U.S. Representative Mark Pocan of Wisconsin's 2nd Congressional District, a member of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades for more than 30 years and a co-chair of the Congressional Labor Caucus, joined the America's Work Force Union Podcast to discuss the state of worker power in Washington and in Wisconsin. He also offered a reminder about the importance of organized labor as part of the Labor 132 series presented by the National Labor Office of Blue Cross Blue Shield.
Pocan described the Congressional Labor Caucus, which has grown to 128 members, and explained that every member is required to support the PRO Act, also known as the Richard L. Trumka Protecting the Right to Organize Act of 2025, as a condition of membership. He also discussed the more modest Faster Labor Contracts Act and why it should not have been a heavy lift for Republicans. He addressed the federal minimum wage, frozen at $7.25 an hour since 2009 and the subminimum wage of $2.13 for tipped workers. He discussed clean energy job losses in Wisconsin and across the Midwest, resulting from the elimination of renewable energy incentives under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Pocan finished by discussing the organizing momentum at Starbucks, Amazon and other non-traditional sectors, which he described as one of the most exciting developments in the labor movement he has seen.
- The Congressional Labor Caucus has grown to 128 members, all of whom must support the PRO Act as a condition of joining. Pocan said the requirement exists to prevent members from claiming a pro-labor identity without a voting record to back it up. While a handful of Republicans have supported the Faster Labor Contracts Act, virtually none have joined the caucus, as most do not even support the basic worker protections the PRO Act would establish.
- The federal minimum wage has been frozen at $7.25 an hour since 2009, and the subminimum wage for tipped workers remains at $2.13 an hour. Pocan said the subminimum wage is a carryover from a racist history in which tipped work was dominated by workers of color. The failure to link the minimum wage to inflation over the past 17 years has created a situation in which workers are falling further behind even as the cost of groceries, healthcare, utilities and housing continues to rise, he said.
- The One Big Beautiful Bill Act eliminated many of the renewable energy incentives that had been driving clean energy job creation across the Midwest. Projects in Wisconsin and neighboring states have been canceled, Pocan said, and restarting them would require starting from scratch in terms of legislation. States like Iowa — where wind energy is a major economic driver — are already feeling the job and economic consequences. Changing control of the House, Senate and eventually the White House is a prerequisite for restoring those programs, Pocan said.
A Purple State With a Gerrymandering Problem
Mark Pocan has represented Wisconsin's 2nd Congressional District since 2013, following 14 years in the Wisconsin State Assembly. He opened the conversation by describing Wisconsin as a genuinely purple state — one where statewide elections tend to be decided by one or two points in either direction. Despite that near-even partisan balance among voters, Democrats hold only two of the state's eight congressional seats because of gerrymandering, Pocan said. A legal challenge has been making its way through the courts and now appears headed for a lower-court ruling that could produce fairer maps in time for the current election cycle.
He described the Wisconsin governor's race as one where the candidate with the best early turnout numbers at public events has been generating the most interest in the rural northern Wisconsin districts currently represented by Republican Congressman Tom Tiffany. Pocan's read: the people who know Tiffany best appear to like him the least.
A Union Member Who Opened a Union Shop
Pocan has been a member of IUPAT, the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, for more than 30 years. He did not join the union after entering politics. He opened a small business and made it a union shop from the start. Skilled, well-compensated workers stay longer, bring the full value of their apprenticeship training to the job and make businesses more successful over time, He said, adding that smart employers understand that the relationship is a win-win.
That background shapes how he thinks about union organizing, minimum wage and the PRO Act, because they are issues he has navigated as both a union member and employer.
The Congressional Labor Caucus: 128 Members and Growing
The Congressional Labor Caucus has 128 members, and Pocan said he expects it to grow in the next Congress. All caucus members are required to support the PRO Act. Pocan said the requirement is there to prevent members from claiming to be pro-labor while voting against basic worker protections when it counts. The PRO Act is the threshold because it addresses the fundamental conditions that make organizing possible: protections against retaliation, restrictions on employer interference and clearer pathways from an organizing win to a ratified contract.
