against workers, or delay negotiations without facing consequences serious enough to change behavior.
Erik supports stronger enforcement and meaningful penalties for employers that violate workers’ rights.
If the law says workers have the right to organize, then the law should have the teeth to protect that right.
Protect Prevailing Wages
When federal dollars support construction, infrastructure, or public works projects, those dollars should support good local jobs.
Prevailing wage standards help make sure workers on federally funded projects are paid at least the going local rate for their trade.
That protects local workers, local contractors, and local wage standards from being undercut by low-road bidding.
Erik supports prevailing wage protections because federal investment should lift communities up — not drive wages down.
Support Rural Workers
Workers’ rights matter in every part of Western Minnesota.
They matter to nurses in rural hospitals, teachers in small-town schools, trades workers on construction sites, public employees, service workers, manufacturing workers, agricultural workers, and everyone else doing the jobs that keep communities running.
Rural workers may work in different industries and under different conditions, but the principle is the same: people should be paid fairly, treated safely, and protected when they speak up.
No worker should have to choose between keeping a job and standing up for basic fairness.
Rebuild the Middle Class
The decline of union membership is one of the biggest economic changes of the last several decades.
As workers lost bargaining power, wages stagnated, inequality grew, and more of the gains went to executives and shareholders instead of the people doing the work.
That did not happen by accident.
It happened because of policy choices.
Erik believes we can make different choices — choices that strengthen workers, support families, and rebuild the middle class from the bottom up.
A stronger middle class starts with stronger worker power.
Respect All Work
Not every job looks the same, but all honest work has dignity.
Whether someone works in a hospital, a school, a shop, a field, a factory, a restaurant, a warehouse, a public office, or a construction site, they should be treated with respect.
Erik believes work should be enough to build a stable life.
That means fair wages, safe conditions, reliable benefits, and the freedom to stand with coworkers when something needs to change.
Erik Wants to Hear From You
Workers’ rights affect every family in Western Minnesota.
Erik wants to hear your perspective — whether you are a union member, trades worker, teacher, nurse, public employee, service worker, agricultural worker, small business owner, or someone trying to build a stable life through hard work.