[Peace-discuss] NYT: Biden Push for Labor Support Is Burdened by Obama-Era Baggage

[Robert Naiman]

This article hits a lot of important points which have not been
well-acknowledged: the failure of the Obama-Biden Administration to fight
for card check ["The Employee Free Choice Act"] to make it easier to form
unions, as they had promised to make a priority; the benefit to unions of
taking health care issues out of negotiations; Biden's role in
Obama-Clinton trade policies hated by unions that played a big role in
helping elect Trump; Obama-Biden efforts to cut Social Security and Biden's
role in that; Biden's hawkish foreign policy views [yes, a bunch of people
in the labor movement care about that!]

The Official DNC Establishment view is that Hillary lost to Trump in the
industrial midwest because she was a "poor candidate," etc. Biden, on the
other hand, is supposed to be a "good candidate" because he's from Scranton
and can pal around with working class people, etc. This completely misses
the boat on how the Obama-Biden Administration screwed the agenda of union
people, and that's no accident. It's because the DNC people are bought, so
they're not allowed to have any ideas that aren't bought.

========

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/30/business/economy/joe-biden-labor-unions.html

[...]
But to many union officials, those years were a disappointment — a time
when the administration failed to pass a labor rights bill that was their
top priority and imposed a tax that would affect many union members’ health
plans. And they partly blame Mr. Biden.
“They were in the driver’s seat for the first two years, and what did they
get done from a labor perspective?” said Chris Laursen, the president of a
United Automobile Workers local in Ottumwa, Iowa, with nearly 600 members.
“Joe Biden is complete status quo.”
[...]
But for many labor voters — even white, blue-collar union members whose
votes skewed toward Mr. Trump — the reaction to the former vice president
has been more mixed. They frequently cite his policy centrism, which many
associate with his time in President Barack Obama’s White House.
A mid-January poll by SurveyUSA showed Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont
surging to within three points of Mr. Biden among union households
nationally. The combined support of Mr. Sanders and Senator Elizabeth
Warren of Massachusetts has generally outpaced Mr. Biden’s among union
households since August.
[...]
While the Labor Department recently reported that union membership last
year fell to a record low — 10.3 percent of the work force — labor
endorsements can still be critical because of the role of unions in
educating members about candidates and canvassing for them on the ground.
Mr. Laursen, the U.A.W. local leader in Ottumwa, estimates that more than
half his members — who are primarily workers at a John Deere plant — backed
Mr. Trump in 2016. But he says many of those who oppose the president’s
re-election are supporting Mr. Sanders over Mr. Biden.
And the skepticism toward Mr. Biden among union voters may be even more
pronounced in the less white, less male parts of the labor force.
Nicole McCormick, a West Virginia music teacher who helped organize a
statewide walkout that made national headlines in 2018, said she worried
that Mr. Biden wasn’t “willing to push for the things that we as Americans
look at as radical, but the rest of the world looks at and is like, ‘We did
that 50 years ago.’” She cited expanded access to unions, universal health
care and paid parental leave as examples.
[...]
Keon Liberato, the president of a Philadelphia-based local of more than 200
workers who maintain and construct railroad tracks, said many of his
members preferred Mr. Sanders. Mr. Liberato said his members, both
African-American and white, knew Mr. Biden as a friend to railroad workers,
but tended to believe that taking health care off the bargaining table
under Mr. Sanders’s Medicare for All plan “would be huge for the American
people.”
[...]
“I was really disappointed with his trade policies,” said Nick Diveley, a
U.A.W. member in Ottumwa, who supported Mr. Obama in 2008. “That’s what
pushed me to Trump.” Mr. Diveley said he was open to voting for someone
other than Mr. Trump in the fall but called Mr. Biden “just another
established Washington guy.”
[...]
But many labor officials regard Mr. Biden as essentially a sympathetic face
for unfriendly policies he was either powerless to reverse or personally
advanced. One cited Mr. Biden’s role in leading the negotiations with
Republicans over a long-term deficit-cutting deal that could have led to
cuts in programs like Social Security and Medicare.
[...]
Frank Flanders, the political director of the food workers’ local in
Ottumwa, said that he was skeptical of Mr. Biden’s views on trade and his
more hawkish foreign policy views, and that he regarded Mr. Biden as a
“corporate Democrat.”

“I think we had a lot of Trump voters in the general, for the most part
it’s because he wasn’t Hillary,” said Mr. Flanders, describing how his
members voted in 2016. “It’s also a concern I have about a Biden candidacy.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/30/business/economy/joe-biden-labor-unions.html
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