Sen. Marco Rubio is warning corporations doing business in the United States that reflexive Republican opposition to organized labor is on the wane, particularly in the case of companies hostile to conservatives.
The Florida Republican on Friday announced support for efforts to unionize by employees of an Amazon facility in Bessemer, Alabama. It was a sharp break with GOP orthodoxy, but it was an extension of Rubio’s embrace of populist industrial policies since the rise of former President Donald Trump nearly six years ago. However, Rubio is not embracing wholesale what he terms the “adversarial labor policy” of the Democratic Party that can lead to routine strikes and fuel unionization.
BIDEN BACKS ORGANIZING WORKERS AS EMPLOYEES IN ALABAMA SEEK TO FORM FIRST AMAZON UNION
Rather, he is sending a message to corporations that he believes are undermining American interests, for instance, by acquiescing to demands from China — or bending to bullying from the Left by censoring and shaming conservative voices. For instance, Amazon recently stopped selling When Harry Became Sally; Responding to the Transgender Moment. The book, by conservative thinker Ryan T. Anderson, questions the liberal acceptance of the transgender movement.
“For decades, companies like Amazon have been allies of the left in the culture war, but when their bottom line is threatened they turn to conservatives to save them,” Rubio wrote in a USA Today op-ed published Friday. “But the days of conservatives being taken for granted by the business community are over.”
Rubio, a potential 2024 presidential contender, ran for president in 2016 as a doctrinaire conservative.
He lost big to Trump in the Republican primary, leading him to reevaluate the party’s approach to fiscal and economic policy that had stood generally unchallenged since Ronald Reagan’s presidency in the 1980s. The senator’s first move was to urge the federal government to promote a “common good capitalism” that eschews free markets and encourages, through lawmaking, the creation and viability of industries and companies that support national security and a stable, well-paid workforce.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Rubio is moving further in that philosophical direction with his conditional support for labor unions. The senator said in his op-ed that he does not back the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, a key priority of President Biden and Democrats in Congress, claiming the proposal would precipitate an “adversarial labor policy.” But his position on attempts to unionize the Amazon warehouse in Alabama could make Republican “right to work” advocates nervous.
In many Republican-dominated states, lawmakers have passed “right to work” legislation, making it harder for unions to organize. Those regulations have helped attract manufacturing jobs and industries whose workers have historically been labor union members. Organized labor still donates tens of millions of dollars to the Democrats and almost nothing to Republicans, but many rank-and-file members supported Trump in the past two presidential elections and were attracted to other Republicans because of his perch atop the party.
