{"id":2046,"date":"2020-10-21T07:26:24","date_gmt":"2020-10-21T06:26:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ericlee.info\/blog\/?p=2046"},"modified":"2020-10-21T07:28:07","modified_gmt":"2020-10-21T06:28:07","slug":"why-american-unions-are-backing-biden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ericlee.info\/blog\/why-american-unions-are-backing-biden\/","title":{"rendered":"Why American unions are backing Biden"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is \u201clamentable\u201d, \u201cutterly useless\u201d, a \u201ccreep\u201d and a \u201cshit\u201d. Those are not the words of Donald Trump, but they are all used in an article in this newspaper last week<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The author of that article, it seems, does not like Joe Biden. He prefers that American workers throw their support behind the little-known candidate of the Green Party, Howie Hawkins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

American trade unionists have a rather different view of the former Vice President.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

They are throwing everything they have into ensuring a massive voter turnout and a convincing win for Biden \u2013 especially among working-class voters in battleground states like Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you were to ask union leaders and activists why they were backing Biden, they would read off a long list of campaign commitments Biden has made, many of which echo the ideas of Senator Bernie Sanders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of those commitments that socialists should find particularly interesting is Biden\u2019s promise to seriously reform America\u2019s labour laws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A half century ago, American unions were a force to be reckoned with. But in recent decades, union membership has plummeted. The reason for that is primarily the employers\u2019 war against workers, using tactics both legal and illegal to bust unions and to deny workers their basic human right to join and form a trade union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under the rule of the Republican party, it has gotten much worse, with public sector unions being the target of relentless attacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s what the Biden campaign says: their candidate \u201cstrongly supports the Protecting the Right to Organize Act\u2019s (PRO Act) provisions instituting financial penalties on companies that interfere with workers\u2019 organizing efforts, including firing or otherwise retaliating against workers. Biden will go beyond the PRO Act by enacting legislation to impose even stiffer penalties on corporations and to hold company executives personally liable when they interfere with organizing efforts, including criminally liable when their interference is intentional.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Democratic Party platform could not be clearer about this: \u201cDemocrats will prioritize passing the PRO Act and restoring workers\u2019 rights, including the right to launch secondary boycotts. We will repeal so-called \u2018right to work\u2019 laws that undermine worker power.\u201d It goes on like that for several paragraphs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The PRO Act was introduced in Congress in May 2019 and went nowhere, because Republicans control the Senate and the White House. Among its sponsors are Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The passage of this bill will do much to revitalise the American labour movement, by recruiting millions of new members in a way that hasn\u2019t happened since the 1930s. At that time, with the Democrats controlling Congress and the White House, the National Labor Relations Act was passed and union membership exploded. The same thing might happen again if the PRO Act passes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is no small thing, especially if you want to see a much stronger and more influential labour movement in America. It really does matter to unions, and it is one of many reasons Biden is a better choice for workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cynics will say that Biden is just saying that to win votes. But socialists are not cynics. We look at the reality, and in the real world \u2013 not the world in which Joe Biden is a \u201ccreep\u201d (which is Donald Trump\u2019s world) \u2013 Biden needs the support of the unions. He and the Democrats will benefit from a much stronger trade union movement, and if he wins the PRO Act will become law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trade unionists in America understand this, which is why \u2013 with the exception of a handful of police unions that are supporting Trump \u2013 their support for Biden is unanimous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And \u2013 it\u2019s important to point out \u2013 they are not wrong.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

This article appears in this week’s issue of Solidarity<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is \u201clamentable\u201d, \u201cutterly useless\u201d, a \u201ccreep\u201d and a \u201cshit\u201d. Those are not the words of Donald Trump, but they are all used in an article in this newspaper last week….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2047,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-solidarity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ericlee.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ericlee.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ericlee.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericlee.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericlee.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2046"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericlee.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2046\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2049,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericlee.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2046\/revisions\/2049"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericlee.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ericlee.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericlee.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericlee.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}