Biden May Be the Most Pro-Labor President Ever; That May Not Save Unions
Labor leaders are effusive in praising the new president, but experts
worry that he may be powerless to reverse unions’ long-term decline.
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President Biden met this month with Kristin and James Smith, the owners
of Smith Flooring, a union shop, in Chester, Pa.
President Biden met this month with Kristin and James Smith, the owners
of Smith Flooring, a union shop, in Chester, Pa.Credit...Doug Mills/The
New York Times
Noam Scheiber <https://www.nytimes.com/by/noam-scheiber>
ByNoam Scheiber <https://www.nytimes.com/by/noam-scheiber>
NYT, March 25, 2021
Two months into the new administration, labor leaders are proclaiming
Joseph R.Biden
<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/25/us/biden-news-conference-streaming-time-details.html>Jr.
to be the most union-friendly president of their lifetime — and “maybe
ever,” as Steve Rosenthal, a former political director for the
A.F.L.-C.I.O., said in an interview.
Mr. Biden has moved quickly tooust government officials
<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/20/us/politics/peter-robb-nlrb-fired.html>whom
unions deemed hostile to labor, and toreverse Trump-era rules
<https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/03/11/business/stock-market-today#the-labor-department-moves-to-undo-trump-era-rules-weakening-worker-protections>that
weakened worker protections. He has pushed through legislation
sendinghundreds of billions of dollars
<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/13/us/stimulus-biden-states-cities.html>to
cities and states, aid that public-sector unions consider essential, and
tens of billions to shore upunion pension plans
<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/07/business/dealbook/bailout-pensions-stimulus.html>.
Perhaps most notably, the presidentappeared in a video
<https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1366191901196644354>alluding to a
union vote underway at anAmazon warehouse in Alabama
<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/18/business/economy/amazon-wages-alabama-union.html>,
warning that “there should be no intimidation, no coercion, no threats,
no anti-union propaganda” — an unusually outspoken move by a president
in a standard union election.
Yet Mr. Rosenthal and other labor advocates confess to a gnawing
anxiety: Despite Mr. Biden’s remarkable support for their movement,
unions may not be much better off when he leaves office than when he
entered it.
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That’s because labor law gives employers considerable power to fend off
union organizing, which is one reason that union membership has sunk to
record lows in recent decades. And Senate Republicans will seek to
thwart any legislative attempts — such as thePRO Act
<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/09/us/politics/house-labor-rights-bill.html>,
which the House passed this month — to reverse the trend.
“The PRO Act is vital,” Mr. Rosenthal said. “But what happens now in
terms of Republicans in Congress, the Senate filibuster, is anyone’s guess.”
Until recently, it was far from clear that Mr. Biden would govern in
such a union-friendly way. Though he has long promoted the benefits of
unions and cited close relationships with labor leaders, the president
has also maintained ties to corporate figures like Steve Ricchetti, a
counselor to the president who was a lobbyist for companies including
AT&T and Eli Lilly. Mr. Biden voted over the years for free-trade
agreement that unions opposed.
Then there is the fact that he served as vice president in an
administration thatsometimes annoyed unions
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/30/business/economy/joe-biden-labor-unions.html>,
as when President Barack Obamaweighed in
<https://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/education/07educ.html>on behalf of a
school district in Rhode Island that fired the faculty of an
underperforming school. Mr. Biden also captained an Obama administration
team that negotiated with Republicans over deficit reduction, an effort
that raised hackles within labor.
During the 2020 presidential campaign, Mr. Biden’s allies and
advisersargued
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/30/business/economy/joe-biden-labor-unions.html>that
he had merely acted as a loyal deputy to his boss, and that he would
prove more in sync with labor as president.
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But for many in labor who had doubts, Mr. Biden has exceeded
expectations. Shortly after his swearing-in as president, the White
House asked for the resignation of theNational Labor Relations Board’s
general counsel, Peter B. Robb
<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/20/us/politics/peter-robb-nlrb-fired.html>,
whose office enforces the labor rights of private-sector employees.
Mr. Robb was deeply unpopular with organized labor, which viewed him as
overly friendly to management. His term was set to expire in November,
and presidents of both parties have allowed general counsels to serve
out their time in office.
But with no letter of resignation from Mr. Robb forthcoming on
Inauguration Day, the White Housefired him
<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/20/us/politics/peter-robb-nlrb-fired.html>.
“What was really promising and exciting to those of us who care was the
firing of Peter Robb and the dramatic way it came down,” said Lisa
Canada, the political and legislative director for Michigan’s state
carpenters union.
Yet it is the Alabama video that most clearly highlights the differences
between Mr. Biden and Mr. Obama on labor. When state workers flocked to
Madison, Wis., in 2011protesting Gov. Scott Walker’s plan
<https://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/17/us/17wisconsin.html>to roll back
their bargaining rights, union leaders pleaded with the White House to
send a top administration official in solidarity. The White House
declined, though Mr. Obama did say the plan seemed like “an assault on
unions.”
