President Joe Biden wants to make it clear: He’s not neutral when it comes to unions.
“It is the policy of my administration to encourage worker organizing and collective bargaining,” Biden declared in an April 26 executive order. Officially federal labor law is supposed to encourage collective bargaining, but as the Biden order points out, “in the past few decades, the federal government has not used its full authority to promote and implement this policy of support for workers organizing unions and bargaining collectively with their employers.”
Biden’s executive order sets up a Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment, headed by vice president Kamala Harris, and made up of two dozen cabinet members and top administration officials. Within 180 days, they’re supposed to recommend executive branch policies and programs that could promote worker power, worker organizing, and collective bargaining.
