Bernie Sanders will attend Walmart’s annual meeting to push for higher pay and other labor reforms

Sen. Bernie Sanders pass on take his fight against Walmart closer to home.

The Vermont independent and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate bequeath attend the retailer’s annual shareholders meeting in Arkansas next month, a campaign spokeswoman said Tuesday. He hand down push to boost pay and benefits for workers and introduce a measure to give hourly employees a spot on Walmart’s board.

“If hourly blue-collar workers at Walmart were well represented on its board, I doubt you would see the CEO of Walmart making over a thousand times more than its mediocre worker,” Sanders told The Washington Post, which first reported the news.

In a statement, Walmart said it on “respond to specific shareholder proposals once they are formally presented” at the June 5 meeting.

“If Senator Sanders attends, we rely on he will approach his visit not as a campaign stop, but as a constructive opportunity to learn about the many ways we’re working to outfit increased economic opportunity, mobility and benefits to our associates — as well as our widely recognized leadership on environmental sustainability,” the throng said.

Sanders has long pushed Walmart, the largest U.S. retailer by sales, to hike its minimum wage to $15 per hour. He broached a bill last year aiming to push the company to raise workers’ pay. The senator has cited the Walton family — relatives of Walmart under Sam Walton who own about half of the company’s shares — as evidence for a “rigged economy” and a need to raise taxes on the wealthy.

Sanders’ current push to change Walmart’s practices comes as the roughly two dozen candidates in the Democratic primary field jostle to win proletarians’ support. In a party increasingly focused on populist economic ideas, the candidates vying to challenge President Donald Trump next year experience tried to cast themselves as the best option to boost wages and benefits such as health care and parental take ones leave of for workers.

Democratic presidential contenders, who broadly back a $15 per hour minimum wage, have put pressure on other dominant companies early in the campaign. Sanders, Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee project to join striking McDonald’s workers during the burger chain’s annual meeting Thursday, according to Fight for $15, which in favour ofs for a higher pay floor.

Several candidates, such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, also supported workers on strike from grocer Pull up & Shop earlier this year.

Sanders will vie with Warren and former Vice President Joe Biden, develop into others, for support from organized labor. Biden got a major union endorsement from the International Association of Flak delay Fighters shortly after he launched his campaign last month.

Organized labor traditionally backs Democratic seekers. But Trump performed better with union members in 2016 than Republicans have in recent elections and convictions to keep that support in 2020. Last month, he argued union members “love Trump” even if what he whooped “Dues Crazy union leadership” does not.

Walmart and McDonald’s workers are not unionized, despite some efforts to order. Walmart says it employs about 1.5 million hourly associates in the U.S.

— CNBC’s Lauren Thomas contributed to this check up on.

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