The public image of President Biden\u2019s \u201cUnion Joe\u201d persona rests largely on his longtime affiliations with labor unions representing\u00a0police officers, firefighters and building-trade workers.<\/p>\n
But the modern labor movement that is gathering Saturday in Philadelphia to endorse Mr. Biden\u2019s 2024 re-election campaign is younger, more diverse and has far more women than the union stereotype Mr. Biden has embraced during the decades he was building his political identity.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou think about it as the dude with a cigar, and it\u2019s just not that,\u201d said Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers. \u201cI\u2019m sure there\u2019s still dudes with cigars, but there\u2019s lots and lots and lots of other people in a multigenerational, multiracial cacophony of people that are unified by a zealous fight for a better life.\u201d<\/p>\n
While today\u2019s labor movement is demographically more in line with the Democratic Party, increasing the share of young people and people of color means that union members may be less familiar with \u2014 and more skeptical about \u2014 Mr. Biden\u2019s record.<\/p>\n
The Biden campaign and the labor leaders endorsing it \u2014 the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and 17 other unions \u2014 celebrated the early backing as a triumph of labor unity for the president.<\/p>\n
Julie Ch\u00e1vez Rodr\u00edguez, the Biden campaign manager, called it \u201can unprecedented show of solidarity and strength for our campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n
Coming less than two months after Mr. Biden launched his re-election bid, the endorsement reflects not only Mr. Biden\u2019s popularity among the unions\u2019 leaders, but also the reality that a large part of the union membership doesn\u2019t associate Mr. Biden with the union-friendly legislation he has signed into law.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a disconnect between all the Biden-Harris accomplishments and what information is landing on the ground in communities,\u201d said Liz Shuler, the president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. \u201cIt is such an inside-the-Beltway thing to do to talk about policies and talk about legislation and regulations. It\u2019s up to us to decode that and connect the dots back to what is happening in Washington.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before he was president, Mr. Biden was a regular at Labor Day parades \u2014 especially in Pittsburgh, home of the largely male and white steelworker unions that built much of western Pennsylvania, and where he kicked off his 2020 campaign.<\/p>\n
That run followed a defection of large numbers of union workers to Donald J. Trump\u2019s 2016 campaign, which had reoriented the Republican Party in opposition to international free trade accords championed by Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.<\/p>\n
That helped Mr. Trump shave off traditionally Democratic union voters. When Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 presidential election, she won just 51 percent of votes from union households, while Mr. Trump won by huge margins among white working class voters, according to exit polls at the time. Four years later,\u00a0Mr. Biden took 56 percent\u00a0of votes from union households, and union voters made up a slightly larger share of the electorate.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe labor movement is changing, no question. We are having a younger and more diverse work force,\u201d said Lee Saunders, the president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. \u201cWe are seeing a revitalization among young people and people of color who see that they\u2019re being mistreated and they don\u2019t have a true seat at the table.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Biden and his administration have been more vocal than his Democratic predecessors in encouraging union organizing. Mr. Biden has welcomed to the White House the millennial Amazon and Starbucks organizers who unionized parts of those companies.<\/p>\n
Martin J. Walsh, Mr. Biden\u2019s first labor secretary who is now the executive director of the pro hockey players\u2019 union, said the early endorsements from organized labor were clear attempts to give union leaders more time to press Mr. Biden\u2019s case to their members.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving so many unions coming out so early in the process tells you that the unions are solidifying their membership early and working their members early, so they don\u2019t have a repeat of what happened in 2016,\u201d Mr. Walsh said.<\/p>\n
Among the youngest labor leaders is Roland Rexha, the secretary-treasurer of the Marine Engineers\u2019 Beneficial Association, which represents maritime workers including employees of the Staten Island Ferry. Mr. Rexha, who at 41 is the youngest member and the only Muslim on the A.F.L.-C.I.O.\u2019s executive council, said it can be difficult to sell Mr. Biden to a group that was about three-quarters white men \u2014 a group with whom Mr. Trump has drawn majority support.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost labor unions do a good job of trying to explain to the members why they need to support the people that support them,\u201d Mr. Rexha said. \u201cIt\u2019s something that as leadership, we have had a hard time sometimes relaying to them.\u201d<\/p>\n
The broad union endorsements for Mr. Biden Saturday mask some discontent for the president among organized labor. The United Auto Workers has withheld an endorsement over concerns about the electric vehicle transition the White House has championed. There was significant grumbling among labor groups that on the day Mr. Biden launched his campaign, he spoke to the building trades union \u2014 a group whose members are seen within the labor world as less reliably Democratic.<\/p>\n
And then there is the fact that Mr. Biden\u2019s much-touted infrastructure legislation will largely benefit construction workers \u2014 a group far more likely to be male and to vote Republican than the rest of the organized labor universe.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is some real progress, ironically, for construction workers, probably half of whom voted for Trump twice,\u201d said Larry Cohen, a former president of the Communications Workers of America who has long been an adviser to Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe messaging is as good as it\u2019s ever been in 50 years or more, but there needs to be results.\u201d <\/p>\n