As the Democrats take control of the White House and both houses of Congress amid overlapping national crises, labor leaders say it is now more critical than ever that Washington deliver significant material gains for the working class.<\/p>\n
Democrats partly owe their recent electoral victories in places like Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania and Georgia to the extensive<\/a> get-out-the-vote efforts<\/a> of unions like UNITE HERE and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which reached<\/a> millions<\/a> of Black and Latino voters. <\/p>\n After defeating Donald Trump and the Republicans at the polls, the labor movement does not intend to rest on its laurels.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re not going to stop the campaign just because the election is done,\u201d D. Taylor, international president of UNITE HERE, told In These Times<\/em>. \u201cWe have to hold Democrats accountable. We will go to the same voters they made promises to and point out whether they have lived up to those promises or not. They can no longer blame the Republicans. It\u2019s right on their shoulders.\u201d<\/p>\n President Joe Biden, who calls himself a \u201cunion guy,\u201d has signaled his intention to work with organized labor by tapping Boston mayor Marty Walsh to be his Labor Secretary. A former official in the Laborers\u2019 Union Local 223, Walsh was the AFL-CIO\u2019s preferred<\/a> choice for the Cabinet position, though many progressive unionists and Transport Workers Union president John Samuelson wanted<\/a>\nSen. Bernie Sanders in the role. <\/p>\n Further, in his proposed $1.9 trillion Covid relief package, Biden has included a provision to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour\u2014something service sector workers led by SEIU and other unions have famously been fighting for since 2012. <\/p>\n Besides delivering immediate economic relief and getting the pandemic under control, labor leaders want the Biden administration to quickly reverse the various anti-worker measures<\/a> that Trump and his Department of Labor enacted, like reducing the number of workers eligible for overtime pay and restricting the collective bargaining rights of federal employees. <\/p>\n They are also counting on the new president to appoint<\/a> union-friendly members to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). There is one vacancy on the Board right now, and another is set to open in August when the term of one of the current Republican members is set to expire. That means, assuming Biden makes nominations that swiftly get confirmed by the Senate, Democrats should hold a majority on the Board by late summer.<\/p>\n In the meantime, unions like SEIU are pressuring<\/a> Biden to immediately<\/a> fire NLRB general counsel Peter Robb\u2014a notorious union buster appointed by Trump. <\/p>\n In his powerful position at the Board, Robb has worked<\/a> to make sure McDonald\u2019s can\u2019t be held legally responsible for labor violations carried out by its franchises, attacked<\/a> neutrality agreements that restrict employer interference in unionization drives, and even tried to outlaw Scabby the Rat<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cSwift action is required. Robb must go,\u201d SEIU president Mary Kay Henry tweeted<\/a> last week.<\/p>\n In addition to making demands on Biden, labor leaders are also seeking bold moves from lawmakers on Capitol Hill. <\/p>\n \u201cWhile there are immediate actions that Joe Biden and his Department of Labor can take to support worker organizing and to protect collective action, the transformative change we need requires action by Congress,\u201d said Sara Steffens, secretary-treasurer of the Communications Workers of America (CWA).<\/p>\n The CWA is part of a growing coalition of unions, state labor federations, worker centers, and progressive groups led by the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT) that is mobilizing to ensure Congress passes the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act.<\/p>\n The PRO Act would dramatically reform<\/a> private sector labor law by removing the many corporate-friendly legal obstacles to unionizing and striking. Publicly supported by Biden and Walsh, the legislation was passed last year by the Democratic-led House of Representatives, only to go nowhere in the Republican-dominated Senate. <\/p>\n In the aftermath of the November election and Georgia runoff, the IUPAT-led coalition has launched a campaign<\/a> pushing for passage of the bill.<\/p>\n In 2009, the last time Democrats simultaneously controlled both houses of Congress and the White House, they failed to accomplish a similar attempt at labor law reform\u2014the Employee Free Choice Act\u2014despite campaigning on a promise to pass it. Union leaders are aiming to avoid a repeat of that disappointment.