Many Americans who meet with Biden have something in common: union memberships
Many of the everyday Americans who have met with President Joe Biden in his first two months in office have something in common: labor union membership.
The mutual affection between the president and organized labor is no secret; many major unions early on endorsed him in his 2020 bid for the White House. "When labor does well, the whole country does well," Mr. Biden was fond of saying on the campaign trail.
And now that he's in office, the White House has been continuing a form of outreach that his campaign and transition team employed when they sought to humanize him or personalize a complex issue: they recruit a small group of people — usually no more than three or four — to speak with the president and share their personal stories.
Often, they tell him how they've persevered through the pandemic or divulge the painful economic adjustments they've had to make.
Being selected to speak with the president is far from a randomized process, so it should come as no surprise that those whose unions endorsed Biden's White House bid are now among his remaining connections to the "real world."
The conversations also allow the pro-union president to highlight organized labor at a time when the nationwide union membership rate hovers at around 11%, according to the Labor Department, roughly half what it was in the 1980s.
The chosen few who have already spoken with the president told CBS News the White House relies on its nationwide union ties to suggest, gauge comfort levels for public speaking, and assist in submitting background checks to the government.
Three union members were picked by the White House in February to publicly receive COVID-19 vaccines in front of the president and vice president to mark 50 million vaccines administered. Before Linda Bussey, a grocery worker for 37 years and member of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, received her first shot, the president offered his assistance.
"If you need any help, I can give the injection," Mr. Biden joked as Bussey rolled up her union t-shirt for the jab, "nothin' to it."
"It's the first time I've ever been to the White House," firefighter EMT Corey Hamilton, a member International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) Local 36 in Washington, DC, who received the next vaccine dose that day, told CBS News. "Of course, I was a little nervous, the thought to be on TV and in the room with the leader of our country."
The next week at the White House, Alma Williams, a paratransit driver and union representative for Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689, joined the president and two other workers in the State Dining Room to discuss the $1400 stimulus checks. "Hearing the things that, you know, my coworkers go through is devastating." Williams told Mr. Biden, "[W]e had a time when we paid our bills on the first of the month, and now we're struggling to pay them on the 15th."
Some union members get more than one chance to meet the president.
After door knocking and campaigning for Biden last year in Iowa alongside members of the IAFF, the first major union to endorse his presidential campaign, firefighter and rescue specialist Al Alfred recounted what Biden said the first time they met ahead of a rally in St. Louis last March. "He commented on my shoulders and said, 'you must work out a lot!'"
A year later, the president appeared to immediately recognize Alfred last month when he was introduced on a large White House screen for a conversation with three other frontline workers.
"To me, he's 'Mr. President'," Mr. Biden said, referencing Alfred's position as president of the Missouri State Council of Firefighters, "And, Al, thank you for all the help in the past, and we're going to try to help, now, you and the firefighters and the EMTs."
"I feel like we know each other, and that's crazy," Alfred told CBS News about his latest conversation with the president, whose pandemic response he gave high marks. "It is like the country has dialed 9-1-1 and the president has answered it."
The vetting process for workers to meet Mr. Biden involves a fair amount of secrecy.
A few days before Mr. Biden traveled last week to Smith Flooring Inc. in Chester, Pennsylvania, to tout his recently-passed American Rescue Plan, the company's owners, Kristin and James Smith, told CBS News two women entered their business claiming they were looking for flooring samples for a new coffee shop, a request the Smiths found odd, since their large-scale commercial flooring business has no public showroom.
"I showed them wood, showed them vinyl, and I could tell they didn't really know what they were looking for," James told CBS News about the shoppers who exited with his business card for future questions.
But a few hours later the White House left a message offering a potential presidential visit and the secret shoppers reappeared with the Secret Service to inspect the warehouses. The incognito administration staffers admitted "they kinda made the whole thing up to get in and figure out who we were," James said, "and they apologized 50 times for doing it and I laughed it off." (The White House did not respond when asked if this is part of the normal vetting process.)
After mandatory COVID-19 tests and a vow of silence from the owners on the upcoming stop, when Mr. Biden arrived at the company, the first thing he mentioned was their labor affiliation with Carpenters Local 241. "This is a great outfit. This is a union shop," Mr. Biden said to the Smiths. "You can make a decent wage, a living wage."
"I know everybody works hard—all laborers—but our guys work on their knees eight hours a day, every single day," Kristin Smith said about the floor layers, "And I just appreciated the spotlight on us…because you never in a million years think the president of the United States is going to come and stop by your little minority, Black-owned company."
Mr. Biden's warmth toward organized labor is a shift from the previous administration. Former President Trump made clear when the fire fighters union endorsed Biden's third presidential campaign in 2019. "The Dues Sucking firefighters leadership will always support Democrats, even though the membership wants me. Some things never change!" Trump tweeted.
Nationwide, Mr. Biden won 56% of union households compared to Mr. Trump with 40%, according to CBS News exit polling. But in the battlegrounds of Pennsylvania and Ohio, more union households voted for the former president than for Mr. Biden, the exit polling shows.
Randi Weingarten, union president of the American Federation of Teachers, told CBS News Mr. Biden is "the most pro-labor president since FDR" and his advocacy is a "sea change" not only from Trump's posture, but even from former Democratic presidents.
"The last three Democratic administrations there were issues about labor law reform that were not a priority," she added, "In this administration labor law reform is a priority."
And when issues arise, the Biden White House is receptive to feedback.
"They may not always agree with us but they are completely open to hearing from us," she said.
Jen De Pinto contributed to this story.