Fresh off several pro-union moves in his first 100 days in office, Biden plans to establish a task force aimed at boosting labor organizing after decades of steady declines in union membership.
A White House memo Monday lays out the plans for the high-powered panel led by Vice President Kamala Harris and including Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Labor Secretary Marty Walsh.
Biden will sign an executive order that will also make several moves designed to encourage workers to join labor unions and bargain collectively.
It will also encourage government workers to join unions.
The memo notes that the National Labor Relations Act, the primary legislation governing union organizing, explicitly sought to encourage workers to bargain collectively through unions.
But it says the government has never fully implemented that aspect of the law.
“No previous administration has taken a comprehensive approach to determining how the executive branch can advance worker organizing and collective bargaining,” the document states, according to the New York Times, which first reported the push.
Biden has long touted his working-class roots in the blue-collar towns of Scranton, Pennsylvania and Claymont, Delaware.
His unique appeal to a slice of white working-class voters helped him beat former President Trump in key Rust Belt battleground states, and he does not want to let that edge slip away.
Already in his first 100 days, Biden has won praise from union leaders for his outspoken defense of unions and helping to bail out troubled union pension funds with government aid.
Source (Ny Daily news)