<\/p>\n \u201cThe labor movement should be doing something we didn\u2019t do the last time around, and that\u2019s push like hell and not expect people who say the right thing to do the right thing,\u201d Taylor said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe trap we fell into with the Employee Free Choice Act was taking their support for granted and just waiting to see how the process unfolded,\u201d explained Ryan Kekeris, IUPAT\u2019s communications director. \u201cWe\u2019re doing the opposite here. We\u2019re calling the question and making this a priority from day one. We\u2019re building a grassroots, decentralized movement that can mobilize people and pressure politicians.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe know that if a fight stays in the halls of Washington, D.C., those fights end up losing a lot of the time,\u201d said IUPAT general vice president Jim Williams. \u201cWe have to take the fight outside of Washington, D.C. and into our congressional districts, into the states, into our communities.\u201d<\/p>\n At a townhall<\/a> hosted by the IUPAT last Thursday, AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka said the PRO Act must be brought to Joe Biden\u2019s desk this year \u201ccome hell or high water.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis time has to be different,\u201d Trumka said. \u201cWe can\u2019t be at the back of the train; we have to be at the front of this train.\u201d<\/p>\n Unionists agree that to have any hope of securing sweeping legislation, partnerships must be forged with other progressive movements, including those organizing around racial justice, immigrant rights, and climate action.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to unite with others who are in motion,\u201d explained Carl Rosen, general president of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers (UE). \u201cA big advantage relative to 2009 when Obama came in is there wasn\u2019t nearly the level of mobilized action going on in the country then as there is now.\u201d<\/p>\n A key partner in the IUPAT\u2019s campaign to pass the PRO Act is the youth-led Sunrise Movement, which is at the forefront of the fight for a Green New Deal. <\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re definitely serious about the \u2018Green\u2019 part of that, and we\u2019re equally serious the \u2018New Deal\u2019 part,\u201d Lauren Maunus, the Sunrise Movement\u2019s legislative manager and a member of CWA Local 1180, said at last Thursday\u2019s townhall. \u201cAmerica needs labor law reform on a scale unseen since the original New Deal.\u201d<\/p>\n Labor leaders stress that it will also be necessary to organize outside of progressive and liberal circles, especially since some 40%<\/a> of union households voted for Trump.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have to get to that section of the working class that we\u2019ve stopped talking to, and that have instead been wooed away by the Right because they haven\u2019t seen any solutions being offered to them,\u201d said Rosen.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not talking about trying to bring dyed-in-the-wool, super right-wing racist white nationalists over and make them our allies. Far from it,\u201d he added. \u201cBut they have influence over an awful lot of people because we\u2019ve failed as labor and progressive movements to get an alternative out there for folks to be part of and to feel like it can make a difference for them.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMany union members are rightfully skeptical of electoral politics. Many turned to Trump for that very reason\u2014he promised a break from politics as usual,\u201d Williams of IUPAT recently wrote<\/a> for In These Times<\/em>. \u201cFor decades, our members have been sold false promises\u2026 Our standards of living have fallen and despite promises from Washington, nothing has changed.\u201d<\/p>\n Through organizing conversations with its membership, the IUPAT found that the PRO Act is popular with rank-and-file members across the political spectrum, including those who voted for Trump. \u201cThis is an issue that unites working people regardless of political party affiliation,\u201d Kekeris said.<\/p>\n Rosen contends that another issue with the potential to win over workers who typically vote Republican is Medicare for All. <\/p>\n \u201cPeople like Medicare, including rural and working-class folks who might otherwise be convinced by right-wing propaganda to be anti-government. We need to build on that,\u201d Rosen explained. <\/p>\n Taylor, whose union\u2019s diverse membership includes people from all over the world, said that comprehensive immigration reform must be \u201cfront and center.\u201d Biden reportedly plans to send a bill<\/a> to Congress soon that would offer a pathway to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants.<\/p>\n For its part, the Teamsters union is launching a campaign<\/a> to push for implementation of multiple federal policy priorities<\/a>, including strengthening pensions and ending the misclassification of workers as \u201cindependent contractors.\u201d<\/p>\n Beyond mobilizing working-class voters to hold elected officials accountable, unions expect to continue waging workplace struggles to protect workers\u2019 health and safety in the pandemic and to safeguard wages and benefits amid the recession.<\/p>\n