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Bernie Sanders says Joe Biden’s the most pro-union president he’s ever seen, at least rhetorically speaking. Now he’s leaning on his 2020 primary rival to match those words with action.
The Vermont senator sent Biden a Tuesday letter, obtained by POLITICO, asking the president to cut off federal contracts to Amazon until the massive company stops what he calls its “illegal anti-union activity.” As the Senate Budget Committee chair, Sanders will also hold a hearing next week dedicated to calculating how many federal contracts go to companies that are fighting back against unionization efforts, with a focus on Amazon.
While Sanders’ Amazon antagonism is no surprise, his squeeze on Biden for action against the company signals a new phase of his pro-union strategy. He’s urging Biden to create a new executive order that prevents companies that violate labor law from being eligible for government contracts.
And asked if Biden has fallen short in his union support thus far as president, Sanders said bluntly in an interview: “Yes, he has.”
“President Biden has talked more about his support for unions than any president I can remember. That’s good. But the time for talk is over. Workers need action. Now,” Sanders said. “What Biden talked about during the campaign … is that if large corporations engage in illegal anti-union activity, they will not be eligible for federal contracts. Well, Amazon is engaged in illegal anti-union activity.”
Biden’s stated goal of becoming the “most pro-union president” has had mixed success.
The Senate has not passed the Protecting the Right to Organize Act that would enable more workers to form a union. But the union allies who helped win Biden the office say they have no buyers’ remorse, pointing to oft-unilateral actions such as appointing union-friendly nominees to the National Labor Relations Board, pushing for policies that would ensure federally funded projects go to contractors with unionized workforces and creating a task force to promote unionization in the public and private sectors.
Sanders often uses his senatorial perch to push Democratic presidents to the left. And with six months before the midterms, he believes that Biden has a big opportunity to deliver at a time of mounting unionization efforts nationwide.
“All I am asking the president to do is what he explicitly stated that he would do during the campaign. It’s the right thing to do. And this is a time when working people need to know that the president is on their side,” Sanders said in the interview.
A White House official said that the president “has stated consistently and firmly that every worker in every state must have a free and fair choice to join a union and the right to bargain collectively with their employer.” The official, who declined to be named, added that Biden believes “there should be no intimidation, no coercion, no threats, and no anti-union propaganda from employers while workers are making that vitally important choice about a union.”
Union allies are hailing Sanders moves this week as welcome moves to push Biden further. AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler said that “Biden has been, from the bully pulpit, supportive of Amazon workers.” But, she added, “could there be more? Always.”
“I’m glad the senator has weighed in, because we need voices from all corners coming down hard on Amazon’s union busting tactics,” Shuler said. “As we’re picking up momentum, it will be even more important to have that voice.”
Biden has not explicitly endorsed the fight to unionize Amazon — though he has been more vocal on the issue than his predecessors. The president released a video earlier this year at the onset of the first Amazon union election in Bessemer, Ala., implying his support for the push.
“Let me be really clear: It’s not up to me to decide whether anyone should join a union,” he said. “But let me be even more clear: It’s not up to an employer to decide that either.”
More recently, he told the North America’s Building Trades Union annual conference in D.C. this month that “the choice to join a union belongs to workers alone” before leaning into the mic and saying: “By the way, Amazon, here we come. Watch.”
“We need any kind of help from the federal level; that would actually make it much easier for us,” Alabama warehouse worker Isiah Thomas said Tuesday. “Because we’re trying our hardest, especially in Alabama.”
Fresh off visits to an Amazon warehouse in Staten Island, N.Y., and with Starbucks workers in Virginia, Sanders said that Amazon is essentially using its resources to elongate negotiations with warehouses that vote to unionize in order to prevent a contract from ever being ratified. Summing up their strategy, he said “they have unlimited resources, they’ll drag it out.”
At the Budget panel hearing next week, “we are going to determine how much federal money has gone to companies — not just Amazon, but primarily Amazon, who are engaging in illegal anti-union activities,” Sanders said.
Sanders pointed to the e-commerce giant’s recent anti-union behavior in Staten Island in particular. Workers at one of its facilities in that New York City borough voted last month to form Amazon’s first union.
There, Amazon spent millions in an attempt to discourage employees from organizing — a strategy that has paid off in Alabama, where an earlier unionization attempt proved unsuccessful. (The union representing those workers, the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, is in the process of challenging the results of a redo election amid allegations that Amazon again unlawfully intervened.)
