Union backers of Biden draw contrasts ahead of Trump visit

On the eve of Donald Trump’s rally in Waukesha, labor leaders called attention Tuesday to President Joe Biden’s record, enacting job-creating legislation and policies over the last four years that they argued delivered what Trump failed to follow through with as president.

“Joe Biden is the most pro-union, pro-worker and pro-jobs president of our lifetime and has been a champion for working families,” said Scott Bartz, president of the Building Trades Council of South Central Wisconsin, at a news conference outside the Madison Labor Temple Tuesday morning. 

Bartz stood at a podium bearing placards that read, “Trump Failed” and “Biden Delivered.”

“Trump has consistently failed working families and Wisconsin unions, while President Biden has been a champion for the American middle class and delivered transformative infrastructure legislation that is helping create thousands of new, good-paying jobs,” Bartz said. “Trump turned infrastructure week into a punchline and failed to deliver on his promises. President Biden got it done and is delivering an infrastructure decade.”

The Trump administration “undermined union-supported registered apprenticeship programs,” said Stephanie Moreno, assistant apprenticeship coordinator for the Wisconsin Laborers Union District Council. “President Biden is strengthening, modernizing and expanding” union sponsored apprenticeship programs.

Speakers credited Biden’s policies for the growth of 177,000 jobs in Wisconsin during the last four years.

Hilda Solis, a Los Angeles County supervisor and former secretary of the U.S. Labor Department during Barack Obama’s presidency, said Trump has talked about undoing job-creation policies that Biden has enacted, from projects to expand renewable energy resources to infrastructure repair and expansion of passenger rail networks. 

“And every dollar that is spent on these projects is multiplied three times out,” Solis said — helping build businesses in the community that consumers with more money in their pockets patronize. “I think that’s something that sometimes might be missed by the general population.”

Solis said that the Biden campaign and its allies are organizing to get the word out to more voters about what they see as his exemplary record. Along with rallying working class voters, Solis and Moreno are also part of the Biden campaign’s effort to organize Latino voters. 

“Our trajectory is to make sure that we get out there, that we knock on doors, we phone bank and we leave no stone unturned,” Solis said. “And that’s what this campaign is doing.” 

Campaign organizers “are energizing people,” she said. “There is a lot of energy out there. Just yesterday in Milwaukee I saw a lot of folks that were very interested in hearing the stories about what Biden has done because they want to go out and fight for him.”