Biden’s best efforts could not keep unions from declining or defecting to GOP

Published November 3, 2024 2:00pm ET



President Joe Biden, who has billed himself as the most pro-union president in modern history, has failed to arrest the decline in union membership rates or the drift of union voters to former President Donald Trump, who the rank-and-files increasingly sees as their champion, rather than Democrats and union leadership.

Biden said at the outset of his presidency that he aimed to oversee the “most pro-union administration in American history.” And he’s followed through with many pro-labor policies, including an overhaul of the National Labor Relations Board, a major bailout for union pension plans, tax-and-spending policies favored by labor groups, and much more. His administration has encouraged union formation, and he is the first president since Gerald Ford to see the number of union petitions increase on his watch.

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