Joe Biden likes to say he’s the most pro-union president in US history. When he announces his expected re-election campaign in the coming weeks, he’ll get the chance to prove it to his own staffers.
Workers on his 2024 campaign will be unionised, political allies say, making him the first president to run a re-election campaign with staff represented by a union.That means hammering out a collectively bargained agreement that could establish salary minimums, set work hours and offer overtime pay, among other things, easing the demands on a workforce that has historically been required to put in long hours for meagre pay and guaranteed joblessness after Election Day.
The move allows Biden to further demonstrate to his base just how deep his pro-labour convictions are, providing a strong contrast with his Republican opponents, whose staffers aren’t likely to embrace unionising.It also means extra work for those at the top of Biden’s campaign to negotiate a contract and could present financial and workforce constraints, but union organisers and Democratic operatives insist that having a unionised staff would only make Biden’s 2024 bid stronger.“The marquee name, the person who’s running, wants the cred for being union,” said Janice Fine, a Rutgers University professor of labour studies and employment relations and director of the workplace justice law.“But the people who are running the campaign are going to have more trepidation because they know what it takes to actually lift up a campaign.”It’s not unprecedented for a presidential campaign to be unionised, though Biden’s would be the largest unionised workforce by far.Democratic White House candidates Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Julián Castro had unionised campaign staffs in 2020.
Even Biden’s campaign unionised after clinching that year’s Democratic nomination. The Democratic National Committee’s staff is also unionised.Former President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign staff hasn’t unionised. The staffs of top Republicans thought to be readying presidential runs, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, probably won’t, either.“In the old days, there were definitely Republicans who were pro-union,” Fine said. “But not now.”
