The Fruits of Joe's Labor
"We don't use the u-word around these parts."
The time was August of 2007. The place was a room full of new teachers in Winston-Salem, North Carolina during a two-day, district-wide orientation. The person speaking was a local representative for a "professional organization" that aimed to recruit us newbies as members.
As this gentleman continued to speak during his allotted time and stress to us the benefits of joining, I was simply hung up on his aforementioned quote. Here was someone who wanted us to join the union, his union, and yet out of pure fear of being immersed in the politics of a then-purple state, this individual didn't even have the courage to call his union a union. Instead, it had to be a professional organization. If this union was willing to sell itself out on what it called itself, what else would it sell out for? If it wouldn't fight on this basic principle, would it even fight at all?
Unlike the majority of my peers, I did not, in fact, join the professional organization that day. Sadly, my fears were correct: this was a powerless and ineffective union as was demonstrated by its inaction during the forthcoming two years. There was no advocacy and no active leadership. This was a dues-collecting union and nothing more. While the North Carolina GOP began the slow, steady demonization of the teaching profession, local unions like the one in question sat idly by and did nothing to go to bat for their members. Sadly, this decline continued over the next 15 years. This past May, Becky Pringle, head of the National Association of Educators, shared the fact that teachers in North Carolina were making $3,000 less comparatively in 2023 than they were in 2008 and recent data demonstrated that starting teaching pay in North Carolina ranked 46th out of all 50 states. Within my graduating social studies education program, not a single one of us remained in North Carolina to teach. Without a strong union, none of us felt protected enough to gut it out and remain in a state where the need was great and where we knew we could have made a difference.
The time was August of 2007. The place was a room full of new teachers in Winston-Salem, North Carolina during a two-day, district-wide orientation. The person speaking was a local representative for a "professional organization" that aimed to recruit us newbies as members.
As this gentleman continued to speak during his allotted time and stress to us the benefits of joining, I was simply hung up on his aforementioned quote. Here was someone who wanted us to join the union, his union, and yet out of pure fear of being immersed in the politics of a then-purple state, this individual didn't even have the courage to call his union a union. Instead, it had to be a professional organization. If this union was willing to sell itself out on what it called itself, what else would it sell out for? If it wouldn't fight on this basic principle, would it even fight at all?
Unlike the majority of my peers, I did not, in fact, join the professional organization that day. Sadly, my fears were correct: this was a powerless and ineffective union as was demonstrated by its inaction during the forthcoming two years. There was no advocacy and no active leadership. This was a dues-collecting union and nothing more. While the North Carolina GOP began the slow, steady demonization of the teaching profession, local unions like the one in question sat idly by and did nothing to go to bat for their members. Sadly, this decline continued over the next 15 years. This past May, Becky Pringle, head of the National Association of Educators, shared the fact that teachers in North Carolina were making $3,000 less comparatively in 2023 than they were in 2008 and recent data demonstrated that starting teaching pay in North Carolina ranked 46th out of all 50 states. Within my graduating social studies education program, not a single one of us remained in North Carolina to teach. Without a strong union, none of us felt protected enough to gut it out and remain in a state where the need was great and where we knew we could have made a difference.
Unions do, in fact, matter.
And while union membership has remained at historic low levels, there has been a resurgence under President Joe Biden, who has proudly declared his intention to be the most "pro-union president in history." In 2022, unions added 273,000 new members to their ranks. In April of 2022, a Staten Island warehouse became the first one to take on Amazon and successfully unionize. In September of last year, the Biden Administration helped broker a historic deal for rail workers after skillfully engaging for months behind the scenes. In May of this year, a rural Georgia factory that builds electric school buses won a surprising union victory and Starbucks employees officially unionized their 300th store, creating improved benefits and peace of mind for over 8,000 employees nationwide. Despite 40+ years of demonizing unions going back to the Reagan administration, support for them is at an all-time high with 71% of the American public currently having a favorable view of unions. With the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law continuing to establish good-paying union jobs, that number is likely to increase entering an election year, a critical boom for Democrats up and down the ticket.
All of this is no accident. Joe Biden understands the importance of job stability and the dignity of work. His own personal story is one of seeing the impact on a family when a father loses his job and the family is forced to relocate. That image stuck with a young Joe Biden. He has stayed true to those roots by taking the train to and from DC while he was a sitting United States Senator from the state of Delaware. Joe Biden understands the working man and woman because he comes from a working-class, blue-collar family. The inevitable difference between Joe Biden and whoever wins Survivor: GOP Primary will be like night and day. But while the GOP nominee will speak in platitudes about jobs, Joe Biden will speak to the results of his work, especially when it comes to the results of good-paying union jobs. Joe Biden will simply have a track record that the GOP nominee will not be able to compete with.
But don't take my word for all of this. Hear President Biden himself and his Labor Day speech about unions below. This was Biden's 7th trip to Philadelphia in 2023 alone, a fact that should terrify the GOP. While they're buried in their culture wars, Joe Biden is speaking to working-class women and men in swing states with verifiable results to show for his administration's efforts. Because unions, when done right, are incredibly popular. Joe Biden knows this and knows how to trumpet his administration's successes. The GOP is slowly and surely losing the title of the party of the working man.
And their loss is unquestionably the Democrats' gain.
And while union membership has remained at historic low levels, there has been a resurgence under President Joe Biden, who has proudly declared his intention to be the most "pro-union president in history." In 2022, unions added 273,000 new members to their ranks. In April of 2022, a Staten Island warehouse became the first one to take on Amazon and successfully unionize. In September of last year, the Biden Administration helped broker a historic deal for rail workers after skillfully engaging for months behind the scenes. In May of this year, a rural Georgia factory that builds electric school buses won a surprising union victory and Starbucks employees officially unionized their 300th store, creating improved benefits and peace of mind for over 8,000 employees nationwide. Despite 40+ years of demonizing unions going back to the Reagan administration, support for them is at an all-time high with 71% of the American public currently having a favorable view of unions. With the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law continuing to establish good-paying union jobs, that number is likely to increase entering an election year, a critical boom for Democrats up and down the ticket.
All of this is no accident. Joe Biden understands the importance of job stability and the dignity of work. His own personal story is one of seeing the impact on a family when a father loses his job and the family is forced to relocate. That image stuck with a young Joe Biden. He has stayed true to those roots by taking the train to and from DC while he was a sitting United States Senator from the state of Delaware. Joe Biden understands the working man and woman because he comes from a working-class, blue-collar family. The inevitable difference between Joe Biden and whoever wins Survivor: GOP Primary will be like night and day. But while the GOP nominee will speak in platitudes about jobs, Joe Biden will speak to the results of his work, especially when it comes to the results of good-paying union jobs. Joe Biden will simply have a track record that the GOP nominee will not be able to compete with.
But don't take my word for all of this. Hear President Biden himself and his Labor Day speech about unions below. This was Biden's 7th trip to Philadelphia in 2023 alone, a fact that should terrify the GOP. While they're buried in their culture wars, Joe Biden is speaking to working-class women and men in swing states with verifiable results to show for his administration's efforts. Because unions, when done right, are incredibly popular. Joe Biden knows this and knows how to trumpet his administration's successes. The GOP is slowly and surely losing the title of the party of the working man.
And their loss is unquestionably the Democrats' gain.
***
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