President Joe Biden celebrates unions, job creation during Philadelphia Labor Day appearance

PHILADELPHIA (CBS/AP) -- President Joe Biden is in Philadelphia on Monday for one of two trips to the region scheduled for this week. Biden will be attending the annual Tri-State Labor Day Parade and family fun festival hosted by the local AFL-CIO chapter.

The president attended a rally at the Sheet Metal Workers Local 19 office off Columbus Boulevard.

The rally was about the importance of unions in the United States and how the economy is recovering from the crippling coronavirus pandemic.

"This Labor Day we're celebrating jobs, good-paying jobs, jobs you can raise a family on, union jobs," the president told the crowd Monday.

Afterward, union members and their families will march to Penn's Landing, where the festival will be held.

The visit is the president's seventh to the city just this year.

Biden has repeatedly said he intends to be the most pro-union president in U.S. history.

Labor Day, a holiday honoring workers, comes as the U.S. has added jobs and more people have begun looking for work, the most since January, all news Biden is eager to highlight as he seeks reelection in 2024.

Biden's Labor Day speech came after news last week that America's employers added 187,000 jobs in August, evidence of a slowing but still resilient labor market despite the high interest rates the Federal Reserve has imposed.

Friday's report from the Labor Department also showed that the unemployment rate rose from 3.5% to 3.8%, the highest level since February 2022 though still low by historical standards. But the rate rose for an encouraging reason: 736,000 people began looking for work last month, the most since January, and not all of them found jobs right away. Only people who are actively looking for a job are counted as unemployed.

The president frequently talked about the importance of middle-class workers in the economy, saying that when the middle class does well, "everyone does well."  

At the Tri-State Labor Day event in Philadelphia, hundreds of union workers donning their local tee shirts -- from the Sheet Metal Workers, United Food and Commercial Workers, Stagehands and others -- waited on a warm and muggy morning to see the president speak.

Lenny Nutter, a Philadelphia resident wearing a yellow Laborers International Union shirt, said he came to the event to support the president, adding that unions have been more active than they used to be, due in part to the president's policies.

"Unions are adding members and a lot more work has been given to union workers," Nutter said.

Biden has used executive actions to promote worker organizing, has personally cheered unionization efforts at corporate giants like Amazon and has authorized federal funding to aid union members' pensions. Just last week, the Biden administration proposed a new rule that would make 3.6 million more U.S. workers eligible for overtime pay, the most generous such increase in decades.

"Now you're going to get paid overtime," the president told the crowd.

Biden also has traveled the country, trumpeting how union labor is building bridges and improving train tunnels as part of the bipartisan $1.1 trillion public works package Congress passed in 2021.

"Unions raise standards across the workforce and industries, pushing up wages and strengthening benefits for everyone," Biden said last week. "You've heard me say many times: Wall Street didn't build America. The middle class built America, and unions built the middle class."

Many in attendance said they're honored the president chose to celebrate Labor Day in Philadelphia.

"This is huge. The struggle is real and I want my children to realize, 'Hey listen, we're here. We're doing something,'" Cleon Williams with APWU Local 89 said. "And more importantly, I want to bring them up in the area and the range knowing that one thing, hey listen, the struggle is real. Dad's doing it. You're going to walk the footsteps of dad."

"I think it's hugely significant," April Gigetts with AFSCME District Council 47 said. "I'm excited to be here and we represent hundreds of different labor unions out here. Really, just kind of bringing attention to what we represent, the principles of labor, things around dignity at work, fair wages."

If you're out and about Monday morning, expect rolling roadblocks, particularly along I-95 between Penn's Landing and Columbus Boulevard.

The 36th annual Tri-State Labor Day Parade and Family Celebration is hosted by the Philadelphia AFL-CIO, whose website says it comprises more than 100 local labor unions representing more than 150,000 workers.  

Biden plans to visit Montgomery County on Wednesday, but the White House has not yet released any details about the visit.  

In:
• Pennsylvania
• Joe Biden
• Montgomery County
• Labor Day
• Philadelphia