President Biden has stepped up his support for organized labor, increasing his meetings with organizers as Democrats fear losing more blue-collar workers to Republicans in the midterm elections, The Hill reports.
Biden, who campaigned on a promise to be the most pro-labor president in history, recently received union activists from Amazon and Starbucks at the White House and has been speaking with prominent labor leaders throughout the country.
In May, Biden attended the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) conference in Chicago, which had the feel of a campaign rally.
Biden slammed Republicans for failing to defend the middle class, praising programs he’s put in place that the White House claims would aid working families.
In areas like Ohio, which former President Trump won in 2020, Democrats have been losing momentum with union voters. Trump’s anti-trade stance in particular resonated with union workers, exacerbating Democratic worries that the party may lose support among working-class families.
Inflationary pressures have increased for employees, compounding Biden’s political troubles.
For employees, Biden’s face-to-face meeting with Amazon organizer Christian Smalls and other organizers, including those from Starbucks, was a huge thing, since the president and Vice President Harris expressed support for their efforts to build unions.
Organizers described some of the alleged anti-union methods used by some of the companies at the conference, which came after a historic victory for Amazon employees in April when a Staten Island, New York, warehouse decided to unionize.
The meetings also caught the eye of the participating firms.
Starbucks management wrote to Biden after the meeting, requesting their own meeting, expressing their displeasure that employees were invited but no official Starbucks representative was.
Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) asked Biden in April to prohibit corporations that break federal labor rules from getting federal contracts.
In his letter to the president, the senator referred to a campaign pledge made by Biden, who stated he would impose a federal debarment on firms that illegally oppose unions and promised to only award government contracts to employers that agreed not to launch anti-union efforts.
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