President Joe Biden’s campaign plans to recognize a union organizing effort of its growing campaign staff, two sources familiar with the matter tell NBC News.
The move will trigger a collective bargaining effort between the reelection effort’s leadership and qualifying staff over conditions like salary, working hours and overtime pay. The union will represent staff in headquarters and based in battleground states.
Biden’s staff union will affiliate with the Campaign Workers Guild, which has represented staff for a number of Democratic state parties and other campaigns. Members of the Democratic National Committee staff officially formed a union in 2022, joining the SEIU.
Unionizing of campaign workers is a fairly recent development. Working on political campaigns, especially at the highest levels, typically has meant low pay and long hours for a time period often shorter than one year.
CWG’s mission notes that until it was founded, “campaign workers routinely worked more than twice the standard workweek for less than minimum wage and no healthcare benefits.”
“We sacrificed our health, financial security, and leisure time to support candidates and movements that we hoped will make our society more prosperous, equitable, and inclusive, but our employers do not always live up to the values they often publicly espouse,” it notes.
But Biden’s 2020 campaign joined other Democratic campaigns in recognizing a staff union after he emerged as the party’s likely nominee.
Organized labor has been a pillar of Biden’s political coalition, and his campaign has been leaning heavily on major unions that have endorsed him to help get his economic message out to key voters.
