Biden Shows He Will Be Labor’s Advocate in Obama Administration By Heidi Przybyla
Dec. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Joe Biden was selected as Barack Obama’s running mate in part to fill out the Democratic ticket’s foreign-policy credentials. The vice president-elect’s actual portfolio may be much closer to home as he takes on the role of labor’s advocate within the administration.
Biden has a record of supporting labor during his 36-year career in the Senate. He made the decision to be a voice for workers as vice president after union officials called him to complain that their interests aren’t represented by President- elect Obama’s economic advisers, according to two members of the transition team.
Some Democrats and labor officials are concerned about Obama’s selection of New York Federal Reserve Bank President Timothy Geithner as Treasury secretary and former Treasury chief Lawrence Summers to be White House economic director. Both are linked to Robert Rubin, who as former President Bill Clinton’s top economic adviser pushed the North American Free Trade Agreement, which labor opposed.
The unions “feel they haven’t had a leading role,” said Dean Baker, co- director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a Washington organization. They were “hugely important” for Obama’s election “so it’s not unreasonable for them to think they’ll have a lot of input into his economic appointees.”
Foreign Policy
Biden’s focus on labor may help define his agenda. As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he had a pivotal role in shaping U.S. foreign policy. In the Obama administration, he will have to cede some of that ground to Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state nominee.
Unions spent more than $80 million supporting Democrats during the election and were crucial in helping Obama woo older, white working- class voters.
Now, Biden, 66, is signaling his commitment to these backers. Yesterday, he appointed Jared Bernstein, a scholar of income inequality and a labor advocate, to the newly created position of chief economic adviser to the vice president.
Summers and other Obama advisers such as Christina Romer, the nominee to head the Council of Economic Advisers, will focus on the financial crisis, particularly macroeconomic policy and market regulation, leaving a void on labor issues.
Leo Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers of America, said he and other union leaders have warned the Obama team about the need for labor to be heard.
‘Real Economy’
“We need people that are going to be advising the president who have real-life experience in making things and understanding what the real economy is like,” Gerard said.
The unions are also pushing Obama to appoint a labor secretary with whom they have ties, such as former Michigan Representative David Bonior.
Biden is from an Irish Catholic family that struggled in Scranton, Pennsylvania, before moving to Delaware, where his father became a used-car salesman. He made those roots a part of his campaign stump speech.
“There is a middle class for one reason and only one reason in America: organized labor,” he said last year during a forum organized by a firefighters’ union in Washington.
One of the transition officials said Biden’s people have been assured that Bernstein will have the stature of a senior member of the economic team. The official said Biden is likely to focus on labor’s priority, the Employee Free Choice Act, a measure he co-sponsored that would require employers to recognize unions if a majority of workers sign cards of support.
Tougher on Trade
He also may take a tougher stance on trade agreements, potentially putting him at odds with Obama advisers such as Summers, who last year urged lawmakers to go easy on China’s currency policies.
Biden has an 85 percent lifetime rating from the AFL-CIO, the largest U.S. labor federation with 10.5 million members, even though he had a mixed voting record on trade and labor issues before 2003 and supported much of President Clinton’s free-trade agenda.
According to the AFL-CIO, he has maintained a near perfect score in recent years, including his opposition to U.S.- Singapore and U.S.- Chile free-trade deals that failed to include tough labor standards. In 2006, he sided with labor by opposing a free-trade accord with Oman.
Labor Economist
Elizabeth Alexander, a Biden spokeswoman, declined to comment on his agenda. Yet Biden is making clear he will focus on union concerns by tapping Bernstein, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington research organization that is closely aligned with the labor movement.
Bernstein is “a proven, passionate advocate for raising the incomes of middle-class families,” Biden said in a news release.
Still, Susan Aaronson, a professor at George Washington University and the author of a book on trade and human rights, questioned whether Biden’s advocacy and his appointment of Bernstein would provide labor with sufficient clout.
She said labor would be pleased if Bernstein is “empowered” to carry as much weight as Obama advisers such as former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker or economist Austan Goolsbee. “But we have no evidence to that.”