In the week since his strong showing on Super Tuesday, Joe Biden has collected a raft of new labor union endorsements. As voters in more states head to the polls, it is worth remembering that Biden launched his campaign with a fundraiser co-hosted by the head of an anti-union law firm.
On April 24, 2019, Biden kicked off his presidential campaign at a union hall in Pittsburgh, full of members of the Teamsters, United Steelworkers and firefighters union. The following night, April 25, Biden attended his first major campaign fundraiser, held at the Philadelphia home of Comcast executive David Cohen. That event was co-hosted by Steve Cozen, the chairman of the large national law firm Cozen O’Connor. That firm’s labor practice works for company management against the interest of unions.
Biden’s fundraiser, held right on the heels of his splashy appearance with union members, drew condemnation in the labor press. Asked this week about that criticism in light of Biden’s possible impending nomination as the Democratic candidate for president, Steve Cozen said, “Total nonsense. We are supporters of organized labor, as is Joe, though many of our clients are on the employer side of disputes or negotiations. It was a non sequitor stretch made by someone who didn’t know better.”
On the website of its Labor Relations and Disputes practice, Cozen O’Connor boasts of its capability to help clients “prepare for and respond to picket lines, strikes, lockouts and other economic campaigns; and work with employers during union election campaigns.”
“We also help employers avoid unionization through positive employee relations and regain nonunion status when employees indicate they no longer wish to be union-represented,” the firm says. “Our attorneys manage labor relations with a clear eye toward the bottom line.”
The co-chairmen of that practice, Joseph Tilson and Thomas Giotto, both contribute to the firm’s political action committee, which donates to a wide variety of Democratic and Republican candidates nationally.
In January, research by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) found that Biden had received more money than any candidate from “attorneys at law firms with notable histories of anti-worker actions.” In addition to multiple donors at Cozen O’Connor, Biden had already garnered tens of thousands of dollars in contributions from attorneys at Ballard Spahr, Morgan Lewis, Jackson Lewis and other notoriously anti-union firms. CEPR also found nearly a dozen Biden donors at Winston & Strawn, the law firm that represented plaintiff Mark Janus in the landmark anti-union Janus v. AFSCME case that severely undermined the strength of America’s public unions.
Biden’s national labor union endorsements include the firefighters, the iron workers, and the Amalgamated Transit Union. He was also endorsed by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, sparking a revolt by members who unsuccessfully petitioned for the endorsement to be retracted. In just the past week, as his poll numbers have improved drastically, Biden has won the endorsement of a long list of union locals across the country, as well as a national endorsement from the International Association of Machinists, where he won a vote of members. Strangely, the IAM was one of the only major unions to oppose the recent NAFTA 2.0 trade agreement signed by the Trump administration. That deal was supported by the AFL-CIO and by Biden, but opposed by Biden’s only remaining opponent, Bernie Sanders.
Biden has not matched Bernie Sanders’ labor policy plan to double union membership in America, but organized labor’s political calculations are not being made on policy alone. Unions, like many political entities, often want to back a winner. Many of the unions that have sat on the sidelines throughout the Democratic primary have now decided that it is time to endorse Biden, because he appears to be likely to win the nomination. But the support that Biden has received from anti-union attorneys was there long before Super Tuesday. He has been their choice in the Democratic primary from the very beginning.
Though Biden has received more than three dozen donations from Cozen O’Connor employees totalling many thousands of dollars, it is only fair to note that the Bernie Sanders campaign has also received money from a Cozen O’Connor attorney. One attorney. He works in the bankruptcy practice. And he hasn’t maxed out yet.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
Last week, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy