The House on Tuesday passed the PRO Act, which would provide new protections to workers seeking to unionize and could make it more difficult for gig companies like Uber to continue classifying their drivers as independent contractors.

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People closest to Vermont senator Bernie Sanders have stated that Sanders holds an interest in becoming Labor Secretary should Joe Biden win his bid for President. Sanders, a former presidential hopeful, has declined to confirm or deny those statements, saying that he is “focused on seeing that Biden is elected president.”

Since pulling out of the presidential race, Sanders has given Biden his full support and has been able to influence policy and push for more “progressive voices” in Biden’s potential new administration.

Senator Biden has also had a lengthy career of calling for laws to raise the minimum wage and make it easier for workers to organize and, as a result, has won support from many unions.

Read more about it here.

Despite many of the national unions announcing their support for presidential candidate Joe Biden, rank-and-file union members in swing states support President Donald Trump, according to local labor leaders in key Midwestern states.

Large unions who have officially endorsed Biden include the National Education Association, the Service Employees International Union, and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Trump’s union member support comes primarily from building trades unions in blue-collar, Rust Belt states like Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.

“We haven’t moved the needle here,” Ohio State Building and Construction Trades Council Executive Secretary-Treasurer Mike Knisley noted.

Chuck Knisell, an international vice president of United Mine Workers of America District 2, stated of union members’ support for Trump, “The biggest argument that I have from our membership is that this isn’t a blue-collar, working-class Democratic Party that my dad or mom was in. It’s morphed into something different.”

Read more about it here.

During a teleconference sponsored by the National Nurses Organizing Committee, one of the nation’s largest nurse’s unions, Jill Biden said of presidential nominee Joe Biden, that he “will be the most pro-union president since [Franklin Roosevelt]. He will govern with the understanding that health care is a right, not a privilege.”

HCA Healthcare is currently fighting the union over its push to unionize 1,600 registered nurses at HCA-owned Mission Health. The votes will be counted by the National Labor Relations Board on Wednesday, Sept. 16. 

Jill Biden promised to bolster unions in the health care industry. Though she never mentioned Mission Health by name, HCA was blasted by union representatives during the event.

RWP Labor has been hired to educate HCA nurses against unionization. Please read our stance and my quotes in the Carolina Journal here.

On September 10, 2020, the Department of Labor (DOL) inducted the “Rosies” into their Labor Hall of Honor. The “Rosies”–represented by the iconic Rosie the Riveter–encompassed the women who worked as riveters, welders, and industrial workers during World War II.

Through their contribution to industries crucial to the war effort, such as manufacturing planes, tanks, guns, munitions, and supplies needed at home, an estimated 5 to 7 million women proved that they could do jobs that were often reserved for men and ensured that production of critical machinery and supplies met the demands of our nation’s military.

The Labor Hall of Honor induction highlighted the Rosies’ contributions to labor and freedom, as well as their inspiration for women’s advancement in the workforce. Read more about the “Rosies” here and watch the DOL’s induction video on YouTube here.

In a scripted virtual town hall between AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka and presidential candidate Joe Biden, Biden made a host of promises to labor unions if he were to get elected. Those promises include signing the Butch Lewis Act, which provides bailouts for failing union pensions, and passing what is known as the “PRO Act,” which includes banning state Right-to-Work laws, eliminating secret-ballot elections on unionization, and making California’s “ABC” test a federal law.

“Right-to-Work” laws, currently active in 27 states, prevent unions from requiring workers who are covered under a collective bargaining agreement to either pay a union or be fired from their jobs.

Read more about Biden’s town hall here.