By DON McINTOSH
The General Board of the AFL-CIO—representing 60 unions and more than 12.5 million workers—voted June 16 to endorse President Joe Biden for re-election in 2024. Seventeen months out, it’s the earliest the AFL-CIO has ever voted to endorse in a presidential election. But AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler says without question that Biden is “the most pro-union president in our lifetimes.”
Biden talks up unions far more frequently than other presidents, and pushed to give union workers a leg up in securing federally funded infrastructure work. He’s also put energetically pro-union appointees in charge of the National Labor Relations Board and the Department of Labor, and he signed into law a bill that rescued failing union pensions, restoring retirement security for about a million union members and their spouses.
Twelve affiliated unions joined the AFL-CIO in announcing an endorsement the same day: Bricklayers, IBEW, Operating Engineers, Iron Workers, Laborers, AFT, IATSE, Actors Equity, AFGE, CWA, National Nurses United, and UNITE HERE.
Such a great choice, given how he always shows up for workers – railway workers being a pretty in-our-face, recent example. It seems to be a thing in this country to cheerfully endorse with zero ask. Just the kind of tough advocating that you want to see from your UNION… I hope they disclose how many of their members actually approved of them doing this. Again: without asking for anything.