“They bring people in, they work them as hard as they possibly can. And then a year later, these people are forced to leave and they bring in new people,” Sanders said. “That is the business model for Amazon, and workers are beginning to stand up.”
There are more than 50 unfair labor practice cases against Amazon pending before the NLRB, Sanders said. The NLRB did not immediately comment.
Sanders’ letter also raises concerns over Amazon’s classification of its drivers as independent contractors, rather than employees, which provides them with a narrower set of benefits while preventing them from forming a union. And he called out Amazon’s workplace safety policies, which he said are “inadequate.”
Employees at Amazon facilities sustained injuries at more than twice the rate of workers at other facilities in 2021, according to a Strategic Organizing Center analysis of Occupational Safety and Health Administration data. That year, Amazon employed one-third of all warehouse workers in the U.S. — but accounted for nearly half of all injuries in the sector.
Very much unlike the rest of the administration, Joe Biden’s National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has dramatically exceeded expectations. By filing injunctions against Starbucks to rehire illegal fired worker leaders and by pushing to overturn key elements of US labor law that allow employers to stall most union drives to death, this is unquestionably the most pro-worker NLRB since the Left was purged from its ranks after 1938.
Elected officials have a key role to play not only in passing pro-worker policies and helping make union organization become the single most important national issue of our period, but directly encouraging their constituents to unionize. As labor organizer Jonah Furman notes, “The main thing politicians and big organizations can do right now to support the Amazon union drive is find ways to identify Amazon workers in their network who might want to organize. The ALU is going to need ‘cover fire’ while the company tries to isolate them on Staten Island.”
Pro-worker legal and political efforts are no substitute for worker organizing. But such legal and political efforts can play significant roles in facilitating labor upsurges and making them more effective.
Consider the last great US labor upsurge, which won unions for millions in the 1930s. Contrary to simplistic accounts that stress only bottom-up militancy, the most serious histories of this period stress the consistent interaction between shop-floor action and state-level policy. As historian David Brody explains, “Contributions from the political sector probably amounted to a necessary condition for the growth of industrial unionism.”
Without massive, disruptive strikes and risky, militant union drives, labor’s great leap forward would not have been possible. But the emergence and fate of these actions was always inseparable from the raised working-class expectations generated by the New Deal; the Roosevelt government’s 1933 proclamation of labor rights in Section 7(a); the 1935 passage of the pro-union Wagner Act; the refusal by FDR and most Democratic governors to smash strikes through armed repression; the congressional investigations of union busting by the La Follette Committee; and the legal efforts of the left-leaning “Madden Board” NLRB from 1935 through 1938.
Like in the Great Depression, today’s nationwide surge in workplace organizing, from Amazon to Starbucks and beyond, might be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to rebuild a powerful, militant labor movement and to reverse decades of one-sided class war against the multiracial working class.
The stakes could hardly be higher. A reinvigorated labor movement is needed not only to give workers a real say at their workplaces, but also to defend democracy and pass the transformative reforms that all working people urgently need. Had such a movement existed in 2016 or 2020, Bernie could have won. Had it existed last year, our side might have had enough power to force Congress to pass a robust Build Back Better. And unless we seize this moment to rebuild workers’ organized power, there’s no reason to expect we’ll ever see a Green New Deal or Medicare for All — let alone a full democratization of this country’s political and economic system.
We’re in an all-hands-on-deck moment for labor and the Left. This means immediately scaling up new workplace organizing efforts and getting strike-ready in all industries — and it means fighting to transform existing unions to play a central role in these efforts. But for these efforts to win, we also need to extend class struggle into the political arena. Sunday’s ALU rally at Staten Island gave us a brilliant glimpse of what this can look like.
Now Amazon Is Being Challenged in the Boardroom as Well /New York and Illinois pension fund leaders, led by NYC Comptroller Brad Lander, aim to pressure company on its record on workplace safety and high employee turnover. https://t.co/J4SCIEM1O8
A new billionaire-funded SuperPAC to stop bartenders (@AOC), principals (@JamaalBowmanNY), nurses (@CoriBush), and immigration lawyers (@JCisnerosTX) from entering the Democratic Party.
