From the moment Joe Biden launched his campaign for President by describing himself as a “union man” during a rally at a Pittsburgh Teamsters hall, he seemed to be at least as interested in courting the scions of organized labor as he was the voters themselves.
Depending on what we find out in the weeks and months ahead, his strategy appears to have worked. By all indications, Biden is poised to take office in January and make his the most union-compliant administration in history.
How better to redeem all those campaign IOUs than to give unions a seat at the head of the public trough?
Not surprisingly, the most generous of Biden’s labor donors were groups like the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the American Federation of State, Local and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) that represent government workers.
The national SEIU alone coordinated a $150 million national effort targeting Trump and boosting Biden.
Suffice it to say, unions spent through the nose to oust President Trump and install their surrogate in office, and they expect a return on that investment.
“It’s clear to me it’s going to be the most significant pro-labor, pro-worker administration in a long, long, long time,” said International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) president Harold Schaitberger, who is currently under federal investigation for possible financial malfeasance involving the union’s pension fund. “I’m very confident that we’re being afforded, and will be afforded, an opportunity to offer our view and opinion on key positions and personnel that will become part of the administration.”
It’s already happening.
As reported by Politico:
(Biden has) already named two union presidents — Teresa Romero of the United Farm Workers and Lonnie Stephenson of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers — to his transition team’s advisory board. At least five others served as members of the unity task forces Biden set up with Sen. Bernie Sanders over the summer, which published formal policy recommendations that helped shape the Democratic Party’s official platform.
In addition, an American Federation of Teachers’ employee is Kamala Harris’ chief of staff, there’s an SEIU officer from WA on Biden’s COVID-19 transition advisory board and there are 28 union employees/offices on the various agency review teams.
Biden is also widely expected to appoint a union leader to his Cabinet — the Departments of Labor and Education are most often mentioned — or in senior positions throughout various agencies. And he has pledged to create a Cabinet-level working group comprised of labor representatives that will “solely focus on promoting union organizing and collective bargaining.”
His policy plans across the board are peppered with references to expanding unionization. And senior campaign officials, led by Biden’s longtime confidant and campaign aide Steve Ricchetti, have been holding a biweekly evening call with union leaders to keep them apprised of campaign developments and to allow them to offer their input.
“He’s doing more of this outreach than any other candidate that I’ve known,” said AFSCME President Lee Saunders.
To most blue-collar workers, a pro-union President was previously thought to be to their advantage. Nowadays however, the only ones that seem to benefit from unions power are big union bosses and the campaigns of liberals they support.
It was President Trump who revitalized the economy for blue collar workers with his America First agenda. Trump brought the stock market to new heights, fostered a boom in the housing markets in most areas, lowered taxes across the board, and up until COVID, oversaw record unemployment numbers.
When Biden say’s he’ll be the “most pro-union President.” He means that he will fulfill their appetite to grow government. As anyone with basic economics knows, the only way government grows is by increasing taxes, and that will just be the start.
Government Unions created a scheme decades ago that, up until recently, has been unchallenged in the United States. They took union dues from government employees and spent those dues to get liberal politicians elected into office. Once elected, those same politicians went into office and raised taxes on businesses and individuals for the purpose of growing government. Now with more public employees, unions were able to increase their revenue by taking union dues from these new employees. The big loser in this picture? You, the taxpayer.
The unions spent hundreds of millions of dollars in this last election and now they expect a return on investment with a Biden administration. That return is an influx of new government employees who will pay union dues. If successful, you can expect those dollars to go straight to a Biden re-election campaign, or worse, a Kamala Harris for President campaign.
Most concerning of all is that unions in general, and government-employee unions in particular, see Biden as the mechanism by which right-to-work laws can be abolished, making union membership and dues mandatory once again in the public workplace.
His own website vows to “(b)an state laws prohibiting unions from collecting dues or comparable payments from all workers who benefit from union representation that unions are legally obligated to provide … These laws exist only to deprive unions of the financial support they need to fight for higher wages and better benefits.”
What the manifesto neglects to mention is that right-to-work became the law of the land, at least for public employees in 2018, when the U.S. Supreme Court in Janus v. AFSCME. Janus affirmed that compulsory union membership and dues for government employees, as well as charging so-called “agency fees” to workers who opt out of full union membership, are a violation of the First Amendment.
Even a Democrat majority in the Senate couldn’t overturn the court ruling without amending the Constitution, but a union-centric Biden administration could certainly look the other way when it comes time to enforce the law.
In countless ways, the President-elect has already signaled his desire to prostrate himself before the gods of organized labor and the 10 percent of workers they represent. For the next four years, the rest of us will have to be constantly vigilant to make sure as few of his promises as possible are actually kept, for the benefit of all Americans.
Aaron Withe is national director of the Freedom Foundation, a multi-state public policy organization specializing in the abuses of government employee unions.
The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.