President Joe Biden, who has often said he is the most pro-union president in history, emphasized the importance of unions and applauded American workers for building the economy at a Labor Day event in Philadelphia on Monday.
The Democratic president talked about what his administration has done to pay for infrastructure improvements, how the economy is recovering from the devastating coronavirus pandemic and cited the importance of unions in building the middle class.
“This Labor Day, we celebrate jobs, good-paying jobs, jobs that support families, union jobs,” former Vice President Biden told the crowd gathered Monday. Instead of standing at the podium, the president walked around the stage, microphone in hand, behind a sign that read "UNION STRONG."
Labor Day, a holiday honoring workers, has come to the United States. We added jobs and more people started looking for jobs. This is the highest number since January. This is all news Biden wants to highlight as he seeks re-election in 2024.
Biden's Labor Day speech follows news last week that U.S. employers added 187,000 jobs in August. This is evidence that the labor market remains resilient, albeit slowly, despite the high interest rates imposed by the Federal Reserve.
Friday's Labor Department report showed the unemployment rate rose to 3.8% from 3.5%, the highest level since February 2022 but still low by historical standards. However, for encouraging reasons this rate has risen. Last month, 736,000 people started looking for work, the most since January, and not all of them found jobs right away. Only people who are actively looking for work are considered unemployed.
The president often mentions the importance of the middle class in the economy, saying that if the middle class does well, “everyone does well.”
At a tri-state Labor Day event in Philadelphia, hundreds of union workers, including sheet metal workers, United Food and Commercial Workers and stagehands wearing local T-shirts, waited for the president to speak on a warm, muggy morning. .
Lenny Nutter, a Philadelphia resident wearing a yellow Laborers International Union shirt, said he attended the event to support Biden, adding that unions are more active than they used to be, in part because of the president's policies.
“Unions are adding members and union members are being given more work,” Nutter said.
Biden has used executive action to promote worker organizing, personally cheered unionization efforts at giant companies like Amazon and approved federal funding to support union workers' pensions. Just last week, the Biden administration proposed new rules that would increase the number of people in the U.S. by 3.6 million more. Eligibility for overtime pay is the most generous increase for workers in decades.
“Now you will be paid overtime.” the president told the crowd.
Biden also traveled the country promoting how unions are building bridges and improving train tunnels as part of the bipartisan $1.1 trillion public works package Congress passed in 2021.
“Unions raise standards, raise wages, and strengthen benefits for everyone across our workforce and industries,” Biden said last week. “You have heard me say this many times. Wall Street didn't build America. “The middle class built America, and unions built the middle class.”
The 36th Annual Tri-State Labor Day Parade and Family Celebration was hosted by the Philadelphia AFL-CIO. The AFL-CIO's website says it is comprised of more than 100 local unions representing more than 150,000 workers.
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