Christian Smalls, president of the Amazon Labor Union, asked Mr. Biden to press Amazon’s leadership to recognize the union and to begin collective bargaining, and Mr. Biden expressed general support in response, according to Mr. Speidel and another attendee, Jaimie Caldwell, a librarian at the Baltimore County Public Library in Maryland.
A White House spokeswoman said it was up to the National Labor Relations Board, an independent agency, to certify unions. She also pointed to earlier remarks by Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, noting that President Biden is a longtime advocate “for collective bargaining, for the rights of workers to organize, and their decision to do exactly that” in the case of Amazon.
The meeting comes at a time when union organizers have won several high-profile elections, including more than 50 at Starbucks locations and at the Staten Island warehouse where Mr. Smalls led a unionization effort.
In addition to union leaders and workers from Amazon, Starbucks, Paizo and the Baltimore County Public Library, the meeting included workers from the outdoor apparel retailer REI and the animation production company Titmouse.
Labor leaders often describe Mr. Biden as the most pro-labor president of their lifetimes, pointing to his replacement of government officials they disliked with those more sympathetic to unions, and to the undoing of Trump-era rules that weakened worker protections.
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/05/business/economy/biden-harris-amazon-starbucks-union.html
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