President Joe Biden continues to lean into his strong ties to labor unions ahead of a reelection campaign launch.
The strategy was critical to Biden’s 2020 victory in the Democratic presidential primary, and he’s continued to highlight his labor policies, and relationships, throughout his first two-plus years in office.
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“The middle class built America,” Biden frequently claims during speeches across the country. “And unions built the middle class.”
Democrats believe that Biden’s appeals to labor were critical in winning several 2020 swing states former President Donald Trump took home in 2016, including Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Multiple party officials say they expect the president to publicly ramp up his support for unions in the coming months.
“President Biden is the most pro-union president we’ve seen in years,” one senior Democratic official stated, “and he’s backed that talk up with action. His entire economic agenda centers on bringing back jobs to manufacturing and trade-based communities, and the president is committed to ensuring working-class families prosper now and in the future.”
Biden took two trips in February to visit with local unions in Maryland in Wisconsin, and he frequently touts how investments using funding in his infrastructure law require the use of union labor and manufacturing.
Furthermore, Biden is planning to deliver a keynote address at the Association of Fire Fighters’s 2023 legislative conference in Washington, D.C., next week. The group was the first major national labor organization to endorse Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign, doing so in April 2019, shortly after his announcement.
The president also frequently points to the strength of the labor market and the role his legislative victories have played in creating “good-paying union jobs” as the core signal his economic plan is working, even as inflation remains elevated compared to when he took office and the Federal Reserve‘s target rate of 2%.
“The state of our economy is strong,” Biden said in his February response to the January jobs report. “Today’s data makes crystal clear what I’ve always known in my gut. These critics and cynics are wrong. While we may face setbacks along the way, and there will be some with more work to do, it’s clear. Our plan is working because of the grit and resolve of the American worker.”
The president is, however, losing one of his closest union allies, outgoing Labor Secretary Marty Walsh.
Walsh, the former Laborers’ Union Local 223 member-turned-Boston mayor, was a critical player in helping the administration broker new union agreements, including at the Port of Los Angeles, while seeking to shore up U.S. supply chains in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The president announced Tuesday that he is nominating Deputy Labor Secretary Julie Su to replace Walsh, but her nomination is being met with heavy criticism from congressional Republicans based on her time leading California’s Labor and Workforce Development Agency during the pandemic.
On Su’s watch, the state fulfilled between $20 billion and $32 billion in fraudulent unemployment claims, and roughly 5 million Californians saw their benefits payments severely delayed.
“Absolutely, yes,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Wednesday when asked if Biden believes Su can pass confirmation in the face of the aforementioned critiques. “He thinks that the Senate should confirm her and she is the right person for the job and has the experience to do the job, and let’s not forget: She has spent the last two years working hand in hand with Secretary Walsh.”
Biden maintains that his nomination of Su, the daughter of Chinese immigrants-turned-union workers, “is the American dream.”
“Julie knows in her bones as well the people who get up every morning and go to work and bust their necks just to make an honest living deserve something — someone to fight on their side to give them an even shot, just a shot so they don’t get stiffed,” the president said of Su on Wednesday. “Julie has spent her life fighting for that vision, her entire professional career.”
Still, Su’s Senate confirmation could be delayed for the foreseeable future, potentially occurring after Biden announces his 2024 campaign.
Su was confirmed into her current role along party lines, and Sens. John Fetterman (D-PA) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) are both currently absent from Capitol Hill. Fetterman checked himself into Walter Reed National Military Medical Center to receive treatment for chronic depression, and Feinstein is receiving treatment in California for shingles.
Biden is expected to launch his campaign this spring. Former White House chief of staff Ron Klain suggested after the midterm elections that Biden could announce as early as February, though that window has passed.
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First lady Jill Biden added in a series of interviews conducted during her February trip to Africa that Biden has “pretty much” made up his mind on running again and all that remains is to determine a time and place to launch.
