{"id":176985,"date":"2020-01-30T20:48:00","date_gmt":"2020-01-31T01:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2020\/01\/30\/karma-neh\/"},"modified":"2020-01-30T20:48:00","modified_gmt":"2020-01-31T01:48:00","slug":"karma-neh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2020\/01\/30\/karma-neh\/","title":{"rendered":"Karma, Neh?"},"content":{"rendered":"
It turns out that Biden association with Obama is hampering his efforts to secure support from organized labor<\/a>.<\/div>\n

An examination of Obama’s record shows that (at best) conclude that the administration was profoundly indifferent to the needs of traditional union members.<\/p>\n

Biden has stapled his candidacy to his time as Obama’s VP, so he is dealing with the backlash from Barack Obama’s labor policies:<\/p>\n

On the campaign trail, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. has<\/a> <\/a>highlighted<\/a> the first two years of the Obama administration as a time when he helped enact<\/a> sweeping legislation to widen access to health care and revive the economy, accomplishments most Democrats revere.<\/p>\n

But to many union officials, those years were a disappointment \u2014 a time when the administration failed to pass a labor rights bill that was their top priority and imposed a tax that would affect many union members\u2019 health plans. And they partly blame Mr. Biden.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were in the driver\u2019s seat for the first two years, and what did they get done from a labor perspective?\u201d said Chris Laursen, the president of a United Automobile Workers local in Ottumwa, Iowa, with nearly 600 members. \u201cJoe Biden is complete status quo.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

The reservations of union members could be a bigger problem for Mr. Biden than they were for Hillary Clinton during her 2016 Democratic race against Mr. Sanders. Some large unions, including the American Federation of Teachers<\/a>, endorsed Mrs. Clinton, though many members later supported<\/a> Mr. Sanders.<\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

And the skepticism toward Mr. Biden among union voters may be even more pronounced in the less white, less male parts of the labor force.<\/p>\n

Nicole McCormick, a West Virginia music teacher who helped organize a statewide walkout that made national headlines<\/a> in 2018, said she worried that Mr. Biden wasn\u2019t \u201cwilling to push for the things that we as Americans look at as radical, but the rest of the world looks at and is like, \u2018We did that 50 years ago.\u2019\u201d She cited expanded access to unions, universal health care and paid parental leave as examples.<\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

In voicing their concerns about Mr. Biden, union officials frequently cite dismay over the Obama years. They acknowledge a number of accomplishments, including the economic stimulus, the rescue of Chrysler and General Motors, and elements of the Affordable Care Act, as well as a variety of pro-labor appointments and regulations<\/a>. But they express reservations about the administration\u2019s focus on deficit reduction, its ties to Wall Street, and especially its efforts to lower barriers to foreign competition. <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If you look at Obama and Clinton Democrats, their support for unions has always been of the , “Yes, but,” variety, where the qualifiers apply to the (unfortunately true) history of racism and sexism in unions, and the need to, “Train people for the jobs of the future.”<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
So little effort is spent on card check, or repealing anti-union “right to work” laws, or the widespread use of contractors, etc.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Rinse, lather, repeat.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It turns out that Biden association with Obama is hampering his efforts to secure support from organized labor. An examination of Obama’s record shows that (at best) conclude that the administration was profoundly indifferent to the needs of traditional union members. Biden has stapled his candidacy to his time as Obama’s VP, so he is …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[465,374,405,486,442],"class_list":["post-176985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-labor","tag-politics","tag-presidential-campaign","tag-schadenfreude","tag-union"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176985"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176985\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}