Labor Has a Once-in-a-Generation Opportunity. Now Is Not the Time for Moderation.

In his first 100 days as president, Joe Biden has proven unusually willing to associate his administration with the labor movement's agenda. Unions have a greater opening to win an expansive pro-worker agenda than they have in decades. But we haven't seen real change yet.

President Biden Delivers First Address To Joint Session Of Congress

President Joe Biden addresses a joint session of Congress, with Vice President Kamala Harris and House speaker Nancy Pelosi on the dais behind him, on April 28, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Melina Mara / Pool-Getty Images)


On his first day in office, Joe Biden fired Peter Robb, the awful former management-side attorney who was general counsel on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Since then, Biden has shored up union pension plans in his pandemic relief bill and released a video opposing Amazon’s union-busting in Bessemer, Alabama — even if he avoided calling out the company by name. One hundred days into his presidency, it’s clear that Biden is willing to work with organized labor, at least so far as its priorities concern conditions on the shop floor.

“These first hundred days are incomparable to any other in my lifetime, and workers have been central to Biden’s response,” says Association of Flight Attendants–Communications Workers of America (AFA-CWA) president Sara Nelson. In addition to Biden firing Robb and opposing union-busting, she lists the following as evidence: “Mask mandates and enforcement, COVID-19 relief, reinstating union rights for federal employees, prioritizing key labor nominations and appointments including the latest this week with Celeste Drake to serve as the Made in America director, mandating a $15 minimum wage for federal contract work, and having his cabinet form a pro-union task force that will require his administration make unions central to their consideration and decision-making.”

The $15 minimum wage for federal contract work Nelson refers to comes via an executive order issued this week. It offers a major pay bump for the workers whose minimum wage currently sits at $10.95 — the Economic Policy Institute estimates it will impact 390,000 federal workers.

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