Joe Biden’s Misguided Support of Dockworkers
There are certainly situations in which union interests align with the pursuit of prosperity. But there are other situations — the dispute about port automation among them — where it’s just the opposite.
You can’t stop progress.
Photographer: Brandon Bell/Getty Images
When he calls himself “the most pro-union president in American history,” Joe Biden isn’t kidding. He means it as a boast, but there is a cost to this approach — to his administration, his party and the public.
Consider Biden’s response to the labor dispute at East Coast ports. The president had the authority, under the Taft-Hartley Act, to order workers back on the job and avoid economic disruptions right before the election. But his administration took that option off the table preemptively, positioned itself squarely on the side of workers and won a big raise for America’s longshoremen who also appear to have avoided any significant concessions on automation or modernization.