Teen Vogue: Labor law isn’t exactly the sexiest subject, but it’s so important and impacts all of us. What do you think is the most important legal challenge facing the working class right now, and what are you going to do about it?

Bernie Sanders: Well, I think it is the inability of millions of workers who want to join unions but who are not able to join unions because of employer opposition, opposition which is often legal. In the wealthiest country in the history of the world, it is absurd that half of our people today are working paycheck-to-paycheck. You go around the country and find people trying to raise children on $10 an hour, which is impossible. People paying 50% of their income for housing, while almost all of new income and wealth is going to the top 1%. So what we have got to do is create a process by which it is easier to join unions, and that is why I have introduced the most progressive labor law reform proposal and legislation introduced in the modern history of this country.

TV: Right, the Workplace Democracy Act, with which you’re going after Taft-Hartley, the Railway Act, the National Labor Relations Act of 1935; you’re really going for a "greatest hits" situation.

BS: [Chuckles] Everybody knows that if you’re in a union, you’re going to make more money than a nonunion worker. You’re going to have better benefits, you may have a pension, better health care; that’s why workers want to join unions. And what our legislation does is, it says that if 50% of the workers in a bargaining unit plus one, a majority, sign a union card — that’s all they do, "I want to join a union" — you have the union. And if the employer refuses to negotiate a first contract, which takes place all the time right now, that employer will be severely penalized, because workers do have the constitutional right to organize in a union.

The other thing we do, among many other things, is we eliminate Section 14(b) of the Taft-Hartley Act, which allows for the creation of so-called "right-to-work" states in this country, which are obviously designed to prevent the growth of unions in America.

TV: I’m sure you’ve been following the passage of AB 5 in California, and I’m wondering what you would do to expand on that and to keep us from being eaten alive by the gig economy.

BS: In fact, our legislation does that as well. Walmart hires people for 29 hours — isn’t that just coincidental? So they don’t have to provide any benefits. And what companies do as well is say, "Congratulations, you are an independent contractor! And therefore you’re not a worker, you’re not an employee, you’re an independent contractor; you’re self-employed, and therefore you don’t have to get a minimum wage. I certainly as the employer don’t have to give you any benefits, because you’re just an independent guy!" And this is just a distortion of the workplace and the reality of life, and what they began to do in California is to address that issue. We believe that if you are a worker, you should be guaranteed by labor law; that means you’re paid a minimum wage, that means you get time and a half for overtime, that means that you have certain health protections on the job, et cetera. You’re not exploited in the way that workers are now.

I was out in California, in Los Angeles, down on the harbor, and you’ve got these guys, who are often Latino, who are truck drivers, who are so-called independent contractors. They work 70 hours a week, they work seven days a week, they sleep in their trucks, and they have no legal protection at all.