U.S. President Joe Biden speaks to reporters before boarding Air Force One, at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, U.S., June 17, 2023. (REUTERS)
PHILADELPHIA — President Joe Biden delivered his 2024 re-election speech to union members in Philadelphia on Saturday at his first political rally since launching his campaign in April, aimed at cementing a key part of his political coalition and bolstering the support among working-class white voters.
The AFL-CIO, which includes 60 unions representing more than 12.5 million workers, endorsed Biden and his running mate Vice President Kamala Harris this week – the first it has ever endorsed in a US presidential election. — and hosted Saturday’s event.
“I told you when I ran for president I would support you, and I did,” Biden told the roughly 2,000 union members in attendance. “But you also supported me.”
Biden said the early endorsement would make “a gigantic difference” in the election.
The Democratic president’s frequent appearances at labor events, including at a labor conference in Washington shortly after his re-election campaign was announced, show how important he thinks the labor movement is for a second term.
Hailed by labor leaders as the most pro-union president in history, Biden has backed collective bargaining at companies, rolled back rules implemented by his Republican predecessor Donald Trump that weakened worker protections, pushed to reverse a decades-long decline in union membership and made it easier for union workers to build bridges and ports across the country.
In his remarks, Biden spoke about his $1.2 trillion infrastructure package, passed with bipartisan support from Congress.
“In 10 years, Americans are going to look around and say, ‘Oh my God, look at what we’ve done. Look at the roads, the bridges, the airports of the country,'” Biden said.
His administration has already launched 32,000 infrastructure projects across the country, Biden added.
Republicans, Biden said, “come for your jobs. They come for your work. They come for your future. They come for the future you are building for your children and your grandchildren.
Republicans are definitely coming for the Biden job, with a crowded Trump-led field vying for their party’s presidential nomination.
White working-class union voters were divided over Biden in 2020, but he now has their support, some union leaders say.
Some building trades unions, whose members traditionally vote Republican, did not endorse any candidate in 2020 after local leaders could not agree on support for Biden or Trump.
Ryan Boyer, head of the influential Philadelphia Building and Construction Trades Council representing 50 unions, including boilermakers and steelworkers, said Biden’s track record as president erased any doubt among its members about who to support in 2024. .
“It’s a different electorate this time around,” Boyer said. “There isn’t a single worthy labor leader in Philadelphia who hasn’t recognized how supportive President Biden has been for men and women in the workplace. It’s very different.
Union voters have helped Biden win critical electoral battleground states including Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan in 2020. Labor is expected to play an important role in the Democratic Party’s grassroots operations in approaching the 2024 elections.
Biden won 57% of unionized households nationwide in 2020, compared to Trump’s 40%, according to Edison Research.
But his relationship with workers as president has not always been smooth. In December, some unions criticized Biden for signing legislation preventing a nationwide railroad strike. Separately, the United Auto Workers said in May that they did not immediately endorse Biden because of his efforts to transition the United States into a nation dependent on electric vehicles.
Seth Harris, who previously served as Biden’s top White House labor policy adviser, said the president’s infrastructure, chip and climate bills, which have helped create millions of jobs that don’t require a university degree will help him overcome the recalcitrant.
“The building trades … are one of the largest groups representing men who pursued their careers without a college degree,” said Harris, now a law professor at Northeastern University in Boston. “A substantial part of the president’s economic strategy has focused on the men and women who will not graduate from college.”
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