It seems like they got their priorities just right ahead of the midterms. https://t.co/OGRpo1nXT3
NEWS: Linkedin co-founder Reid Hoffman, one of biggest Dem Party donors, just dropped $500K into a new "Mainstream Democrats PAC" whose first progressive target is @ninaturner. MD Pac also shares office space w/ Dem Majority For Israel—which has poured in millions to stop Turner pic.twitter.com/YAXIqhCKfb
1. There's the time he called Vernon Unsworth, the man who helped rescue 12 boys trapped in a mine in Thailand, a “pedo guy” and paid $50,000 to an investigator to dig up Unsworth’s life. Why? Because Unsworth called his failed attempt help the boys himself a “PR stunt.”
— Read Becoming Abolitionists by Derecka Purnell (@JoshuaPotash) April 26, 2022
3. Then, there's Martin Tripp, a technician at a Tesla plant in Nevada who blew the whistle on the company. Musk allegedly hired people to hack and spy on Tripp after he cast doubts on Tesla’s environmental credentials.https://t.co/K5wG6kRrBh
— Read Becoming Abolitionists by Derecka Purnell (@JoshuaPotash) April 26, 2022
5. Then there's the time Tesla asked China to censor comments that were critical of the company.https://t.co/9b8cJEWtty
— Read Becoming Abolitionists by Derecka Purnell (@JoshuaPotash) April 26, 2022
7. He also has tried to use Twitter itself to suppress worker speech and organizing, a move deemed illegal by the NLRB.https://t.co/xkew2BGiXE
— Read Becoming Abolitionists by Derecka Purnell (@JoshuaPotash) April 26, 2022
Yes. I actually think its less accurate to say "big business lied when they said they'd cut off the coup plotters" and more "big business correctly understands that the coup has been declared legal by its own intended victims" and has now resumed donating. https://t.co/WHqHiSHqag
The crapratists will support any of the big 3 “isms” Fascist, socialism or communism as long as they can continue gouge the populace for greater profits
TJ having to work full time at Starbucks while he’s going through chemotherapy just made me lose it. What the hell is wrong with us? https://t.co/9FlNLe7v1J
Breaking: Undergraduate students at Grinnell College just won the first wall-to-wall undergraduate union in the United State in a landslide 327 to 6 vote.
The union will cover every hourly student workplace, in dining halls & elsewhere on campus.https://t.co/gksSSipdc5
The federal government bailed out the banks. Trump and the Republicans gave huge tax cuts to the wealthy. Congress is about to hand $10 billion to Jeff Bezos to go the moon. Yes, we can afford to cancel all student debt.
The consulting firm @McKinsey got $140 million in taxpayer dollars to help @US_FDA build drug safety programs—at the same time it was working for opioid giant @purduepharma. I demanded answers from the head of McKinsey on why the company hid this clear conflict of interest. pic.twitter.com/mZSLBXbXbJ
The Democratic race for U.S. Senate has tightened, according to Wednesday’s Marquette University Law School Poll.
But many voters haven’t made their pick for the primary that will be held Aug. 9, with the winner taking on Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson in the fall.
Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes was the choice of 19% while Milwaukee Bucks executive Alex Lasry was at 16%, with state Treasurer Sarah Godlewski at 7% and Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson at 5%.
“And 48% still don’t know who they’ll vote for. That’s unchanged,” said poll director Charles Franklin.
Lasry and Godlewski have been buoyed by TV advertising. Lasry’s campaign has spent around $4.4 million on ads since going up with its first spot last fall while Godlewski has spent more than $1 million on advertising since going on air last month.
The Barnes campaign has not yet gone up with TV spots.
More:Bucks executive Alex Lasry, Wisconsin Treasurer Sarah Godlewski spend big in Democratic U.S. Senate race
In February, Barnes was the choice of 23%, with Lasry at 13%, Nelson at 5% and Godlewski at 3%. Nearly half of those surveyed didn’t have a preference.
“So, a tightening of the race but no evidence that people are making up their minds more,” Franklin said.
Meanwhile, Johnson’s favorable number ticked up from 33% in February to 36% in the current poll. He was viewed unfavorably by 46% in this new poll.
Just 43% approved of President Joe Biden’s job performance, with 53% disapproving, around the same as February.
In the Republican primary for governor, former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch was the choice of 32%, Waukesha County business consultant Kevin Nicholson was at 10% and state Rep. Tim Ramthun at 4%.
Nearly half the voters don’t have a pick yet.
And significantly, the poll was conducted before the recent entry of businessman Tim Michels into the contest as Republicans scramble to take on Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in the fall.
