White House Prioritizing Middle Class Families

The Teamsters Union has endorsed President Barack Obama’s reelection bid. Here are a few reasons why:

• In 2009, President Obama led the federal effort to rescue the domestic auto industry, overcoming the opposition of many who claimed it would be better to let the Big Three fail.

• Overall, President Obama has brought twice as many trade cases against China as President Bush, and he recently announced the creation of a new Interagency Trade Enforcement Center to improve coordination of U.S. government action against unfair practices by our trading partners.

• On the tax side, to discourage offshoring, President Obama has called for a minimum tax on all U.S. profits earned overseas, and has offered companies that scale back foreign operations a 20 percent tax credit for locating those factories back in America.

• One of the first bills the president signed into law was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, overturning a Supreme Court decision that restricted the rights of workers to file wage discrimination cases.

• The administration has requested $25 million in additional resources to clamp down on the misclassification of workers as independent contractors.

• President Obama appointed the daughter of a Teamster shop steward, Hilda Solis, as the Secretary of Labor.

• President Obama signed into law the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, legislation to provide medical treatment and compensation to the 9/11 responders made sick from toxic exposures at the World Trade Center.

• The administration reversed Bush policies that led to the contracting out of federal employee jobs and put forth a policy that encourages federal agencies to insource work that had been contracted out.

• The administration proposed and won significant new funding for worker protection agencies and stepped up enforcement by OSHA, MSHA and the Wage and Hour Division. It also restored and expanded a health and safety training grant program for workers.

• In 2009, Obama appointed union-side attorneys Craig Becker and Mark Pearce to the NLRB, and named then-member and former Teamster lawyer, Wilma Liebman, as chairman. After the Republicans filibustered Becker’s nomination, the president appointed Becker using his recess appointment authority.

• In 2011, the Obama NLRB issued new regulations to streamline the representation election process and reduce opportunities for employer manipulation and delay.

• Shortly after taking office, President Obama issued executive orders to prohibit federal contractors from using government funds to block union organizing. Another executive order required federal contractors to post a notice informing workers of their right to form and join unions, reversing an earlier Bush notice requiring only the posting of the right not to join a union.

• “Having a voice on the job and a chance to organize and a chance to negotiate for a fair day’s pay after a hard day’s work, that is the right of every man and woman in America—not just the CEO in the corner office, but also the janitor who cleans that office after the CEO goes home,” Obama said on Labor Day in 2011. “Everybody has got the same right.”

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