RE: Letter

From:leslie.dach@outlook.com To: Huma@clintonemail.com, cheryl.mills@gmail.com CC: john.podesta@gmail.com, preines.hrco@gmail.com, jake.sullivan@gmail.com, dschwerin.hrco@gmail.com Date: 2014-05-02 00:39 Subject: RE: Letter

I wonder if it should be lifted out of the womens economic empowerment context and go straight at as the right thing to do, and good for our economy, with more of an emphasis on families and how the wage has not changed for so long and has not kept up with need. Is there more to say about her history of advocacy during the 2007 debate. Adding dan and jake as well. Below is a draft response to Nader for review. Whether its a letter or some sort of message at a speech or event, want to get thoughts on what her message is. Dear Ralph Nader, Pete Davis, Al Norman, Adolph Reed,…. Thank you for your letter. I am indeed proud of my advocacy on behalf of women and women's economic empowerment over several decades. I know that in today's economy, women are disproportionately bearing the burden of tough economic times. Women are disproportionately poor and tens of millions of women are financially insecure - just one paycheck away from poverty. It is in part because of my support for economic advancement of all women that I am a strong, and longstanding supporter of increasing the minimum wage, not just for some companies, but for all US companies. Currently 60% of all minimum wage workers are women, and many of them are moms. Raising the minimum wage to $10.10 should not be an issue subject to political polarization. It makes economic sense because those people who get a raise will spend it buying goods and services, fueling economic activity in their local communities. It also makes budgetary sense because it will reduce expenditures by the government. The Center for American Progress recently released a study that found an increase of the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour will reduce SNAP expenditures - popularly referred to as food stamps - by $4.6 billion a year. That means that companies that pay below the minimum wage are in essence relying on government subsidies to ensure their workers do not go hungry. I hope that those that rail against government spending would support this increase in the minim wage that will reduce such spending. But I also believe raising the minimum wage is the moral thing to do as well because I simply believe that in America, if you work a job full-time, you shouldn't live in poverty. I believe that should be a basic bargain for all Americans. However, I know wages aren't the only issue for women at the bottom of the economic ladder. Women suffer disproportionately from a lack of flexibility policies in American companies. Seventy percent of low-income women do not have access to a single paid sick day and the United States is the only developed d nation that does not require paid maternity leave. As a country, we need to do far better helping all parents balance their responsibilities at home and at work. Too often parents, especially low-income workers, have to choose and that is not good for our companies or our families. These are policies that I am happy to discuss because they are the issues I have fought for over the course of my career. I am proud of my work to underscore the importance of a minimum wage increase for women the last time the federal government increased the minimum wage in 1996. And I continued that advocacy as a Senator from New York. I know these issues are central to both our economic growth as a nation and to the American promise of shared prosperity we all hold so dear. Sincerely, if we want to get on the record more generally re her engagement on the minimum wage which goes back decades and use this moment as an opportunity - what would be your strategy if you think no to a letter? cdm On Thu, May 1, 2014 at 6:18 PM, Leslie` Dach <leslie.dach@outlook.com <mailto:leslie.dach@outlook.com> > wrote: I think this particular letter can be ignored unless it comes back in a meaningful way. His ongoing attacks on HRC delegitimize his voice, and it's already pretty marginalized. If you eventually need to answer u could simply say that your position on raising the minimum wage is clear to all businesses. You don't want to be tied or held responsible for any specific business, walmart for sure included. On May 1, 2014, at 5:32 PM, "Huma Abedin" <Huma@clintonemail.com <mailto:Huma@clintonemail.com> > wrote: Perhaps we don't need to formally respond to Nader. Apparently there has been no pick up on social media and no follow-up on the Chozick story. We could find a place in the near future where hrc could talk about her position and her support. Plus none of these other names sounds familiar so basically any random person could post an open letter and expect a formal response. What do you think? we should also figure out if answer is a letter or if there is a different strategy so we don't get copy cat issue people posting letters and then saying they sent a letter to her with their issue as a test of her commitment to it On Thu, May 1, 2014 at 3:18 PM, Huma Abedin <Huma@clintonemail.com <mailto:Huma@clintonemail.com> > wrote: Thanks Cheryl. Hi leslie, we will circulate letter as soon as we have something and appreciate all comments/feedback. Best, Huma Huma Adding Leslie to whom I just spoke who is happy to be helpful both in content and strategy. He noted that Walmart is not opposed to the minimum wage law - which we can discuss when we are all on a call after reviewing the draft response. best. cdm On Thu, May 1, 2014 at 2:32 PM, Huma Abedin <Huma@clintonemail.com <mailto:Huma@clintonemail.com> > wrote: Here is actual letter we are responding to: April 22, 2014 Dear Hillary Clinton, As First Lady, Senator, Secretary of State, and in your recent work with the Clinton Global Initiative, you have advocated for the cause of women’s empowerment around the world. Today we write to ask you to also join us in an important women’s empowerment initiative here at home. It involves an area to which you have a special connection and thus presents you, specifically, with an important responsibility to make a direct difference in the lives of hundreds of thousands of American women and an