UPDATED: Amid the Democratic Party's Chaos, Unions (Mostly) Seem To Be Sticking With Biden
After weeks of near silence, AFL-CIO sticks with Biden.
By Peter List, Editor | July 10, 2024
This post has been updated below.
On Wednesday, President Joe Biden met with the AFL-CIO Executive Council, which is comprised of over 50 union leaders from most of the nation’s major unions, to ensure he still had their support as calls for him to step aside have embroiled the Democratic Party.
“Biden spoke with a handheld mic and no teleprompter in sight,” the Associated Press reported. “He thanked the union leaders for their support, and outlined his plans for the future seeking to cast aside doubt over his reelection campaign.”
“I think of you as my domestic NATO — not a joke,” Biden reportedly stated.
It was the first known meeting with union leaders since Biden’s debate performance two weeks ago created such a firestorm over whether he is mentally fit to continue as the Democratic Party’s nominee—let alone President of the United States.
Unions have Biden’s back
According to the AP report, AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler told the room “Biden has supported jobs, manufacturing and created good union jobs in clean energy. She flat out told the president that he had union's support.” [Emphasis added.]
“You’ve always had our back — we have your back,” Shuler told the president.
Shuler’s declaration comes after nearly two weeks of turmoil over the President’s debate performance, during which time there has been a chorus of calls for him to step aside.
Unions remain mostly silent. Until this week, individual unions have remained mostly silent on the Biden controversy, apart from an AFL-CIO press release issued a week after the debate debacle expressing strong solidarity with the Biden-Harris ticket.
On Sunday, though, Biden was due to speak at the National Education Association’s (NEA) convention in Philadelphia. However, his appearance was canceled due to the NEA’s union staffers going out on strike.
On Tuesday, the Communications Workers of America (CWA) broke its silence on the Biden issue by releasing a statement “wholeheartedly” supporting the Biden-Harris ticket.
Not all unions were at Biden’s AFL-CIO Executive Council meeting. The notable absences were the NEA, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and the Teamsters, as they are not members of the labor federation.
Although, like the AFL-CIO, the SEIU was one of the first unions to endorse Biden-Harris for re-election in 2023, the SEIU has not openly stated whether it was re-affirming support or joining calls for Biden to step aside. [Note: An email that was sent to the SEIU media department has not been responded to.]
The Teamsters have not endorsed any candidate yet and likely won't until after Teamsters President Sean O'Brien addresses the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee next week, at a minimum.
Union silence has not gone unnoticed
Labor writers have begun to question why, as a whole, the labor has largely stayed quiet on the topic of whether President Biden should stay in the race.
Mike Elk, editor of PayDay Report, noted on Tuesday that “[w]hile some Congressional Democrats have publicly called for Biden to leave the race, labor leaders have largely stayed silent.”
However, no one has been as critical of the union movement’s general silence as noted labor writer Hamilton Nolan, who posted a scathing critique on his Substack How Things Work, stating:
Even though union density has been declining for decades, the political influence of unions is unusually strong with Biden in the White House. With that in mind, what has been the sum total of the involvement of organized labor in this critical struggle over whether or not we should leave the party’s fate in the hands of an 81 year-old man who can’t really speak in full paragraphs? It was this: a July 3 statement from AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler saying “The stakes of the 2024 presidential election couldn’t be higher… That is why the AFL-CIO endorsed President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in June of last year, earlier than we’ve ever endorsed in a presidential race, and why we continue to stand in strong support of them today.” Not only is this the opposite of “trying to exert influence on a controversial matter,” but it proudly waves around the asinine decision to endorse Biden a year and a half before the election—a decision that has made the nation’s largest union coalition nothing more than an administration cheerleader throughout the labor movement’s entire debate over Gaza, and now, again, during the question of whether Biden should stay or go. [Emphasis added.]
Whether Joe Biden remains the Democratic Party’s nominee or not, union leaders are invested in backing whomever the Party anoints.
Once the dust settles, it is expected that unions will be on board with whomever it is.
UPDATE: On Wednesday evening the AFL-CIO released a statement announcing that the AFL-CIO Executive Council had voted unanimously to reaffirm its commitment to Biden and Harris’ re-election.
