The question is whether even a supportive president can reverse the decline in union power that economists say has helped hollow out America’s middle class. Republican President Ronald Reagan punctuated it in the US by firing striking members of the air traffic controllers union in 1981. But Democratic commitment to the union cause has also waned with labor’s dwindling power. For votes and campaign donations, the party’s candidates have increasingly relied on more affluent, socially liberal professionals and rising economic sectors such as Silicon Valley.
Biden invokes the economic plight of workers across racial lines. Union leaders say that presents an opening with Democrats now controlling Congress and the White House. So far, Biden has fired the Trump-appointed general counsel for the National Labor Relations Board and signed executive orders bolstering workplace safety and wages paid on federal projects.
His Covid relief bill is sending $350 billion in aid to state and local governments, diminishing the threat of layoffs among unionized public employees. It’s sending $86 billion to bail out financially strapped union pension plans, safeguarding benefits for more than 1 million retirees.
Pro-labor lawmakers insist Biden can make progress by shifting public attitudes even without the legislation. In an Oval Office visit, Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio thanked the new President for merely uttering the word “union” so often. “Just like Trump’s racism made it more likely racists would speak up,” Brown explained, “Biden’s speaking about unions has really made people sit up and think, ‘This is a really important part of our country.'”