{"id":596286,"date":"2022-04-08T13:54:02","date_gmt":"2022-04-08T13:54:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jacobinmag.com\/2022\/04\/biden-amazon-unionizing-executive-action-labor-funding\/"},"modified":"2022-04-08T13:54:02","modified_gmt":"2022-04-08T13:54:02","slug":"on-support-for-unionizing-amazon-joe-bidens-bark-has-so-far-been-bigger-than-his-bite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2022\/04\/08\/on-support-for-unionizing-amazon-joe-bidens-bark-has-so-far-been-bigger-than-his-bite\/","title":{"rendered":"On Support for Unionizing Amazon, Joe Biden\u2019s Bark Has So Far Been Bigger Than His Bite"},"content":{"rendered":"\n \n\n\n\n

Joe Biden pledged to support workers\u2019 unionization efforts at Amazon on Wednesday, saying, \u201cAmazon, here we come.\u201d But his failure so far to implement any of the recommendations of his task force on worker organization seems to speak louder than his words.<\/h3>\n\n\n
\n \n
\n Joe Biden speaking with supporters at a community event at Sun City MacDonald Ranch in Henderson, Nevada, on February 12, 2020. (Gage Skidmore \/ Flickr)\n <\/figcaption> \n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n \n

On Wednesday, President Joe Biden made headlines\u00a0pledging<\/a> to support Amazon workers trying to unionize the nation\u2019s largest retailer, declaring \u201cAmazon, here we come\u201d and boasting that \u201cI created the White House task force on worker organization and empowerment to make sure that the choice to join a union belongs to workers alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

But as campaign cash from Amazon-linked donors and anti-union law firms has flooded into the coffers of Biden and his Democratic Party, the president has so far refused to use his executive authority to actually implement any of that task force\u2019s major recommendations \u2014 even though its proposals were far weaker than his 2020 campaign pledges and likely wouldn\u2019t have helped Amazon workers\u2019 union drive.<\/p>\n

What might have helped are executive actions Biden continues to avoid. For instance, he has refused to reinstate a Barack Obama\u2013era rule requiring companies like Amazon to disclose all of their spending to crush union drives. Such disclosures can help union organizers combat the anti-labor tactics of major law firms, like those that previously employed the husband of the task force\u2019s chair \u2014 Vice President Kamala Harris.<\/p>\n

Biden has also declined to use his executive authority to halt federal contracts to Amazon amid its union-busting campaign. In fact, Amazon was\u00a0awarded<\/a>\u00a0a $10 billion contract\u00a0last summer<\/a>, months after the president\u00a0promised<\/a>\u00a0on the campaign trail to \u201censure federal contracts only go to employers who sign neutrality agreements committing not to run anti-union campaigns.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s clear that there are these tensions inside the Democratic Party,\u201d said John Logan, a professor of labor and employment studies at San Francisco State University:<\/p>\n

On the one hand, you have a president who says he wants to be the most pro-union<\/a>\u00a0president in history, on the other you can only judge him on his accomplishments in office. We’re not going to get the\u00a0PRO Act<\/a>, not going to get labor provisions in\u00a0Build Back Better<\/a>. What are we going to get?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n \n\n \n \n \n

\u201cWhat He Was Not Doing Is Sending a Message\u201d<\/h2>\n \n

On the campaign trail, Biden\u00a0promised<\/a> to be\u00a0\u201cthe most pro-union president you’ve ever seen.\u201d And during last year\u2019s headline-grabbing but ultimately unsuccessful union drive at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, the president issued a\u00a0vague statement<\/a>\u00a0in support of such efforts, but stopped short of calling out the retailer by name.<\/p>\n

On February 7, Biden\u2019s labor task force offered up a variety of ways he could follow through on his promises to workers. The task force\u2019s forty-four-page public report<\/a>\u00a0contained a laundry list of recommendations, including mandating that federal contract dollars are not spent on union busting, and ensuring that \u201canti-union campaign activities by federal contractors are publicly disclosed.\u201d<\/p>\n

