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This past weekend, President Biden confirmed his decision to not seek reelection – a decision met with uncertainty and expectation amid a tumultuous month for the sitting president. The Biden Administration authored some of the most transformative infrastructure and labor acts in recent history, pledging billions toward American infrastructure and fighting for the inclusion of PLAs on federal projects. The claim that President Biden was the most pro-union President in history was not unfounded. With his imminent exit from office and a lack of clarity on what the relationship between labor and the executive branch may look like in the months and years to come, it is important to look back on historical precedents to see if this marriage can withstand a change in leadership.
Perhaps most famously, FDR and Labor Secretary Frances Perkins’ New Deal aimed to improve wages and working conditions enough that labor unions would not be required. This principal stood at the forefront of the National Industrial Recovery Act – which much like TAUC sought to bring management, labor, and ownership together to improve all legs of the tripartite. The National Labor Relations act, known colloquially as the Wagner Act, established the NLRB a few years after the introduction of New Deal legislation and set union labor on the path to the present day.
In a semi-analogous situation to our current landscape, FDR’s pro-labor administration was followed by the Truman Administration, one that tried but largely failed to build upon the political goodwill of the American Labor force. Strikes in key sectors of the economy like steel and automotive manufacturing stifled the economy. The outcomes may have been generally positive for workers, but greatly eroded both public opinion of labor and unions, and the view of labor in the eyes of the federal government. Truman himself grew to become an “ambivalent ally” for organized labor, and the American worker suffered.
Contrasting the FDR to Truman transition of like-minded administrations when it came to labor and unions, the transition from President Jimmy Carter to President Ronald Reagan allowed the opposite situation to play out; a turn from a pro-labor administration to one that could be described as ‘aggressively anti-union’. Most famously firing the striking air traffic controllers, Reagan’s stance was clear. A few lean years in the early 80’s were followed by half a decade of economic uptick. However, the foundation of modern Conservative political philosophy of favoring management and ownership at the expense of labor took hold under the Reagan Administration.
We do not yet know which path the election will take, nor do we know precisely what the prospective nominees will do regarding unions or the construction and maintenance industry. But by further analyzing historical precedents, a clearer picture may begin to emerge.