Posts tagged most pro-union president
Trump holds private meeting with top union boss, vexing liberals
January 5, 2024 // President Biden scored the Teamsters’ endorsement in his 2020 race against Trump, but despite touting himself as the "most pro-union president in American history," they have made clear they will not just hand it over again. Trump has been courting the union vote in his re-election bid, visiting Detroit late last year to meet with striking autoworkers instead of participating in the second Republican primary debate. O’Brien and others met with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, Marianne Williamson, Cornel West and Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., last month.
GOP senators press for report on ‘official time’ use by federal unions
December 19, 2023 // An agency spokesperson said in a statement to Federal Times that “previous reports on official time are not currently available because OPM is reorganizing our website to improve navigation and customer experience.” The Wayback Machine, an internet archive site, indicates the last time these reports were accessible on the web page was in July. OPM did not say when it would make an updated report publicly available. Official time Unions have said official time is an essential protected resource that allows them to be effective and timely when defending employees who have been discriminated against. It also help resolve issues before they balloon into more complicated conflicts, they say.
New federal rule could allow millions of workers to more easily unionize at big companies
November 16, 2023 // The rule only applies to labor relations. The Department of Labor sets its own joint employment standards for issues like meeting minimum wage requirements. Still, the new rule could have a major impact. Local franchise owners employ more than 8 million people in the U.S., according to the International Franchise Association. Millions more work for subcontractors or temporary agencies.
Unions push to represent more workers, but organized labor’s share of jobs is declining
October 24, 2023 // For all the sound and fury on the labor front, its net effect is unknown. Unions’ overall share of the workforce was 10.1% in 2022 and declining, about half the rate of 1983, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That percentage is swelled by union predominance in government work. In the private sector, the share of union jobs was 6% in 2022. The number of union members overall has grown but not as fast as jobs in the rest of the economy. “It takes a lot of new members to raise the union density,” said Robert Bruno, a professor of labor and employment relations at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Opinion: Biden says he’s most pro-union president ever. But his policies hurt striking UAW workers
October 2, 2023 // Unfortunately, UAW leadership continues to advocate for their own best interests. Those who have worked in the auto industry know that negotiations must walk a fine line. If the Big Three have to file for bankruptcy protection, as General Motors and Chrysler did in 2009, all autoworkers are in a much more precarious position. UAW leadership has a responsibility to preserve their members’ jobs − securing raises that will improve their members’ standards of living, but that are not so excessive they threaten workers’ long-term job security. Moving forward, UAW leadership should target the real problem: Bidenomics. The UAW supported Biden in 2020 and enthusiastically endorsed his Inflation Reduction Act, despite the fact that it included electric vehicle subsidies that are accelerating the elimination of union jobs.
Why it seems like everyone’s going on strike on Biden’s watch
September 19, 2023 // Biden was able to intervene directly in talks between railroads and rail workers since federal law gives the government a big say in that industry’s labor relations due to its economic importance. And his top Labor Department official was involved in a deal this year between West Coast ports and dockworkers. Here’s how the administration publicly stepped in — or didn’t — in some of organized labor’s most high-profile moments.
As Democrats back auto workers, GOP spots a divide over EVs
September 18, 2023 // The administration has been doling out funding provided by the 2021 infrastructure law for electric vehicle charging infrastructure and giving tax credits for electric vehicle buyers enacted in a 2022 reconciliation bill. Autoworkers see the push to electric vehicles as resulting in jobs in non-union factories in the U.S. and abroad, a contradiction of Biden’s promises to boost domestic manufacturing. The workers are also disgruntled about the EPA’s proposed rule on tailpipe emissions. The walkout began after the carmakers’ offers failed to meet the UAW’s demands for a double-digit wage increase over four years, reinstatement of cost-of-living pay increases, and more paid time off.
‘Union Joe’ Can’t Do Much To Stop Major Auto Strike
September 14, 2023 // The UAW has also expressed reservations over Biden’s push for electric vehicles, believing that they are not as high quality as the current unionized autoworker jobs, presenting a political challenge of balancing the union’s desires with his climate goals, according to Bloomberg. The union has yet to endorse Biden in his 2024 presidential campaign. The Biden administration cannot step in to prevent a strike as it did in negotiations between four rail unions and rail companies in December 2022, after Congress used its special authority over railroad labor to force contracts on unionized workers. The new contracts were absent of key demands like paid sick leave and other “quality of life” requests. The rail industry is under the jurisdiction of the Railway Labor Act, enacted in 1926, which regulates labor relations in the industry and enables Congress to force contracts on rail workers. The auto industry is not covered under the same type of regulations, meaning Biden lacks the power to intervene forcefully as he has in the past.
Auto workers strike would test Biden’s assertion he’s the ‘most pro-union president in US history
September 13, 2023 // Union support was instrumental in helping Biden overcome a slow start to clinch the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, and it helped him win not just Michigan but Wisconsin and Pennsylvania as he defeated Trump in that year's general election. Underscoring his commitment to organized labor, Biden's lone campaign rally since launching his reelection bid in April came in June in Philadelphia, when more than a dozen of the country's largest and most powerful unions endorsed Biden for a second term. So many unions banding together for an unprecedented joint endorsement so early in the election cycle was meant as a show of strength for the president. Conspicuously absent from the event, though, was the UAW. Fain has since said that if Biden wants the UAW's 2024 endorsement, he'll have to earn it.