ABOVE PHOTO: Former Vice President Joe Biden (Photo: K-Len Anderson)_
At the Workers Presidential Summit, members of Pennsylvania’s unions got the chance to tell a group of Democratic presidential hopefuls what labor needs from the next president of the United States.
By Denise Clay and Amy V. Simmons
When it comes to a unionized workforce, cities like Philadelphia are kind of an anomaly these days.
Because Pennsylvania isn’t a “right to work” state, Philadelphia is still a union town and as such, these unions use their considerable clout to influence politics in the Commonwealth both locally and nationally.
Recently, a group of these unions including Laborers Local 332, IBEW Local 98, the Carpenters Union, AFSCME’s District Councils 33 and 47 and others joined forces to hold the Workers Presidential Summit at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.
The unions invited all 19 of the candidates vying for the Democratic nomination for president and of that group former Vice President Joe Biden, Senators Amy Klobuchar and Bernie Sanders, New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio and businessmen Tom Steyer and Andrew Yang attended. DeBlasio has since announced that he was dropping out of the race.
Although the first vote for the 2020 Democratic nominee has yet to be cast, some might think that it’s too early to have held an event like the Workers Summit.
Due to a combination of Supreme Court decisions like the Supreme Court’s Janus decision, which allows non-union workers to get the benefits of union negotiation without paying dues, and the proliferation of right to work laws that make it harder for workers to organize, you’d be wrong, said Pat Eiding, president of the Philadelphia AFL-CIO.
Workers need to know where they stand with these candidates before it’s too late, Eiding said.
“The time to educate our members about these candidates is now,” he said. “Not after the primaries. Now.”
Moderated by recently retired 6ABC reporter Vernon Odom, the candidates were asked a series of questions about their personal experiences with unions, their feelings on income inequality, and how they’d handle healthcare for union workers. Also, in light of the fire, the environmental concerns and the subsequent closing of the Philadelphia Energy refinery, the candidates were asked about their energy policies and how they’d impact unionized workers.
First up was Vice President Biden. He began by acknowledging that unions made his career possible and he wouldn’t be there without them.
“I wouldn’t have been a senator if it weren’t for you,” he said. “If you look at my record, I’ve never not stood up for you.”
Much of Biden’s talk centered on the tax cut President Donald Trump managed to get passed before control of the House of Representatives changed hands and how that tax cut has hurt Americans.
To drive that point home on a local level, he used the opioid crisis, and the closing of Hahneman Hospital, and now corporations won by losing in both cases.
“One thing that they never tell you is that corporations always give themselves bonuses before filing for bankruptcy so they don’t have to pay those they’ve hurt,” Biden said. “That’s what the Sackler family, the owners of the corporation that gave us OxyContin did and it’s what the owners of Hahneman Hospital did. And regular people got hurt, thanks to the Trump tax cut.”
“You can get a tax break for a race horse,” Biden continued. “Why can we not have a tax credit for everyone who needs child care?! Why can we not have a tax credit for everyone who needs child care?! It would grow the economy!”
The policy that entrepreneur Andrew Yang has become most associated with is the $1,000 a month “freedom dividend” that he would give to every family in the country. He told the union workers that this dividend comes with a full set of programs and that these programs would help unions.
“The $1,000 a month would act as a shield during contract negotiations,” he said. “We have to invest in our workers and we have to change our country’s values. We have the measuring sticks all wrong and it’s killing us. It’s driving us into the ground.”
“You have to give yourself a chance to win,” Yang continued. “Not to lose less. Not
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