The GOP numbers are similar to the February survey that showed Kleefisch the choice of 30%, Nicholson at 8% and Ramthun at 5%.
For his part, Evers’s job approval was at 49% with 43% disapproval, a slight decline from the February poll.
The survey of 805 Wisconsin voters was conducted April 19-24 with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.1%.
For the primaries, 363 Democratic voters were polled with a margin of error of plus or minus 6.6% while 375 Republican voters were surveyed with a margin of error of plus or minus 5.6%.
The Marquette Poll dug into the public’s confidence in elections, with 84% of those surveyed confident or very confident in the accuracy of the April election with just 14% saying they were not too confident or not confident at all.
Those numbers were in stark contrast to confidence in the 2020 election, which ex-President Donald Trump has falsely claimed was stolen. Sixty-four percent said they were confident in that election while 35% were not.
Franklin said: “People were very confident about the election we just held. I think that maybe suggests that it’s not about the elections or the way we’re holding them it’s about the argument about 2020 rather than the underlying doubt about how elections are conducted in this state.”
With no evidence, Rebecca Kleefisch, Wisconsin candidate for governor, says 2020 election was ‘rigged’
Most people — 64% of Republicans and 50% of Democrats — hadn’t heard enough about the Republican-led probe of the 2020 election in Wisconsin, which is headed up by former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman.
“The Republicans who are most upset about the election as a group are the least knowledgeable about this investigation that is going on and I just find that interesting,” Franklin said.
Just 13% approved of the job Gableman is doing while 27% disapproved.
Asked about the possibility of decertifying the the 2020 election, 25% said the Legislature should do so, while 62% said it should not.
Whatever questions people have, though, it’s clear voters are fired up about going to the polls this fall, with 57% of Democrats and 57% of Republicans saying they are very enthusiastic to vote in the fall.
“I have to tell you Wisconsin people like to vote,” Franklin said.
On some top issues, 69% of voters said they are very concerned about inflation, 50% are very concerned about public education, 38% about illegal immigration, 27% about “crime in your community” and 22% about the pandemic.
On education, 16% of voters are very satisfied and another 47% are satisfied with public schools in their community, while 19% are dissatisfied and 13% very dissatisfied.
Those numbers haven’t changed much in the last decade, Franklin said.
Fifty-eight percent favor extended tax-payer funded vouchers statewide without income limits for families, while 33% were opposed.
The state’s current concealed carry law is backed by 69% and opposed by 26% with only 16% in favor of allowing people to carry concealed guns without a license.
Seventy-two percent of those surveyed support same-sex marriage. In May 2014, just 55% supported same-sex marriage.
People in Wi wont take this election serious until the 4th of July has passed
The historical norm is voters nationwide start paying attention as Labor Day approaches. However, with all the crap being stirred up by the craporate FRight fruitcakes, voters might start earlier.
True, with the Vos investigation on the Wi 2020 election and senator moron being up for election. The political commercial season is underway already. Plus another R multi millionaire just entered the race, Tim Michaels now owner of Michaels pipeline a company he and his brothers inherited from daddy. He’s a knock off of Cult-45 and along with Kleefisch if either wins Wi is doomed.
NEW: On this week's America Dissected, Dr. @AbdulElSayed discusses the marginalization of domestic workers in America. Then, @aijenpoo, co-founder of the National Domestic Workers Alliance joins to further discuss this issue. Listen today: https://t.co/ZiREaBrh5y
wpDiscuz
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/26/bernie-pressures-biden-on-amazon-unions-the-time-for-talk-is-over-00027872
https://jacobinmag.com/2022/04/amazon-workers-union-organizing-alu-elected-officials-bernie-sanders-aoc-support
From Rational National
The crapratists will support any of the big 3 “isms” Fascist, socialism or communism as long as they can continue gouge the populace for greater profits
I hope she gave the manager a big both barrel 🖕 on her way out. i have a feeling she’ll get a few job offers
A thankful T and R x 2, jcb!! 🙂
In a way to early poll on the WI Aug Primary
The Democratic race for U.S. Senate has tightened, according to Wednesday’s Marquette University Law School Poll.
But many voters haven’t made their pick for the primary that will be held Aug. 9, with the winner taking on Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson in the fall.
Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes was the choice of 19% while Milwaukee Bucks executive Alex Lasry was at 16%, with state Treasurer Sarah Godlewski at 7% and Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson at 5%.
