Subject: Re: Letter
From: Cheryl Mills <[email-masked]>
To: "Leslie` Dach" <[email-masked]>
Cc: Huma Abedin <[email-masked]>, "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>, "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 1 May 2014 19:30:31 -0400

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 <[email-masked]>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" <[email-masked]> 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?
>
>  *From*: Cheryl Mills [mailto:[email-masked]<[email-masked]>]
>
> *Sent*: Thursday, May 01, 2014 05:26 PM Eastern Standard Time
> *To*: Huma Abedin
> *Cc*: [email-masked] <[email-masked]>;
> [email-masked] <[email-masked]>; [email-masked] <
> [email-masked]>
> *Subject*: Re: Letter
>
>  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 <[email-masked]> wrote:
>
>> Thanks Cheryl.
>> Hi leslie, we will circulate letter as soon as we have something and
>> appreciate all comments/feedback.
>> Best,
>> Huma
>>
>>  *From*: Cheryl Mills [mailto:[email-masked]]
>>  *Sent*: Thursday, May 01, 2014 02:37 PM Eastern Standard Time
>> *To*: Huma Abedin
>> *Cc*: [email-masked] <[email-masked]>;
>> [email-masked] <[email-masked]>; leslie dach <
>> [email-masked]>
>> *Subject*: Re: Letter
>>
>>   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 <[email-masked]>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
>>
>>
>>
>