Biden seeks the worker vote in a climate of labor tension

With threats of strikes across the country, some sectors such as actors and screenwriters already immersed in theirs, and an atmosphere of labor unrest that is rare in the United States, Biden launches to demand workers’ rights. The objective: to get closer to the unions and their thousands of affiliates, from the beginning of the electoral campaign, to capture a worker vote that can be decisive.

This is what the president did at the first campaign rally he gave, last June in Philadelphia, after announcing that he would run for re-election in 2024. And he staged it by claiming the good economic results obtained during his term and asking for the support of Workers. Something that has continued with the reception at the White House, in the middle of this month, with representatives of industries that are not usually under the protection of unions.

Video game companies, artificial intelligence or clean energy are thriving sectors of the new economy where some of their workers consider it necessary to establish new labor rules. Something that the president has understood so much Joe Biden like the senator Bernie Sanderswho are deploying their charms to attract this powerful workforce.

To do this, the Democrats have established a direct line of listening to the main challenges facing workers, which focus on getting the first contract, avoiding illegal dismissals and obtaining more rights to negotiate with business representatives. This is what, for example, the more than 8,000 workers newly unionized from Starbuckswho have found a resounding refusal from the chain to negotiate with them, as a unified group.

But are not the only ones. E-commerce workers from companies such as eBayfrom the delivery sector such as UPSof the electric vehicle industry through United Auto Workers, of the minor leagues Baseball Players Association or the police union like the one in the city of Los Angeles, are on the warpath. Like the Writers and Screen Actors Unionswhich are currently on strike and have left the production of films and new programs pending a negotiation that has not yet taken place and which is creating an atmosphere of labor tension that is in danger of spreading like wildfire.

Something that does not suit a Biden who is not only the current top president, but who wants to continue to be so for the next few years and who has established an approach to workers in the most tense industries. More and more people “are standing up and saying it’s important to have a union so we can win better wages, better working conditions, better pensions and dignity at work,” he recently said. Sanders asserting the position of the Democrats on the matter.

“We are part of a much broader labor movement right now where people are recognizing the need to unionize, have labor protections at work, living wages and benefits that cover all,” he replied. Briana Thomasone of those responsible for unionization in eBayafter meeting with Biden, Sanders and Vice President Harris at the White House, whom he acknowledged that “it was great to see that they support our rights.”

In the meetings between Biden, his government and numerous members of the Democratic Party with the representatives of the affected sectors, clear messages addressed to the workers have been incorporated: “There are many politicians who do not dare to say the word ‘union’ but I do not I am one of them. I am proud to be the most pro-union president in the history of the United States,” the president said in Philadelphia a few weeks ago.

Some statements addressed to a selected audience, since Biden established in this city his campaign headquarters in 2016, and that in recent weeks he has experienced two new visits from the president. In the last one, he toured the shipyard in the capital of Pennsylvania, where there is a project to support the construction of offshore wind farms that will create new jobs and that already demand better conditions.