“And 48% still don’t know who they’ll vote for. That’s unchanged,” said poll director Charles Franklin.
Lasry and Godlewski have been buoyed by TV advertising. Lasry’s campaign has spent around $4.4 million on ads since going up with its first spot last fall while Godlewski has spent more than $1 million on advertising since going on air last month.
The Barnes campaign has not yet gone up with TV spots.
More:Bucks executive Alex Lasry, Wisconsin Treasurer Sarah Godlewski spend big in Democratic U.S. Senate race
In February, Barnes was the choice of 23%, with Lasry at 13%, Nelson at 5% and Godlewski at 3%. Nearly half of those surveyed didn’t have a preference.
“So, a tightening of the race but no evidence that people are making up their minds more,” Franklin said.
Meanwhile, Johnson’s favorable number ticked up from 33% in February to 36% in the current poll. He was viewed unfavorably by 46% in this new poll.
Just 43% approved of President Joe Biden’s job performance, with 53% disapproving, around the same as February.
In the Republican primary for governor, former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch was the choice of 32%, Waukesha County business consultant Kevin Nicholson was at 10% and state Rep. Tim Ramthun at 4%.
Nearly half the voters don’t have a pick yet.
And significantly, the poll was conducted before the recent entry of businessman Tim Michels into the contest as Republicans scramble to take on Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in the fall.
The GOP numbers are similar to the February survey that showed Kleefisch the choice of 30%, Nicholson at 8% and Ramthun at 5%.
For his part, Evers’s job approval was at 49% with 43% disapproval, a slight decline from the February poll.
The survey of 805 Wisconsin voters was conducted April 19-24 with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.1%.
For the primaries, 363 Democratic voters were polled with a margin of error of plus or minus 6.6% while 375 Republican voters were surveyed with a margin of error of plus or minus 5.6%.
The Marquette Poll dug into the public’s confidence in elections, with 84% of those surveyed confident or very confident in the accuracy of the April election with just 14% saying they were not too confident or not confident at all.
Those numbers were in stark contrast to confidence in the 2020 election, which ex-President Donald Trump has falsely claimed was stolen. Sixty-four percent said they were confident in that election while 35% were not.
Franklin said: “People were very confident about the election we just held. I think that maybe suggests that it’s not about the elections or the way we’re holding them it’s about the argument about 2020 rather than the underlying doubt about how elections are conducted in this state.”
With no evidence, Rebecca Kleefisch, Wisconsin candidate for governor, says 2020 election was ‘rigged’
Most people — 64% of Republicans and 50% of Democrats — hadn’t heard enough about the Republican-led probe of the 2020 election in Wisconsin, which is headed up by former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman.
Just 13% approved of the job Gableman is doing while 27% disapproved.
Asked about the possibility of decertifying the the 2020 election, 25% said the Legislature should do so, while 62% said it should not.
Whatever questions people have, though, it’s clear voters are fired up about going to the polls this fall, with 57% of Democrats and 57% of Republicans saying they are very enthusiastic to vote in the fall.
“I have to tell you Wisconsin people like to vote,” Franklin said.
On some top issues, 69% of voters said they are very concerned about inflation, 50% are very concerned about public education, 38% about illegal immigration, 27% about “crime in your community” and 22% about the pandemic.
On education, 16% of voters are very satisfied and another 47% are satisfied with public schools in their community, while 19% are dissatisfied and 13% very dissatisfied.
Those numbers haven’t changed much in the last decade, Franklin said.
Fifty-eight percent favor extended tax-payer funded vouchers statewide without income limits for families, while 33% were opposed.
The state’s current concealed carry law is backed by 69% and opposed by 26% with only 16% in favor of allowing people to carry concealed guns without a license.
Seventy-two percent of those surveyed support same-sex marriage. In May 2014, just 55% supported same-sex marriage.
People in Wi wont take this election serious until the 4th of July has passed
The historical norm is voters nationwide start paying attention as Labor Day approaches. However, with all the crap being stirred up by the craporate FRight fruitcakes, voters might start earlier.
True, with the Vos investigation on the Wi 2020 election and senator moron being up for election. The political commercial season is underway already. Plus another R multi millionaire just entered the race, Tim Michaels now owner of Michaels pipeline a company he and his brothers inherited from daddy. He’s a knock off of Cult-45 and along with Kleefisch if either wins Wi is doomed.