White House highlights how administration is helping unions

Striking writers and actors picket outside Paramount studios in Los Angeles

By FATIMA HUSSEIN

Associated Press

Aug. 28, 2023 3:41 PM PT

As worker actions continue from Hollywood to Detroit and new labor unions crop up at companies including Starbucks and Amazon, the White House on Monday highlighted its efforts to bolster worker organizing throughout the U.S.

President Biden is counting on crucial labor support as he campaigns for a second term in office, holding his first reelection campaign rally at a Pennsylvania union hall in June and declaring: “I’m proud to be the most pro-union president in American history.” The White House and Treasury on Monday issued a joint analysis on what the administration sees as the importance of unions, as well as White House efforts to safeguard and bolster them.

There is “evidence that unions strengthen the middle class and grow the economy” by raising wages of members and improving healthcare, retirement and other benefits, according to the analysis.

“There have been recent signs of a reinvigorated labor movement, as union election petitions in 2022 bounced back from the pandemic to their highest level since 2015,” the analysis says, “and public opinion of labor unions is at its highest level in over 50 years.”

Vice President Kamala Harris, who leads the White House Labor Task Force, created to work with federal agencies to use their existing authority to support labor organizing and bargaining, told reporters that unions were crucially important.

“When union workers bargain for higher pay, it increases pressure on nonunion companies to raise pay as well to stay competitive in the labor market,” she said.

The administration’s show of support comes as unprecedented worker organizing — from strike authorizations to work stoppages — hit multiple industries this year, including transportation, entertainment, hospitality and healthcare.

Workers calling for higher wages, better working conditions and job security, especially since the end of the pandemic, have been increasingly willing to walk out on the job as employers face a greater need for workers.

The Cornell School of Industrial and Labor Relations Labor Action Tracker logged 424 work stoppages — which includes 417 strikes and seven lockouts — involving approximately 224,000 workers in 2022.

Despite the coverage of strikes and an administration that boasts it is friendlier to unions, membership numbers are still waning nationally. A January Bureau of Labor Statistics report states that 11.3% of U.S. workers were represented by a union in 2022, down 0.3% from a year ago. Globalization, automation and the deterioration of legal support to workers over decades have brought down union participation numbers, administration officials said.

Hollywood writers have been striking since early May and have not yet made a deal with the studios. Starbucks workers have unionized at more than 350 stores across the country, and a collection of Amazon workers have joined the International Brotherhood of Teamsters in hopes of gaining union recognition.

Most recently, auto workers represented by the United Auto Workers union — which still has not endorsed Biden’s 2024 presidential run — voted overwhelmingly to give leaders the authority to call strikes against Detroit car companies Stellantis, General Motors and Ford if a contract agreement isn’t reached.

The contract is set to expire in September.

Since Biden took office, the administration has implemented a slew of executive orders, made it easier for union representatives to organize on federal property and strengthened retaliation protections for private sector workers.

The nation’s top labor organizations, including the AFL-CIO, American Federation of Teachers and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, have endorsed Biden’s 2024 campaign.