The Biden Administration Is Forcing Some Of America's Biggest Corporations To Unionize

     When it comes to the labor movement, the time is now. Hundreds of thousands of workers have begun organizing since Striketober began in October 2021, and it is expected that well over a million workers will do so as the movement continues through 2022 and into 2023. They have the support of nearly 70 percent of the public, the highest rate in 60 years, which should help ensure that higher wages and better working conditions become the norm after COVID-19.

     On July 20th and 21st, 2021, Kamala Harris cast two tie-breaking votes to confirm Jennifer Ann Abruzzo as General Counsel for the National Labor Relations Board. President Biden has also confirmed David Prouty and Gwynne A. Wilcox to serve on the board, giving Democrats a majority on the board. He has appointed Susan T. Grundmann to give Democrats a majority on the Federal Labor Relations Authority, which acts like the NLRB but for federal employees and contractors exclusively. Most of Harris' tie-breaking votes have been for nominees because, unlike Presidents Clinton and Obama, President Biden has moved aggressively to fill federal agencies with diverse, progressive appointees. Bodies like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Federal Trade Commission, the NLRB and FLRA, the U.S.P.S. Board of Governors, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and others have been filled with appointees who have not only swiftly undone changes made by the Trump administration, but also instituted landmark reforms. The FTC changed its very mission statement and enforced anti-trust laws more aggressively than any in the past century. The Trump-appointed FDIC director resigned in protest of the swift and widespread changes the Biden administration was making. The CFPB has focused with a laser on banks, resulting in some of America's biggest financial institutions ending the practice of overdraft fees. '

     The case of the National Labor Relations Board is similar. In Buffalo, Starbucks workers petitioned the National Labor Relations Board to hold votes on unionizing in 20 area stores, and the workers won big, becoming the first stores in the franchise to unionize. Dozens of other locations have followed suit. In Arizona, the NLRB is expected to allow numerous Mesa-area Starbucks locations to hold union elections this month. In Boston, Chicago, Knoxville, Seattle, Eugene (Oregon), Broomfield (Colorado), Cleveland, and other locations across the country, workers representing hundreds of Starbucks locations are preparing to unionize. It appears that, at least while President Biden is in the White House, they will have the full support of the federal government. Another company whose workers will have the government's full support? Amazon. The corporate giant recently settled with the NLRB, paving the way for union organizing for its hundreds of thousands of U.S. employees. 

     Other corporations will soon follow. The NLRB is clearing the backlog left by the last two years of the Obama administration, when Mitch McConnell blocked nominees, and the four years of the Trump administration, reducing the average age of cases to just 72 days (compared to 85 days the year prior) with a goal of reducing the average age of cases to below 60 days. The Senate needs to hold a vote on the PRO Act, and, because the GOP will likely filibuster it, the Senate needs to pass the Build Back Better Act, which, among its provisions, would put an end to unfair union busting with the first real financial penalties. 

     I have a piece of advice for President Biden: President Clinton's six major initiatives during his first two years were balancing the budget, passing NAFTA and GATT, overhauling education, reforming healthcare, passing the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, and passing gun control legislation (although the attempt at healthcare reform failed). President Biden should also have six major initiatives: he has already passed the American Rescue Plan Act and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and announced his intent to pass the George Floyd Justice In Policing Act, Build Back Better Act, and voting rights legislation like the Freedom To Vote Act and John Lewis Voting Rights Act. If President Biden wants a sixth major initiative, it should be raising the wage. Attempts at a $15 minimum wage may have failed, but bipartisan wage increases were passed under Presidents Clinton and Bush, and 15 years is more than enough time to pass to raise the wage. Even a number in the $10 or $11 range would put the minimum wage in the double digits and represent the largest increase in American history while also likely gathering support from at least 10 Senate Republicans.

     2021 kickstarted the new labor movement, and, in 2022, let's keep up the push and demand results.