“We made every imaginable effort to get someone there,” said Larry
Cohen, who was then president of the Communications Workers of America
and is now chair of the progressive advocacy group Our Revolution. “They
would not allow anyone to go.”
ImageProtesters at the Wisconsin State Capitol in 2011 opposed a bill
curbing union bargaining rights. The Obama administration declined labor
leaders’ pleas to send a representative.
Protesters at the Wisconsin State Capitol in 2011 opposed a bill curbing
union bargaining rights. The Obama administration declined labor
leaders’ pleas to send a representative.Credit...Darren Hauck/Reuters
By contrast, Mr. Biden seemed eager to offer his statement alluding to
the Amazon election, which a number of labor leaders had urged him to
deliver.
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“We haven’t seen this level of elected support for organizing since
Franklin Roosevelt,” said Mr. Cohen, who expected the Amazon statement
to discourage anti-union behavior among employers.
Still, Mr. Cohen and other labor officials said that absent a change in
labor law, union membership was likely to follow a path under Mr. Biden
that was similar to the one it took under Mr. Obama, when the share of
workers in unions dropped about 1.5 percentage points. Over all, union
membership has fallen from about one-third of workers in the 1950s to
just over one-tenth today, and a mere 6 percent in the private sector.
“Because of growing inequality, our economy is on a trajectory to
implosion,” said Richard Trumka, the president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., in
an interview. The PRO Act “will increase wages and slow that
trajectory,” he added.
Under current law, employers can inundate workers with anti-union
messages — through mandatory meetings, email, signs in the workplace —
while unions often have trouble gaining access to workers. And though it
is technically illegal to threaten or fire workers who take part in an
organizing campaign, employers face minimal punishment for doing so.
Labor board cases can drag on for years, after which an employer
frequently must onlypost a notice promising to abide by labor law
<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/16/technology/amazon-unions-virginia.html>in
the future, said Wilma B. Liebman, a former board chairwoman. There
areno monetary penalties
<https://www.epi.org/blog/the-pro-act-giving-workers-more-bargaining-power-on-the-job/>for
such violations, though workers can be made whole through back pay.
The PRO Act would outlaw mandatory anti-union meetings, enact financial
penalties for threatening or firing workers and help wrongly terminated
workers win quick reinstatement. It would also give unions leverage by
allowing them to engage in secondary boycotts — say, asking customers to
boycott restaurants that buy food from a bakery they are trying to unionize.
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Glenn Spencer, a senior vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce,
criticized the bill as “a radical rewrite of labor law” and said the
provision on secondary boycotts could be highly disruptive for their
targets.
“Those companies don’t have anything to do with the nature of the labor
dispute, but they’re suddenly wrapped up in it,” Mr. Spencer said.
Even with the legal protections envisioned under the PRO Act, however,
it will be hard for unions to make large-scale gains in coverage, many
experts say. Labor law often effectively requires workers to win union
elections one work site at a time, which could mean hundreds of separate
elections at Amazon alone.
The system is “optimized to build weak labor movements,” said David
Rolf, a former vice president of the Service Employees International
Union, who favors industrywide unions and bargaining.
And the PRO Act’s chances for enactment are remote so long as opponents
have recourse to the Senate filibuster, which effectively requires 60
votes to pass legislation.
Image
Labor organizers outside an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Ala. Mr. Biden
appeared in a video alluding to the current union vote there and warning
against anti-union efforts.
Labor organizers outside an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Ala. Mr. Biden
appeared in a video alluding to the current union vote there and warning
against anti-union efforts.Credit...Bob Miller for The New York Times
Senator Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat, appeared before the executive
council of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. this month to make the case for exempting
certain types of legislation from the filibuster. In astatement
<https://aflcio.org/about/leadership/statements/senate-rules-cannot-be-used-block-workers-first-agenda>after
the meeting, the council members called for “swift and necessary
changes” to Senate rules to remove the filibuster as an obstacle to
progressive legislation.
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Mr. Biden has sinceindicated
<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/16/us/politics/mcconnell-filibuster-senate.html>that
he is open to weakening the filibuster, though it is not clear whether
the PRO Act would benefit.
Mr. Trumka said he was confident that Mr. Biden would seize the
opportunity that Mr. Obama had let pass when Democrats enjoyed a large
Senate majority but still failed to change labor law. “This president
understands the power of solving inequalities through collective
bargaining,” Mr. Trumka said.
But others are skeptical that Mr. Biden, for all his outspokenness on
behalf of unions, will be in a position to deliver.
“The proof is in the pudding,” said Ruth Milkman, a sociologist of labor
at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. “We know
where his heart is. It doesn’t mean anything will change.”
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