Sanders campaign says staff has decided to unionize

Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) presidential campaign announced Friday it will have a unionized workforce, a first for a major party candidate.

“Bernie Sanders is the most pro-union candidate in the field, he’ll be the most pro-union president in the White House and we’re honored that his campaign will be the first to have a unionized workforce,” campaign manager Faiz Shakir said in a statement.

{mosads}The campaign added that employees had decided to unionize through a card check system, in which employees sign authorization slips consenting to being represented by a union.

The campaign workers designated the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 400 to represent them as their exclusive bargaining representative. 

The Vermont senator has long cast himself as a staunch advocate for the working class and supporter of labor and union groups.

“Today, we say to low wage employers: Stop paying your workers a living starvation wages,” Sanders said at a rally Thursday in South Carolina. “We are going to raise the federal minimum wage to a living wage — $15 an hour. Nobody who works 40 hours a week in this country should live in poverty. And yes. We’re going to make it easier for people to join unions, not harder.” 

Sanders is currently considered one of the front-runners in a Democratic primary field packed with more than a dozen candidates.