{"id":52483,"date":"2021-02-24T15:53:25","date_gmt":"2021-02-24T15:53:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jacobinmag.com\/2021\/02\/joe-biden-amazon-workers-unionizing-labor\/"},"modified":"2021-02-24T16:05:16","modified_gmt":"2021-02-24T16:05:16","slug":"it-didnt-take-long-for-joe-biden-to-betray-the-labor-movement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/02\/24\/it-didnt-take-long-for-joe-biden-to-betray-the-labor-movement\/","title":{"rendered":"It Didn\u2019t Take Long for Joe Biden to Betray the Labor Movement"},"content":{"rendered":"\n \n\n\n\n

After promising to be \u201cthe most pro-union president you\u2019ve ever seen,\u201d Joe Biden is staying silent as Amazon workers try to unionize in Alabama. It could be because he\u2019s just being Joe Biden \u2014 or it could be because of the massive leverage and influence the company exerts through its size.<\/h3>\n\n\n
\n \n
\n US President Joe Biden in Washington, DC, February 2021. (Photo by Doug Mills-Pool\/Getty Images)\n <\/figcaption> \n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n \n

Right now, Bessemer, Alabama is the site of maybe the<\/i> most high-profile union drive in the United States, as close to six thousand Amazon warehouse workers vote on whether to join the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU). A successful vote could make them the first unionized Amazon workers in the country, blow a hole in the South\u2019s longtime resistance to unionization<\/a>, and spur similar organizing efforts across the country, widening the bounds of possibility for millions of US workers. Not surprisingly, the company is doing<\/a> everything it can<\/a> to beat back what is also, in effect, one of the most important fights for racial equality<\/a> of the decade so far.<\/p>\n

Yet President Joe Biden is missing in action.<\/p>\n

Despite a political career and presidential campaign built in large part around the image of a hardscrabble, working-class union man \u201cfrom belt buckle to shoe sole\u201d \u2014 and despite pledging<\/a> to be \u201cthe most pro-union president you\u2019ve ever seen\u201d \u2014 Biden has stayed silent<\/a> on the unionization battle, choosing not to even condemn Amazon\u2019s union-busting tactics. It\u2019s in stark contrast to the White House\u2019s outspoken support<\/a> for embattled Office of Management and Budget nominee (and union-buster<\/a>) Neera Tanden, with officials \u201cworking the phones<\/a>\u201d to save the controversial nominee from herself.<\/p>\n

This silence isn\u2019t out of ignorance, as if that possibility could even be seriously considered. Labor leaders brought the issue<\/a> to the White House\u2019s attention after Biden\u2019s inauguration, and a \u201csenior advisor to Biden\u201d is keeping tabs on the effort, according to Reuters<\/i>. This has understandably disappointed RWDSU leadership, progressive activists, and those involved in the effort.<\/p>\n

There are various possible reasons why Biden is keeping mum. His supporters would argue he wants to avoid the appearance of impropriety, particularly if the National Labor Relations Board he appoints ends up having to rule on the matter \u2014 though this has never been a concern for anti-union conservatives like former senator Bob Corker<\/a> (R-TN), Tennessee governor Bill Lee<\/a>, or former president Ronald Reagan<\/a>, all of whom have freely waded into major labor conflicts when it meant crushing workers.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also the fact that Biden\u2019s union-friendly image is built on remarkably little beyond affable backslapping and some well-placed cultural signifiers. For a large chunk of his career, Biden championed policies vehemently opposed by unions, including entitlement cuts, constitutionally required austerity<\/a>, and the dismantling of welfare; and has betrayed labor with his votes in favor of NAFTA and normalizing trade relations with China. For a time, his rating from the AFL-CIO was as low as neoliberal Sen. Gary Hart, whom organized labor despised.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s also the fact of what Amazon is, and how it operates.<\/p>\n

