The Week in Review

Sen. Bernie Sanders joined Rep. Mark Pocan on Tuesday to introduce legislation to make it easier for workers to join a union. Sanders announced his opposition to President Obama’s nominee to run the Food and Drug Administration Friday. He also issued a statement with Rep. Elijah Cummings condemning Turing Pharmaceuticals for failing to keep its promise to lower the price of a life-saving drug after they increased the cost per pill by 5,000 percent.

Workplace Democracy Act

Sanders and Pocan introduced legislation today that would make it easier for workers to join unions and bargain for better wages, benefits and working conditions. “Millions of Americans who want to join unions are unable to do so because of the coercive and often illegal behavior of their employers,” Sanders said. The Workplace Democracy Act will make it easier for workers to join a union by allowing the National Labor Relations Board to certify a union if a simple majority of eligible workers sign valid authorization cards. The bill also requires companies to begin negotiating within 10 days after certification. If no first contract is reached after 90 days, either party can request compulsory mediation. After 30 days of mediation, the parties will submit the remaining issues to binding arbitration. “One of the root causes of declining wages is that workers’ ability to join together and bargain for higher wages and better working conditions has been has been severely undermined,” Pocan said. “This bill would make it easier for workers to have a voice in the workplace, providing a bigger paycheck to middle class families trying to pay the mortgage and find a way to send their kids to college.”

Food and Drug Administration

With prescription drug prices skyrocketing, Sanders said Friday that he will vote against confirming Dr. Robert Califf as the new commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration because of his ties to the industry. “At a time when millions of Americans cannot afford to purchase the prescription drugs they need, we need a new leader at the FDA who is prepared to stand up to the pharmaceutical companies and work to substantially lower drug prices. Unfortunately, I have come to the conclusion that Dr. Califf is not that person,” Sanders said after speaking with the nominee. The New York Times recently reported that Califf ran a multimillion-dollar clinical research center at Duke University that received more than 60 percent of its funding from the pharmaceutical and medical device industry. He has written scientific papers with pharmaceutical company researchers. His financial disclosure form last year listed seven drug companies and a device maker that paid him for consulting and six others –including Merck, Novartis and Eli Lilly – which supported his university salary. “Instead of listening to the demands of the pharmaceutical industry and their 1,400 lobbyists, it is about time that the FDA and Congress started listening to the overwhelming majority of the American people who believe that medicine is too expensive,” the senator said.

Turing Pharmaceuticals

On Friday, Sanders and Cummings called on Turing Pharmaceuticals to explain why the company dramatically hiked prices overnight on a lifesaving drug. “Two months ago, former hedge fund manager and Turing CEO Martin Shkreli purchased Daraprim—a drug taken by cancer and AIDS patients—and increased the price 5,000 percent overnight, to $750 per pill,” Sanders and Cummings said. “On behalf of the American people, we are sickened by these actions. Mr. Shkreli is holding hostage the patients who rely on this lifesaving medication, as well as the hospitals that administer it, by charging unconscionable prices for a drug on which he has a monopoly—just because he can.”