A few days before the report\u2019s release, Biden\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0an executive order\u00a0mandating<\/a>\u00a0union labor be used on new infrastructure projects. But since then, he has declined to issue executive orders implementing any of the task force\u2019s other recommendations \u2014 even though the report noted that the president has the authority to take action on them.<\/p>\n

Almost immediately after Biden\u2019s comment on Wednesday about \u201ccoming for\u201d Amazon, White House press secretary Jen Psaki tried<\/a>\u00a0to walk back the president\u2019s remark.<\/p>\n

When asked whether Biden was endorsing efforts by workers to unionize Amazon facilities, Psaki responded:<\/p>\n

What he was not doing is sending a message that he or the US government would be directly involved in any of these efforts or take any direct action. What he was conveying is his longtime support for collective bargaining, for the rights of workers to organize, and their decision to do exactly that in this case \u2014 something that he has long supported broadly over the course of his career.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n \n \n \n

\u201cThey Would Fight a New Persuader Rule to the Death\u201d<\/h2>\n \n

Amazon was forced to disclose spending\u00a0more than $4 million<\/a>\u00a0to try to block unionization last year \u2014 and that anti-union spending boomeranged against the company in Staten Island. There, organizers made\u00a0educating<\/a>\u00a0other warehouse workers there about the company\u2019s high-paid union-busting consultants a key part of their\u00a0successful<\/a>\u00a0effort last week to win votes for a union.<\/p>\n

However, those anti-union consultant disclosures were likely only the tip of the iceberg \u2014 under current rules, companies do not have to disclose their spending on the\u00a0vast web<\/a>\u00a0of law firms that perform what is called \u201cindirect\u201d anti-union activity.<\/p>\n

In April 2021, Bloomberg Law\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0that the Biden Labor Department was considering expanding those rules by reinstating the so-called \u201cpersuader rule,\u201d which required more comprehensive disclosure of anti-union campaigns \u2014 including disclosure of the behind-the-scenes work that major law firms undertake to coordinate employers\u2019 anti-union campaigns.<\/p>\n

However, the administration has not moved forward with doing so. While the task force\u2019s report calls on the \u201cDepartment of Labor to review its rules and policies on persuader reporting and take all appropriate actions to strengthen its rules and enforcement,\u201d it does not expressly advocate for a new persuader rule or the reinstatement of the Obama-era version.<\/p>\n

In 2016, the Obama administration crafted the first persuader rule to require disclosure of anti-union activities conducted by law firms. The rule was quickly\u00a0blocked<\/a> from taking effect\u00a0by a judge, and when President Donald Trump took office, his Department of Labor dithered on appealing the judge\u2019s order and ultimately\u00a0rescinded<\/a>\u00a0the rule in 2018.<\/p>\n

The Biden labor task force\u2019s cochair, Vice President Harris, is likely familiar with such \u201cpersuader\u201d activities. Harris\u2019s husband, Doug Emhoff, was previously a longtime partner at the major corporate law firms DLA Piper and Venable, with the firms paying him<\/a>\u00a0$1.4 million<\/a>\u00a0in 2020 alone. Under a reinstituted persuader rule, both of these firms would almost certainly have been compelled to make disclosures about their union-busting work.<\/p>\n

DLA Piper\u00a0boasts<\/a>\u00a0on its website that it defends corporations against \u201cstrategic union campaigns,\u201d including by \u201cusing local laws and litigation to combat disruptive activity.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 2017 DLA Piper newsletter article\u00a0announcing<\/a> Emhoff’s hiring noted he had \u201cextensive experience\u201d defending corporations related to \u201cwage and hour violations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Venable, where Emhoff worked from 2006 to 2017, has\u00a0advertised<\/a>\u00a0that it will \u201cregularly counsel and train clients on union avoidance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Logan at San Francisco State University told us that Department of Labor staff had contacted him last year “and they seemed very gung-ho\u201d about issuing a new persuader rule.<\/p>\n

But Logan added that the big labor-fighting law firms like DLA Piper and Venable would likely vehemently oppose the implementation of such a rule.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese management-side law firms are very large and very powerful,\u201d said Logan. \u201cThese firms are major players, and they care about this more than they care about anything else. They would fight a new persuader rule to the death.\u201d<\/p>\n

