Biden Gets Support from Unions. He’ll Need Them to Win Again
During the Philadelphia union rally — officially hosted by the A.F.L.-C.I.O. but with all the trappings of a Biden campaign event — Mr. Biden ticked through his pro-union accomplishments. Along with the climate, infrastructure and semiconductor manufacturing bills he signed that incentivize companies that employ unionized workers, Mr. Biden cited the Butch Lewis Act, which restored the pensions of more than one million people whose retirement benefits had been severely reduced because of underfunded multi-employer pension plans.
“That was a big deal,” Mr. Biden said. “It was one of the most significant achievements for union workers and retirees in 50 years.”
The Biden administration has made clear that it stands with unionized workers. Jill Biden, the first lady, wore the blue T-shirt of the National Education Association on Saturday. Last weekend, Mr. Biden’s education secretary, Miguel Cardona, refused to cross a picket line to give a commencement address at the University of Washington. Vice President Kamala Harris canceled an MTV appearance after Hollywood writers went on strike.
Last month, workers at a school bus factory in Georgia won the first significant organizing election at a facility receiving major federal funding under legislation signed by Mr. Biden.
The president has also been far more vocal than his Democratic predecessors in encouraging union organizing. Last year, Mr. Biden welcomed to the White House the millennial Amazon and Starbucks organizers who had unionized parts of those companies.
Before he was president, Mr. Biden was a regular at Labor Day parades — especially in Pittsburgh, home of the largely male and white steelworker unions that built much of western Pennsylvania, and where he kicked off his 2020 campaign.
Source: The New York Times
