Biden and Harris team up to pitch union workers in first joint campaign appearance – live | US elections 2024

Biden teams up with Harris in first joint campaign appearance in pitch to union workers

Good morning US politics readers. Joe Biden joined Kamala Harris in Pittsburgh on Monday for their first joint appearance on the presidential campaign trail since he ended his re-election bid in July and endorsed her.

The pair appeared at a rally to mark Labor Day with a tribute to union workers in Pittsburgh in the vital swing state of Pennsylvania. “We are so proud to be the most pro-union administration in American history,” Harris said.

Trade unions are a key Democratic constituency and Harris on Monday pledged to oppose the pending purchase of US Steel by Nippon Steel, arguing that the iconic Pennsylvania steel company should remain in the hands of American owners. Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, also opposes the Nippon Steel deal and has said he will block it if president.

Here’s what else we’re watching:

  • The House and Senate are out this week.

  • Biden is back in Washington DC after having spent the last two weeks holidaying in California and at his home in Delaware. He will head to Wisconsin on Thursday and Michigan on Friday.

  • Harris will be in New Hampshire on Wednesday and then travel to Pittsburgh on Thursday.

  • The Harris campaign has released “Focused”, part of a $370m ad buy running through election day.

  • Andrew Cuomo, the former New York governor, will testify publicly before Congress next week about nursing home deaths during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Key events

George Chidi

George Chidi

Introducing Kamala Harris to a crowd in Pittsburgh on Monday, Joe Biden described the accomplishments of his administration in Pennsylvania, from investments in clean energy to infrastructure money.

Biden noted that his administration required project labor agreements that respected labor rights and required American products, while reminding listeners that Donald Trump appointed union busting officials to the National Labor Relations Board. Biden said:

Wall Street didn’t build America. The middle class built America and unions built the middle class.

Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign event with Joe Biden in Pittsburgh at IBEW Local Union #5, on Monday, 2 September 2024. Photograph: David Muse/UPI/REX/Shutterstock

The appearance of Biden and Harris together provides an image of how the two may campaign in the waning days of the election. Biden described Harris as having “the backbone of a ramrod and the moral compass of a saint”.

Biden is the first sitting president to walk a union picket line, supporting the United Auto Workers in their dispute with major car manufacturers in September 2023.

George Chidi

George Chidi

Kamala Harris, at a rally in Pittsburgh on Monday, voiced support for the Protecting the Right to Organize (Pro) act, a broad basket of labor reforms that would spur union organizing.

Kenny Cooper, president of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) union, introduced Joe Biden and Harris, noting that the passage of the Butch Lewis Act by Harris’s tie-breaking vote saved the benefits of 2 million union members.

“They were only tied up for one reason,” he said. “We couldn’t find a Republican senator.”

Harris also cast the tie-breaking vote for the Inflation Reduction Act, which the United Steelworkers (USW) international president, David McCall, said in comments had been “revolutionizing the cement, chemical, glass and steel sectors along with other traditional core industries”.

Harris spent the morning in Detroit, hailing the virtues of union organizing – the five-day work week, sick leave, vacation time and other benefits – with labor leaders at Northwestern high school. She said:

We celebrate unions because unions helped build America, and unions helped build America’s middle class. When union wages go up, everybody’s wages go up.

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Kamala Harris’s commitment to oppose the sale of US Steel to the Japanese company Nippon represents one of the few specific policy promises she has made since rising to the top of the Democratic ticket.

On Monday, between comments about the administration’s support for organized labor and Donald Trump’s attacks on labor organizing, Harris spoke against the pending purchase of US Steel and said it should remain domestically owned and operated.

US Steel is an historic American company and it is vital for our nation to maintain strong American steel companies. And I couldn’t agree more with President Biden: US Steel should remain American-owned and American-operated.

The United Steelworkers union, representing about 10,000 US Steel employees, opposes the $14.9bn deal, taking issue with Nippon Steel’s alleged violations of the union’s rights concerning change of control under their four-year basic labor agreement signed in 2022. The union and the companies are in arbitration talks.

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Biden teams up with Harris in first joint campaign appearance in pitch to union workers

Good morning US politics readers. Joe Biden joined Kamala Harris in Pittsburgh on Monday for their first joint appearance on the presidential campaign trail since he ended his re-election bid in July and endorsed her.

The pair appeared at a rally to mark Labor Day with a tribute to union workers in Pittsburgh in the vital swing state of Pennsylvania. “We are so proud to be the most pro-union administration in American history,” Harris said.

Trade unions are a key Democratic constituency and Harris on Monday pledged to oppose the pending purchase of US Steel by Nippon Steel, arguing that the iconic Pennsylvania steel company should remain in the hands of American owners. Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, also opposes the Nippon Steel deal and has said he will block it if president.

Here’s what else we’re watching:

  • The House and Senate are out this week.

  • Biden is back in Washington DC after having spent the last two weeks holidaying in California and at his home in Delaware. He will head to Wisconsin on Thursday and Michigan on Friday.

  • Harris will be in New Hampshire on Wednesday and then travel to Pittsburgh on Thursday.

  • The Harris campaign has released “Focused”, part of a $370m ad buy running through election day.

  • Andrew Cuomo, the former New York governor, will testify publicly before Congress next week about nursing home deaths during the Covid-19 pandemic.

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