A handful of Republicans have supported the more modest Faster Labor Contracts Act, which Pocan called a small lift by comparison. The fact that it is still a lift at all indicates most Republicans are aligning with corporate management and ownership rather than with the workers in their districts. He connected that to a broader critique of a party that too often asks, “How high?” when its national leadership says “jump,” rather than asking what the people it represents actually need.
The Minimum Wage: Frozen Since 2009
Pocan also addressed the federal minimum wage. It has been frozen at $7.25 an hour since 2009, the longest stretch without an increase in the law's history. The subminimum wage for tipped workers — $2.13 an hour — has been frozen even longer. Pocan described the $2.13 rate as a relic of a system in which tipped work was historically dominated by workers of color. Its persistence reflects an old racism embedded in labor law that has never been properly addressed, he said.
He noted that many employers voluntarily pay above the federal minimum, but the floor still matters for workers at the bottom, and even modest wages above $7.25 can leave workers in poverty and dependent on government assistance. This effectively creates a taxpayer subsidy for low-wage employers, Pocan said. The argument that raising the minimum wage to something like $25 an hour is radical misses the context, he said. Proposals that reach that level typically phase in over more than a decade, starting from a base that is already well below where the wage would be today if it had kept pace with inflation.
Workers paying more for groceries, healthcare, utilities and housing, while also not earning enough at work, face a genuinely difficult squeeze, Pocan said. The minimum wage is one of the levers that could ease that squeeze, and Congress has left it untouched for 17 years.
Clean Energy Jobs and What the Big Beautiful Bill Did
Pocan described the clean energy job picture in Wisconsin and across the Midwest as a casualty of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which eliminated many of the renewable energy incentives that had been driving investment and job creation in the sector. Projects have been canceled. Workers who would have had family-supporting, union-eligible jobs in wind, solar and related industries do not have them. Restarting those programs, he said, is not a matter of flipping a switch. The statutory provisions that enabled them have been removed, and restoring them would require changing the legislative landscape.
He used Iowa as an example. Wind energy is a major part of Iowa's economy. The combination of tariffs raising the cost of everyday goods and the elimination of clean energy incentives that were driving job creation has put Iowa's economy under genuine strain. That economic pressure is one of the reasons Iowa has the potential to be competitive in statewide and congressional races this cycle in ways it has not been in years, he said.
Organizing at Starbucks, Amazon and Beyond
When looking at growing union membership, Pocan said the organizing momentum he finds most exciting is coming from the least expected corners of the economy. Places like Starbucks, Amazon warehouses and REI are sectors where unions were not a significant presence a decade ago. These workers are often paid at or just above the minimum wage, with limited benefits and limited voice in their working conditions, he said.
The Amazon warehouse story about workers using bottles instead of taking bathroom breaks is emblematic of what drives people toward unions, Pocan said. Amazon publicly disputed the claim, but its workers produced the evidence. Amazon corrected the policy within a week. Pocan said that sequence illustrates why collective worker action works and why the public's favorability toward unions — particularly among younger workers — is at some of its highest levels in decades. When 50 million people would join a union today if barriers were lower, the organizing surge is not a surprise. It is a response to real conditions, he said.
Labor Day and What It Still Means
Pocan concluded with a Labor Day message. The 132nd anniversary of Labor Day is a reminder that the weekend, the 40-hour work week and the basic conditions that workers take for granted were fought for and won by the labor movement, he said. They are not permanent. When enormous sums of money are invested in elections and in efforts to make organizing harder, those gains are at risk. Celebrating Labor Day, he said, is not just a day off. It is an affirmation of what collective action produced and a reminder of what it still needs to protect.
More information on Representative Pocan and his work with the Congressional Labor Caucus is available at pocan.house.gov and laborcaucus.house.gov.
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