In December 2016, Brendan co-founded the Blue Collar Caucus, whose goal is to facilitate legislative ideas focused on addressing wage stagnation, job insecurity, trade, offshoring, and reduced career opportunities for those in the manufacturing and building trades.
Facilitate legislative ideas focused on addressing wage stagnation, job insecurity, trade, offshoring, and reduced career opportunities in the manufacturing and building trades.
Occurrences
The new group aims to help Democrats focus on plans to address stagnant wages, jobs, trade and opportunities for people in manufacturing and building trades.
On the stump, they talk constantly about income inequality, raising the minimum wage, and increasing taxes on the one percent. Brendan brags about introducing bills as a state lawmaker to publicly fund elections and make college free for students with at least a 3.0 GPA (years before the Sanders insurgency!), while Kevin boasts about helping to write Philadelphia’s paid sick-leave bill when he worked for City Councilman Bill Greenlee. They also rail against free trade deals like NAFTA and TPP, though their leaders have promoted them.
Evidence
Rep. Veasey says he co-launched the Blue Collar Caucus with Congressman Brendan Boyle, and that it "supports unions and focuses on addressing wage stagnation, offshoring, and job insecurity for those in the manufacturing and building trades."
Boyle's site says he, Jan Schakowsky, and Marc Veasey introduced the Patriot Employer Act, which would provide a tax credit to companies that provide fair wages and good benefits to workers.
Boyle's site also records that he joined labor leaders to advocate for fair trade and condemn unfair trade practices that had "decimated middle class families."
Assessments
Boyle materially advanced a set of legislative ideas matching the claim by co-launching the Blue Collar Caucus and introducing the Patriot Employer Act, along with public advocacy on fair trade and worker pay. That shows real same-term effort directly tied to wage stagnation, offshoring, job insecurity, and manufacturing/building-trades concerns. The record here does not show those ideas being enacted into law, so this is better treated as partial credit rather than full delivery.
The promise was to facilitate legislative ideas on wage stagnation, job insecurity, trade, offshoring, and reduced opportunities in manufacturing and building trades, not necessarily to enact a specific law. Evidence shows Boyle co-launched the Blue Collar Caucus focused on those exact issues, introduced the Patriot Employer Act addressing wages and benefits, and publicly advocated on fair trade. These actions satisfy the facilitation-oriented promise during the same term.