American workers need and deserve real increases in their take-home wages, not anti-union legislation, according to Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein. She called the shift toward so-called “Right to Work” legislation in Indiana and elsewhere just the latest blows to the earning power of working people:

"The anti-worker economic policies adopted under Presidents Obama and Bush have depressed wages, and no improvement is in sight under their economic proposals. In major industries, we are seeing the spread of a two-tier wage systems in which young workers are paid 40% less than older workers. This reflects an abandonment of the principle of equal pay for equal work. It also represents a disastrous discrimination against younger workers. It will prevent many young people from gaining a foothold in the middle class."

"A major tool being used to force these concessions are the trade treaties pushed by President Obama and President Bush. American workers are being told that if they don't accept wage decreases, and abandon their right to organize, their jobs will be moved abroad. The playing field is being tilted more steeply each year. We need to get Wall Street out of the White House and implement a new economic vision that will build an economy that works for people, not just the economic elite. We need to make sure that American jobs are not exported overseas. And we need to make sure that workers get income increases they deserve."

Taking aim at Washington, Stein asserted that "Any economic policy that focuses on enriching the economic elite at the expense of workers and the environment will fail. Washington has sold out the workers so often that we are left in an economy that is wired to enrich investors at the expense of ordinary Americans. Over the last 35 years, workers real wages have stagnated despite steadily rising labor productivity. We’ve been working harder and producing more but getting paid the same or less. It's no wonder there is a record gap between working people and the top 1% - with the wealth of the top 1% having increased by nearly half since the early 1980s, while median family wealth has actually declined over that time. "

"We're asking people to stand up and demand a Green New Deal that will reverse 35 years of unjust and self-destructive giveaways to insiders and special interests. Workers are the real creators of wealth in our society, and we need a new deal that will give them a fair share of that wealth, putting real wage increases into their pockets. That will get more wealth circulating in our communities, saving jobs on Main Street, ending the foreclosure crisis, and restoring the American Dream. By standing firm for a new deal, we can create a brighter future for ourselves and our children."