Last Updated: March 13, 2024, 00:30 IST
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President Joe Biden courted the assist of the highly effective International Brotherhood of Teamsters on Tuesday, reminding its leaders and members of his file on unions as probably Republican challenger Donald Trump tries to make positive factors among the many bluecollar employees that helped propel his 2016 victory.
WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden courted the assist of the highly effective International Brotherhood of Teamsters on Tuesday, reminding its leaders and members of his file on unions as probably Republican challenger Donald Trump tries to make positive factors among the many blue-collar employees that helped propel his 2016 victory.
Biden met with the Teamsters at its headquarters and emphasised the administration’s assist of unions and his longtime assist for the labor motion. Teamsters General President Sean O’Brien mentioned after the assembly that Biden has been “great” for employees however confused that “there’s still a lot of work to be done” to bolster unions.
“There’s always a threat to organized labor, so we want to be proactive and make certain every candidate — not just President Biden — understands how important our issues are,” O’Brien informed reporters after assembly with the president.
Biden and the Teamsters mentioned subjects such because the Butch Lewis Act — a measure now signed into regulation that shored up pensions for scores of employees — Social Security and Medicare, whereas the president vowed to proceed to “hold corporations accountable, because every worker deserves respect, and billionaire executives shouldn’t pay a lower tax rate than truck drivers or warehouse workers,” mentioned Biden marketing campaign spokesperson Lauren Hitt.
Biden met privately with the Teamsters almost six weeks after Trump sat down with them to earn their assist. Emerging from that assembly, Trump boasted {that a} important chunk of union voters has backed him and mentioned of a potential Teamsters endorsement: “Stranger things have happened.”
The president desires to harness labor’s energy and attain to bolster his marketing campaign’s efforts this yr, as Trump tries to make inroads with union employees who’ve historically backed Democratic candidates. The former Republican president peeled away some blue-collar employees in his 2016 win and is seeking to exploit a divide between union leaders who’ve backed Democratic candidates and rank-and-file members who may very well be swayed to vote Republican.
Union members are likely to vote Democratic, with 56% of members and households backing Biden in 2020, in keeping with AP VoteCast. Biden, who usually touts himself as probably the most pro-union president in historical past, has swept up endorsements from main labor teams such because the AFL-CIO, the American Federation of Teachers and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
“The Biden-Harris campaign is proud to have the support of the AFL-CIO, AFSCME, AFT, UAW and many other unions,” mentioned Hitt. “We hope to earn the support of the Teamsters as well.”
It’s not simply the assist of the Teamsters that Biden and Trump has battled over. The Democratic president traveled to Michigan final September and joined placing autoworkers, changing into the primary president in fashionable historical past to affix an energetic picket line.
The United Auto Workers later formally endorsed Biden, at the same time as Trump made his personal journeys to Michigan to criticize the president’s push for extra electrical automobiles – one of many union’s chief considerations throughout their strike. Trump, nonetheless, had made his Michigan look at a non-unionized auto components plant.
The Teamsters union represents 1.3 million employees. It backed Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Biden in 2020, though O’Brien has confused that the union is preserving an open thoughts on endorsements this cycle. The group usually waits till after each events’ summer time nominating conventions to make a proper endorsement, and can “most likely” achieve this once more this yr, as soon as it polls its members, solicits rank-and-file enter, and reconvenes its management workforce, O’Brien mentioned.
The union’s membership contains UPS drivers, movie and tv employees, freight operators, members of regulation enforcement and different authorities employees.
“The Teamsters union is good at one thing: mobilizing our members, especially when a decision and/or battle needs to be had,” O’Brien mentioned, including: “We have proven how valuable our members are and how engaged — more importantly — they are.”
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