Sen. Ruben Gallego is endorsing a key policy to bolster the power of America’s labor unions as jockeying begins between Democrats eyeing a run at the White House in 2028.
Flirting with his first bid for the presidency, Gallego will announce Wednesday that he’s backing a $20-an-hour minimum wage, a new jobs program, stricter antitrust enforcement and sectoral bargaining — a policy that would cover all workers in the same sector with the same bargaining agreement. The Arizona Democrat said these policies would double the percentage of private-sector workers in a union.
The announcement appears aimed at positioning Gallego somewhere in the middle of the Democratic Party’s ideological factions. While more centrist Democrats have shied away from a $20 minimum wage hike, Gallego has stopped short of the more far-reaching economic policies backed by colleagues to his left, such as Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ proposed tax on billionaires.
Gallego’s proposals have no chance of passing the Republican-controlled House or Senate, but come as several Democratic lawmakers outline policy proposals in likely anticipation of their own presidential bids. In March, Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland outlined a plan that would eliminate all federal income tax for those earning under $46,000 a year. Also that month, Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey released a similar policy to slash taxes for middle-income households.
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“To really handle and deal with inflation, you need to increase wages,” Gallego, who is set to unveil his plan in front of the Communications Workers of America, said in an interview. “This is an answer to that question.”
First elected to the Senate in 2024, Gallego, 46, has stoked speculation of a presidential bid with a new “all of the above” energy policy proposal and interviews with numerous national media outlets. The list of Democrats now preparing to run for president in 2028 has rapidly multiplied — one consultant, speaking on the condition of anonymity to reflect private conversations, said he is in early talks with more than a dozen prospective candidates.
Though the 2026 midterms remain months away, Democratic governors, senators and members of Congress are already beginning to put together platforms for their potential presidential campaigns the following year.
“The economic message is the most important thing for Democrats to figure out and get right. Primary voters should get behind whoever does it best,” said Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster. “It’s the biggest question for all the potential 2028 candidates.”
The most distinctive policy in Gallego’s latest announcement is his embrace of sectoral bargaining. Currently, America’s labor unions negotiate contracts with each individual company or franchise. Under a sectoral bargaining system, the representatives of organized labor would instead come to terms about wages, benefits and other working conditions for workers across a given industry.
Gallego would not provide details of how many workers the new plan would cover, but said he would likely start with fast-food workers, delivery drivers and others in low-wage professions. He pointed to existing sectoral bargaining systems in Germany and Sweden, where there is no minimum wage because workers are covered through industry-wide agreements.
“Sectoral bargaining is a big move,” Gallego said. “But it’s not going to make sense for every sector.”
The policy would face steep resistance from the business community and Republicans. While proponents say that greater union density would improve pay across the board, conservatives have long argued that across-the-board agreements would suppress wages by preventing workers from bargaining with prospective companies.
Sectoral bargaining “stops employers from trying to attract top talent by outbidding their competition,” argued the Institute for the American Worker, a right-leaning think tank, in a paper. “This would be a huge problem as American employees typically see larger raises by switching jobs rather than simply waiting for a salary increase at their current workplace.”
Gallego will likely face criticism from his left flank for not going far enough to confront consolidated tech power. Unlike Van Hollen, Gallego has not yet endorsed a Sanders plan to raise more than $4 trillion with a major wealth tax on America’s roughly 1,000 billionaires. On Monday, Sanders also called for a separate one-time 50% tax on stocks of the major artificial intelligence companies.
Gallego said he is not ready to endorse that plan — at least not yet.
“I would not be against it. I need to do more research on it,” Gallego said. “We want to make sure we aren’t an impediment to innovation, obviously. But there’s an argument to be made that some of the AI profit has actually come off the public good.”
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