First and foremost, there is, of course, the money. According to a Reuters<\/i> analysis<\/a>, after Microsoft, it was Amazon senior executives who gave Biden the most donations during the Democratic primaries, while the company and its employees were the fifth-highest contributors to his candidate campaign committee.<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s longtime general counsel and a senior vice president was one of Biden\u2019s top fundraisers<\/a>, while it was one of many corporate giants to donate an unspecified sum (up to $1 million<\/a>) to Biden\u2019s inauguration, an event that, given the circumstances, should have been scaled back<\/a>. Inauguration fundraising has long been criticized as an unregulated back door for plutocratic influence<\/a>, and this year was no different, with those who maxed out getting a private audience<\/a> with Biden and the First Lady.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s also Amazon\u2019s gradual melding with the US government, part of a larger trend among the tech sector and the Democratic Party. Amazon was one of the companies<\/a> from whom the incoming administration drew on to staff its transition team, before it launched a lobbying campaign<\/a> to get allies into top government posts, albeit with not much success. It\u2019s now in talks to assist the government\u2019s vaccine rollout<\/a>, which at this point is the administration\u2019s only real containment strategy for the pandemic, because, as one former State Department official put it: \u201cFEMA does not have that capacity. The National Guard does not have that capacity. Amazon might.\u201d<\/p>\n

All the while, sitting in the position of Amazon\u2019s senior vice president of global corporate affairs has been a former press secretary for both Obama and <\/i>Biden, who prominently displayed<\/a> a framed Joe Biden poster last year at a DNC policy roundtable as he boasted about his role in the convention.<\/p>\n

Alongside this, consider the role that the paper owned by Amazon\u2019s now\u2013executive chair Jeff Bezos, the Washington Post<\/i>, has played in Biden\u2019s political fortunes. During the Democratic primary, the Post<\/i> relentlessly<\/a> hounded<\/a> Biden\u2019s chief rival, Bernie Sanders, deploying everything from op-eds<\/a> to dubious \u201cfact-checks\u201d<\/a> in the service of either attacking Sanders<\/a> or defending<\/a> Biden<\/a>. And while the paper still publishes good critical reporting of the administration, its opinion section \u2014 when not criticizing<\/a> the president from the right<\/a> \u2014 tends<\/a> to defend<\/a> his swampy<\/a> potential appointees, wave away<\/a> justified policy criticisms, or publish someone like Jennifer Rubin<\/a>, a rabid<\/a> neoconservative Obama critic<\/a> who has since transitioned to full-time<\/a> Biden cheerleading<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Contrary to how it was initially reported, Bezos hasn\u2019t actually stepped down from Amazon, but has simply become the executive chair of its board. As the company\u2019s finance chief explained<\/a>, Bezos is going to stay \u201cvery involved\u201d in Amazon, he\u2019s \u201creally not going anywhere,\u201d and the role change was \u201cmore of a restructuring of who\u2019s doing what,\u201d with Bezos continuing to \u201chave his imprint on new product developments.\u201d And as Bezos explained<\/a> to his employees, he will use this shift in responsibility to, among other things, focus on the Post<\/i>. At this point, it\u2019s worth remembering the 2006 admission<\/a> of the paper\u2019s current editorial page editor, that its opinion pieces \u201cspeak for the publisher, for the owner,\u201d who intended to \u201chire someone (me) who they think generally will share their world view.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just as Amazon\u2019s size allowed it to bully and potentially extract outrageous concessions from cities<\/a> and states<\/a> to get it to move there, the breadth of Amazon\u2019s economic clout gives it a myriad of ways to both curry influence with the US government and make itself indispensable to the politicians who run it. We don\u2019t know now if that\u2019s what\u2019s behind the Biden administration\u2019s silence on its union-busting. But we\u2019re rapidly moving toward a future where there\u2019ll be no question.<\/p>\n\n \n\n \n \n \n\n \n \n \n\n\n

This post was originally published on Jacobin<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Right now, Bessemer, Alabama is the site of maybe the most high-profile union drive in the United States, as close to six thousand Amazon warehouse workers vote on whether to join the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU). A successful vote could make them the first unionized Amazon workers in the country, blow a [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1445,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52483"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1445"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52483"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52483\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52484,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52483\/revisions\/52484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}