By Nandita Bose
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Joe Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders met with young union organizers from Starbucks and Minor League Baseball at the White House on Monday as a growing number of worker strikes swept the country.
After decades of declining union membership, organized labor is enjoying a resurgence in the United States as the sky-high cost of living, housing shortages and technological disruption have spawned unusual levels of solidarity among workers in the United States. disparate industries, from dockworkers to Hollywood screenwriters.
Employees seeking better working conditions and higher pay have recently organized unions at companies including Starbucks, Amazon.com and Apple, even as companies have become more aggressive in pushing back union activity .
Biden and Senator Sanders, who chairs a committee on labor issues, were to commend organizers for the work they’ve done and discuss the president’s “belief that workers’ power is essential to the growth of the economy from the middle and bottom up,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.
In a tweet late Monday, Biden said he and Sanders met with young union leaders to discuss their fight for better pay and benefits.
“The presence of a union means there is democracy. And organizing or joining a union – that’s democracy in action,” Biden tweeted.
Administration officials present at Monday’s meeting included Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su, White House National Economic Council Director Lael Brainard and White House Director of Government Affairs Tom Perez, the official said. responsible.
Biden, who is often called the most pro-union president in US history by labor leaders, had a similar meeting with labor activists from Amazon and Starbucks at the White House last year.
(Reporting by Nandita Bose in Washington; Editing by Sonali Paul)