Seyfarth Shaw has an extensive list of clients from industries all over the world including companies like ABC, Starbucks, and many more. They have a history of working with employers on union busting drives such as a case last year at a Coca-Cola plant in California and the Amazon KCVG warehouse. Back in 2018, they also wrote an article against “union corporate campaigns” where they warned employers against union tactics to “exploit a company’s perceived vulnerabilities.” It bears asking why a company that has a vicious history of anti-worker sentiment can be supported by a president that has been lauded for having such a pro-union stance.

It should come as no surprise that the individual being elected, Mr. Ditelberg, also has a history of anti-union sentiment. In November 2023, Ditelberg was quoted as saying the NLRB final rule on Joint-Employer Standard was “significant” and then iterated that “a joint-employment finding could saddle an unsuspecting employer with liability for an unfair labor practice or with brand new (and expensive) bargaining obligations.” Looking through the history of published articles by Ditelberg on the Seyfarth site, it is clear that his priority is protecting employers and voicing his disapproval any time workers are provided minor concessions. Even back in 2010 with the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Ditelberg was cited as having concern for “short and long-term consequences” for union employers.

President Biden, throughout his presidency, has constantly talked about how America needs “good paying, union jobs” and yet is actively working to undermine the very institutions that help strengthen workers collective bargaining rights. He has also helped the railroad barons of America when he stopped a strike from happening by citing the Railroad Labor Act, effectively helping the bosses. We see here again that a nomination from a viciously anti-union company such as Seyfarth Shaw to the NLRB will only further help bosses, contradicting Biden’s claim that he is “the most pro-union president in American history”.

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In an interview with Fox News, Murray discussed how under Biden the cost of living has gone “through the roof” and how a week after inauguration over 10,000 of his union brothers and sisters were laid off from work after Biden’s executive order stopped the Keystone pipeline. This is marking a shift in organized labor from always backing the Democrats with many of the rank and file voicing their opinion for backing likely Republican candidate Donald J. Trump. After communicating with their leadership, Steamfitters Local 638 business manager Bobby Bartels listened and reached out to each potential presidential candidate but, according to Murray, he only got a response from Trump and Robert F Kennedy. “He has not received a single email or memo from Biden or his team,” says Murray.

“I will do whatever my members want me to do,” Bartels says in an interview with Fox News. He’s said that his members are concerned with illegal immigration, solar power, electric vehicles, and overall inflation resulting in higher gasoline and food prices. Especially after putting out a presidential poll with his union, he began to understand where his members stood concerning the election. While most building trade union leaders are satisfied with dictating to their members to vote for the Democrats, Bartels is sticking his neck out when communicating and sympathizing with the desires of his membership. To these unionized workers, having a secure country is more important than whatever good Joe Biden claims to have done for organized labor during his administration. In an interview with conservative commentator Tomi Lahren, Bartels iterated, “If I don’t have a country, a free country, I’m not gonna have a union.” This could mark the beginning of a shift away from organized labor’s uncritical support of the Democratic Party.

Major union leaders Shawn Fain of the United Auto Workers only endorsed Biden as recently as January of 2024 and Sean O’Brien of the Teamsters has said they will not be issuing an endorsement until after both party conventions. At the end of the day, both the Democrats and the Republicans represent big business interests as a part of the American two-party system. Neither party can fully represent the needs of working people and simultaneously serve the interests profiting off their labor. This presidential election may cause major splits in organized labor which could lay the ground for the development of a true anti-monopoly and pro-labor party here in the United States of America. With such a platform, the will of the American working class could be united and focused into the political system to perhaps enact pressure and progressive changes not seen since the campaign of Henry A. Wallace of the Progressive Party in 1948.

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