Who is better on unions, Harris or Trump?


A fitting topic for Labor Day, 2024.

Over at TPM, they have an extended discussion of the records of the Biden/Harris Administration vs the Trump/Pence administration regarding unions and workplace safety. Click the link to read the whole thing. I’ll keep the quotes here within fair use.

“. . . three aspects of the candidates’ records are the most likely to sway union members one way or the other.

“Federal workers

 

“Trump signed three executive orders in 2018 that restricted the labor rights of approximately 950,000 federal government employees who belong to unions. In 2020, he signed another measure, known as Schedule F, that The Washington Post described as “designed to gut civil service job protections.”

“

Biden rescinded those executive orders. He also established a White House task force charged with making recommendations for how to streamline the procedures for federal worker union organizing, which Harris chaired. The number of federal employees in unions has risen by tens of thousandsduring the Biden administration.

 

“Union elections

 

“Rules governing how elections are conducted once workers express an interest in forming a union date back to the 1930s, when Roosevelt signed the National Labor Relations Act into law. The National Labor Relations Board, created by that legislation, oversees union elections.

 

“In 2019, when Trump appointees held a majority of the NLRB’s five seats, the board overturned an Obama-era NLRB ruling mandating speedy elections. In 2023, when Biden’s appointees were in the majority, the board issued a ruling favorable to unions that rolled back that Trump-era ruling.

 

“Today, when a majority of workers in a workplace say they want union representation, an employer must either recognize and bargain with the union or seek an election. If that employer violates labor law in the period before the election, the election is called off and the NLRB may order the employer to recognize and bargain with the union.

 

“OSHA

 

“Fewer workplace inspections occurred during the Trump administration than during Obama’s second term. This decline is largely attributable to the slow hiring of new OSHA inspectors to replace those who had retired.

 

“The number of inspections is rising again. However, by OSHA’s calculations, workplace accidents and fatalities have increased during the Biden administration.

The Trump administration issued no workplace rules about coronavirus safety, leaving hundreds of thousands of people employed in health care, groceries, meatpacking and education at risk.

 

“By comparison, two days after taking office in 2021, Biden issued an executive order that established masking guidelines, and his administration made health and safety protocols on the job during the rest of the COVID-19 pandemic a high priority.”

Much more at the link below. Hard to believe any worker would support Trump/Vance in this election.

 

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/both-candidates-think-they-can-win-over-union-voters-though-only-one-has-the-labor-bona-fides

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