Kamala Harris

The Biden-Harris administration’s response to our 2024 Federal Questionnaire addressed progress the pair have made on our core issues and outlined plans to keep this momentum going forward well into the future. Former President Donald Trump did not respond to our questionnaires in 2020 or 2024.

Below are highlights from the Biden-Harris administration’s first term and excerpts from their responses:

Retirement Security 

• Protected USW Pensions: Between two and three million union workers and retirees were at risk of losing their retirement security through no fault of their own. The Biden-Harris administration secured the historic Butch Lewis Act to prevent significant cuts to multiemployer pension plans. Vice President Harris cast the tie-breaking vote allocating nearly $2.2 billion to save two multiemployer pension funds helping approximately 120,000 USW members and retirees.

• Social Security and Medicare: The administration “will protect Social Security and Medicare and work with Congress to strengthen them.”

Health Care

• Took on Big Pharma and Won: The Biden-Harris administration lowered prescription drug prices and capped insulin at $35 for seniors.

• Achieved Other Lower Costs: They also lowered home energy costs, health insurance premiums, and the costs of many cars.

• Future Planning: The administration told us they “will continue to invest in the American people and fight to lower the costs of housing, child care, long-term care, and more by making the wealthy and big corporations pay their fair share and slashing wasteful spending on special interests.”

Workers’ Rights 

• Organizing and Collective Bargaining: The Biden-Harris administration told us that one of their top priorities is “working to ensure jobs are good jobs by encouraging union organizing and collective bargaining” because their administration knows that “unions not only improve wages, benefits, and working conditions, but economic security and a pathway to the middle class.

• Instilling Union Values at the Department of Labor: As one of their administration’s first acts, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris appointed the first union leader to be Secretary of Labor in nearly half a century.

• Removing the Anti-Union Leadership at the National Labor Relations Board: They also immediately fired Donald Trump’s anti-labor general counsel from the National Labor Relations Board and appointed pro-labor officials.

• Prioritizing Unions throughout the Administration: One of the Biden-Harris administration’s significant accomplishments is that they “launched a whole-of-government effort to promote union organizing and collective bargaining, and, for the first time, worked to ensure there are labor advisors across agencies so that the entire government considers the impact of policies on workers.”

• Enforcing Labor Laws: They also increased funding and continue to fight for more funding for agencies enforcing federal labor laws – funding which Donald Trump worked to slash.

• Lifting Up Unions and Organizing: Support for unions has grown to its highest level in more than half a century and, over the last two years, union petitions rose 58%. The new petitions include workers from Blue Bird in Fort Valley, Ga., who voted to unionize with the USW. The administration invited representatives from this campaign to come to the White House to speak about their efforts and legislation to invest in America.

• Strengthening Worker Protections: The Biden-Harris administration vowed that they “will continue to fight to pass the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act to make it easier for workers to organize and collectively bargain.”

Domestic Economic Issues

• Economic Vision: In their response, President Biden and Vice President Harris told us that they “ran on a pledge to rebuild the backbone of America – the middle class – and to create an economy that works for families and communities who have long been written off and left behind.”

• No More Trickle Down: They knew that “it wouldn’t be enough to just return to the failed trickle-down policies of the past – an economy where corporations and the wealthy got massive tax cuts while critical investments in the American people were starved, entire communities were hollowed out and stripped of hope and dignity, and the hallmarks of a middle-class life were slipping further and further out of reach.”

• Regrow the Middle Class: Instead, the administration “came into office with a fundamentally different economic vision – that we need to grow the economy from the middle out and the bottom up – not the top down. Central to this is the role of organized labor to build an economy that works for working people. An economy where we build more in America, empower and invest in American workers, and promote competition to lower costs for working families.”

• Reducing Unemployment and Creating Jobs: Under the Biden-Harris administration, there has been the longest stretch of unemployment below 4% in a half-century and 14 million jobs have been created – more jobs in less than three years than any other president in a full term. The jobs are good-paying jobs, and wages are higher now than at any point before the pandemic, after adjusting for inflation.

• Growing Manufacturing: The U.S. also gained an average of 23,000 manufacturing jobs per month, after losing an average of 4,000 manufacturing jobs per month under President Trump. As a result of the Biden-Harris administration's support for the manufacturing ecosystem, companies are investing in America again and building out their manufacturing footprints – with $600 billion in private-sector manufacturing and clean energy investments already announced – creating jobs and opportunities in communities across the country.

• Winning Critical Laws: These successes are due to securing and effectively implementing historic legislation to invest in infrastructure, semiconductor, and clean energy legislation. For example:  

• Creating the Made in America Office: President Biden and Vice President Harris also established a Made in America Office to lead a whole-of-government effort to ensure that American taxpayer dollars – dollars delivered in their historic legislation to invest in America and beyond – are spent on products made in America by American workers.

• Lowering Costs: One of the Biden-Harris administration’s top priorities is, “working to lower costs for families.” Over the last six months, inflation has been at the pre-pandemic level of 2 percent. The administration further warned corporations not to price gouge, calling on companies to instead pass these savings on to the consumers.

Trade and Job Security

• Addressing the Nippon Attempt to Purchase U.S. Steel: The Biden-Harris administration firmly stated that “the purchase of U.S Steel, an iconic American-owned, unionized company by a foreign entity deserves serious scrutiny” and that they “share steel workers’ commitment to protecting American manufacturing and that supports family sustaining union jobs.”

• Stopping Incentives to Ship Jobs Overseas: They also intend to keep “working to elevate labor standards globally to reduce unfair incentives to ship jobs overseas and ensure American workers have a fair chance to lead the world.”

• Holding China Accountable: The Biden-Harris administration is using a full suite of tools to protect jobs and national security as it works to re-align the US-China relationship and compete from a position of strength. This includes enforcing trade rules and combating forced labor.

• Addressing Steel and Aluminum Overcapacity: Moving forward, the administration told us they will continue “working with the European Union to fundamentally shift the paradigm for trade and production in steel and aluminum from a race to the bottom to a race to the top, including by addressing the overcapacity of these products in countries like China that are using unfair policies and more carbon emissions-intensive practices.”

• Enforcing the U.S-Mexico-Canada Agreement (Renegotiated NAFTA): The Biden-Harris administration told us that they believe the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) “is not just a trophy to be admired on a shelf but needs to continuously be used effectively to make a difference for workers. For example, the Biden administration for the first time used USMCA’s Rapid Response Mechanism to quickly target specific facilities in Mexico where workers are being denied their rights to organize and bargain, leading to more collective bargaining agreements between Mexican workers and manufacturers, like automotive parts producers Panasonic Automotive Systems and Saint Gobain México. When Mexican workers are free to form a union and empowered to bargain for better wages and working conditions, it helps raise the bargaining power of U.S. workers, too.”

• Establishing an Industrial Policy: The Biden-Harris administration strategically combined strong trade enforcement with historic investments in critical industries to ensure our nation will have a strong manufacturing base that will be able to compete globally well into the future. This goes well beyond short-term fixes to a true industrial policy that invests in workers and their communities.

Safety and Health 

• Reduced Miners’ Exposure to Silica: The administration told us they intend to keep working to “make workplaces safer and ensure workers can return home safely from work each day. For example, the Labor Department proposed a rule to better prevent the nation’s miners from getting sick or dying – including from lung cancer, kidney disease, and respiratory disease – due to exposure to silica dust at work.”

• Preventing Chemical Disasters: The administration also “proposed a rule to better prevent chemical disasters and is prioritizing enforcement efforts in industries more likely to handle dust that can cause fires and explosions.”

Download the 2024 full candidate questionnaire response as a PDF.