indirect difference in millions more. The Walmart Corporation is the largest employer in the United States, employing about one in every hundred Americans. Unfortunately, America’s largest employer sets a horrible example with its miserly wage policy. Walmart pays hundreds of thousands of their workers less per hour, adjusted for inflation, than minimum wage workers made 46 years ago. With rising housing, health and transportation costs, Walmart workers cannot make ends meet on less than $10, $9 or even, for some, $8 an hour. The cashiers and hourly sales associates at the White Plains Walmart close to your house, for example, live in a city with a living wage of — as estimated by the MIT Living Wage Calculator — $13.05, but most hourly Walmart workers are paid thousands of dollars per year below that standard. It’s no surprise that one Walmart manager even admitted this disconnect between Walmart pay and fair pay by placing a bin out last holiday season to solicit donations from customers for his own needy workers. Seventy percent of the positions subject to Walmart’s hourly poverty wage regime are held by women. Most of these women are managed by men, who — despite making up a minority of the company’s employees — make up a majority of Walmart’s managers and officials. Irregular schedules and a miserly sick day policy make Walmart a difficult place for mothers to work. Take as an example one 33-year-old mother of two featured on ABC News a few years ago: she had to leave her daughter at home with a 103-degree fever because she was worried about her three sick day “demerits” issued by her Walmart manager. Worse over, Walmart’s poverty wage regime drives down the wages and benefits of neighboring stores, again disproportionately hurting women, who make up the majority of the low-wage workforce in America. Walmart could end this assault on their female “associates” by paying all their workers at least $10.92, which is the inflation-adjusted wage that the lowest paid Walmart workers — under their founder, Sam Walton — earned in the late 1960’s. Before Walton’s billionaire heirs cry ‘Impossible!’, remember: (1) Walmart pays all their workers in Ontario, Canada and Santa Fe, New Mexico over $10 an hour and still remains quite profitable; (2) Walmart had enough funds to issue $51 billion in stock buybacks over the past five years, which could have given every American Walmart worker a $3.50 per hour raise over the past five years; and (3) a 2011 U.C. Berkeley economic study showed that even if Walmart raised its starting wage to $12 and passed all the costs onto customers, it would only cost Walmart shoppers 46 cents more per shopping trip. In 1986, when Bill Clinton was governor of Arkansas, you reflected a single case of women’s empowerment at Walmart by becoming Walmart’s first female director. During your six years as a Walmart board member, you honorably pushed for women’s empowerment. Twenty eight years later, we are asking you to make far broader history again for women at Walmart by publicly pressuring your former board to end its poverty wage regime and restore the wages of hundreds of thousands of its female associates. Here are four ways you can immediately activate your deep Walmart ties to help this important feminist cause: 1. Publicly encourage former Walmart CEO H. Lee Scott, who had dinner at your home in 2006, to build on his minimum wage raise support from nine years ago by urging his successor C. Douglas McMillon to follow in his footsteps by endorsing a minimum wage raise this year. 2. Publicly encourage Alice Walton, the Walmart heiress who donated $25,000 to Ready for Hillary last year, to use her power as a major shareholder to force a raise in the wages of the hundreds of thousands of Walmart associates who make less in a year of work than Walton does in 10 minutes from interest on her inheritance. 3. Publicly encourage Clinton administration advisor Leslie Dach, who you have worked with on labor issues recently, to leverage his role as a former Walmart executive vice president to pressure his successors to end Walmart’s poverty wage regime. 4. Publicly encourage Walmart director Aida Alvarez, who campaigned for you and was your husband’s final Small Business Administration leader, to coordinate with other social justice-minded Walmart directors — such as former Detroit mayor Dennis Archer and civil rights activist Vilma Martinez -- to end Walmart’s poverty wage regime. Campaign funders like Alice Walton might be ‘Ready for Hillary’ to run for President in 2016, but Walmart’s women have been ‘Ready for Hillary’ to stand up for the wages they deserve this year. It would be a shame to have your trailblazing legacy of Walmart women empowerment rolled back. We hope you can keep it alive by pressuring your former Walmart colleagues to raise the wages of its predominantly-female hourly workforce to $11, their inflation-adjusted 1968 level. This is no big deal: the workers have more than earned an $11 per hour wage, had it taken from them by inflation year after year, and will continue to until they can catch up with 1968, inflation adjusted. Sincerely, Ralph Nader Consumer and Labor Advocate Washington, DC Pete Davis Time for a Raise Campaign Washington, DC The Southern Labor Studies Association Williamsburg, VA Al Norman Director, Sprawl-Busters Georgia Women for a Change Atlanta, GA Maine Women’s Lobby Augusta, ME Adolph Reed Professor of Political Science University of Pennsylvania Bethany Moreton Author of To Serve God and Wal-Mart University of Georgia Eileen Boris Chair, Department of Feminist Studies University of California, Santa Barbara Michael Pierce Professor of History University of Arkansas C. Robert McDevitt President UNITE HERE Local 54, Atlantic City Deborah Burger President National Nurses United Ken Fones-Wolf Professor of History West Virginia University Elizabeth Fones-Wolf Professor of History West Virginia University Stephanie Davis Executive Director Georgia Women for Change, Inc. Eliza Townsend Executive Director Maine Women’s Lobby Scott Nelson Professor of History President, Southern Labor Studies Association William and Mary Nancy MacLean President, The Center for the Study of Class, Labor, and Social Sustainability Duke University