But if a new persuader rule did manage to go through, Logan said it could prove to be incredibly helpful to growing union campaigns at Amazon, Starbucks, and elsewhere.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things that was interesting about the Staten Island Amazon campaign is they were able to use the kind of information you get from the current set of disclosures,\u201d said Logan:<\/p>\n

If we had a broader persuader rule that actually required reporting from all of these firms that are effectively running the show, it could actually be a quite important tool for organizers even at the most difficult places to win, like Amazon.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n \n \n \n

Democrats\u2019 Ties to Amazon<\/h2>\n \n

Amazon\u2019s ties to the White House and the Democratic Party run deep.<\/p>\n

Psaki left the Obama White House in 2011 to\u00a0become<\/a>\u00a0a senior vice president at Global Strategy Group, a Democratic polling and consulting firm, working there for less than a year. Global Strategy Group recently worked for Amazon in its fight against the Staten Island union drive. The firm\u00a0was paid to dissuade workers<\/a>\u00a0from supporting the union push. The firm\u2019s representatives reportedly created and distributed anti-union materials, sat in on anti-union presentations, and monitored union organizers’ social media accounts.<\/p>\n

Global Strategy Group\u00a0often does polling<\/a>\u00a0for official Democratic Party committees like the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, as well as their allied super PACs, House Majority PAC and Senate Majority PAC. The firm\u00a0boasts<\/a> on its website that \u201cin 2020, we were proud to serve as polling partners for [super PAC] Priorities USA in their campaign to elect Joe Biden.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Global Strategy Group spokesperson\u00a0told the\u00a0New Yorker<\/em><\/a>\u00a0that the firm is very sorry about its extensive work on behalf of Amazon\u2019s union-busting effort. \u201cWe deeply regret being involved in any way,\u201d the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Jay Carney, a former press secretary to both Biden and Obama, has been\u00a0working<\/a>\u00a0as Amazon\u2019s public policy and communications chief since 2015. Anne Rung, in charge of federal procurement for Obama,\u00a0joined<\/a>\u00a0Amazon in 2016 as the head of its \u201cpublic sector\u201d division, selling directly to the government.<\/p>\n

Biden and his Democratic colleagues have also benefited from Amazon\u2019s largess. Amazon general counsel David Zapolsky, who called<\/a> Amazon Labor Union president Chris Smalls \u201cnot smart or articulate\u201d in 2020 after Smalls led a protest against Amazon\u2019s COVID-19 safety failures, donated<\/a>\u00a0$300,000 to the Biden Victory Fund that year. Other senior Amazon executives donated hundreds of thousands of dollars more to Democrats.<\/p>\n

Employees of Morgan Lewis, Amazon\u2019s\u00a0union-busting<\/a>\u00a0law firm,\u00a0delivered<\/a>\u00a0$526,000 in campaign contributions to Biden in 2020, and offered up\u00a0another<\/a>\u00a0$194,000 to the Democratic National Committee.<\/p>\n

In 2021, following Biden\u2019s election, Amazon retained<\/a>\u00a0Ricchetti Inc, the lobbying firm founded by Biden senior adviser Steve Ricchetti and currently run by Ricchetti\u2019s brother, Jeff. Amazon\u00a0paid<\/a>\u00a0the company $360,000 last year, making the retailer one of the firm\u2019s two largest clients.<\/p>\n\n \n \n \n\n \n \n

You can subscribe to David Sirota\u2019s investigative journalism project, the\u00a0Lever<\/i>,\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

On Wednesday, President Joe Biden made headlines\u00a0pledging to support Amazon workers trying to unionize the nation\u2019s largest retailer, declaring \u201cAmazon, here we come\u201d and boasting that \u201cI created the White House task force on worker organization and empowerment to make sure that the choice to join a union belongs to workers alone.\u201d But as campaign [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":138,"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\/596286"}],"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\/138"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=596286"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":596287,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596286\/revisions\/596287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=596286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=596286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=596286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}