SAN PEDRO — Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) promised labor unions at a rally at the Downtown Harbor dock area near the Los Angeles Maritime Museum on Friday that that he will deliver higher hourly wages as part of his “political revolution.”
“And that is why together we are going to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour,” Sanders told his supporters. “And that is why we are going to end the sexism forcing women to make 79 cents on the dollar. And that is why we are going to create 13 million jobs and good pay by rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure.”
He added, “This is America. Our roads, our bridges, our water systems, our wastewater plants, our piers, our levies, our dams should not be crumbling. This is America and we are going to demand a trade policy which works for the American people, not just for China.”
The waterfront event was sponsored by several of the local unions, and the crowd consisted of union workers, steel workers, healthcare workers, port workers, teachers unions and the International Longshore Workers Union.
Sanders also cited religious authority: “You know, Pope Francis talks about this. He talks about he need for a moral economy. A moral economy is not an economy where CEOs make tens of millions of dollars a year, ship our jobs abroad and then take away healthcare from their workers. That is the type of corporate culture that has got to be fundamentally changed.”
Also on Friday, Sanders’s rival, Hillary Clinton made a stop in Oakland, where she held a community meeting at the Home of Chicken and Waffles, located on Embarcadero West. Sanders, however, mocked her concern for the poor, and attacked presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump as well.
He added: “Secretary Clinton has a number of super PACs and many of them are raising money for Wall Street and powerful special interests,” Sanders said after reminding the crowd that Donald Trump has billionaire Sheldon Adelson will contribute funds to ensuring Trump wins the general election in November. I don’t think you take on Wall Street, I don’t think you break up the large financial institutions by taking millions of dollars from people.”
He added: “And what the media hasn’t caught on, and what the establishment hasn’t caught on, is that the American people are sick and tired of establishment politics and establishment economics.”
Sanders said that growing up in a three-and-a-half bedroom apartment in Brooklyn and watching his family struggle to make ends meet, was “his major economics lesson.” (Someone shouted in response, with conviction, “Yeah, Bernie!”)
Julia Scoville, 95, said she’s voting for Sanders. “Im’ so excited about this because what he’s saying is what I’ve been working for, for at least 50 years. Single-payer healthcare. I’m a retired nurse. I want everyone to have decent healthcare.”
An Hispanic woman named Ruth, who said she moved in the 1980s from Mexico and became a citizen, said she was at the Sanders rally because she believes he is the only candidate who can help people like her and her husband. She told Breitbart News her husband couldn’t make it to the rally because he had to work and said he is a member of Union 13, the fish canneries’ workers’ union.
Follow Adelle Nazarian on Twitter @AdelleNaz
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