THE AMERICAN LABOR MOVEMENT IS HAVING a moment. Wage earners across the country in a variety of jobs, from delivery drivers and health care providers to Hollywood scriptwriters and auto plant workers, have formed new unions, threatened labor stoppages or gone on strike this year, bringing entire sectors of the economy to a standstill. President Joe Biden made history this fall as the first sitting U.S. president to join striking workers on a picket line.
United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain summarized labor’s new ethos in a recent speech, proclaiming what it claimed as a victory in contract negotiations with Stellantis, one of Detroit’s big three automakers. “We didn’t do it by begging the company, or agreeing to work terrible hours,” Fain told supporters. “We didn’t do it by giving back. We did it by fighting back.”
Biden has given organized labor a lot to fight for. The three core pieces of domestic legislation that make up his “Bidenomics” agenda—the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, CHIPS Act and Inflation Reduction Act—will inject $2 trillion in new federal spending into the economy on infrastructure, clean energy and manufacturing over the next decade, according to a McKinsey & Company report. Much of the funding requires companies to work with unions, giving labor the biggest lifeline it’s gotten in decades and a seat at the table to push for better work conditions in the rapidly evolving, 21st-century economy.
“We’re at an inflection point because our economy is undergoing a big change,” Joseph McCartin, a labor historian at Georgetown University, told Newsweek. “The labor revival now is all about workers wanting to have a say in what future work will look like.”
Unions believe they have reason to feel optimistic. Democrats have embraced an increasingly progressive, union-friendly economic agenda over the past decade, and organized labor now has a staunch ally in the White House.
“Prior to Biden, Democrats viewed the labor movement as a constituency group to be managed, to be fostered, to have a transactional relationship with. Close allies, but not family members,” Seth Harris, who served as Biden’s top labor adviser. “Biden views organized labor as fundamental to his entire economic and social agenda.”
