Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. With help from Lawrence Ukenye and producer Raymond Rapada. Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Eli | Email Lauren UPS and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters are running out of time to reach a new collective bargaining agreement: About 340,000 workers have agreed to go on strike unless they get a new contract by the end of the month. So far, President JOE BIDEN hasn’t had much to say about it. And the Teamsters want it to stay that way. “My neighborhood where I grew up in Boston, if two people had a disagreement and you had nothing to do with it — you just kept walking,” Teamsters President SEAN O’BRIEN told members in a webcast Sunday. “We echoed that to the White House on numerous occasions. We don’t need anybody getting involved in this fight.” Historically, labor members and union leaders have not wanted the federal government to get involved in contract negotiations, since such intervention can leave the union in a weaker position and work in favor of management. But the calls by the Teamsters for the Biden administration to stay away suggests an erosion of trust between organized labor and the self-described “most pro-union” president. The threat of a UPS strike is the latest test of just how willing the president is to stick with labor in the face of challenging economic tradeoffs. Some Teamsters, who were not authorized to speak publicly, told West Wing Playbook that union members are concerned about Biden’s inclination to make a deal. Just last fall, Biden intervened to avert a rail strike against the backdrop of more concerns about economic fallout, worsening inflation and harm to his political standing. Some union members were content with the final settlement — even more so since winning the sick leave left out of the original deal Congress and Biden pushed on them. But others felt that the White House betrayed the rail workers. “They screwed those workers,” said BOB MUEHLENKAMP, who was assistant to the general president of the Teamsters and the Teamsters’ general organizing director when UPS workers last went on strike in 1997. Given how the administration handled the rail negotiations, Muehlenkamp said that the White House should “stay out” of the current UPS talks. For now, the White House is respecting the Teamsters’ wishes. Acting Labor Secretary JULIE SU has said she didn’t see a need to step in at this stage. But that calculation could change as fears mount inside the White House about the strike jeopardizing the post-Covid economic recovery and the president’s approval rating. Like last year’s rail strike, a UPS strike could have enormous consequences. Not only would it severely inconvenience online shoppers, it would be harder to get goods in stores and deliver critical supplies like medicine. UPS’ competitors, including FedEx and the U.S. Postal Service, don’t have the capacity to fill in the gaps — which could end up costing the economy billions of dollars. It’s a situation that any president would prefer to avoid, particularly one running for reelection. “Given that the self proclaimed pro-union president has acted in ways that are not pro-union, that is certainly informing the Teamsters desire to not have the president involved in any way,” said ERIN HATTON, a University at Buffalo sociology professor who specializes in labor markets. The Teamsters endorsed Biden in the 2020 election but have not yet formally backed his reelection campaign. The president’s signature American Rescue Plan included tens of billions in aid for struggling pension plans — much of which has gone to various Teamsters-affiliated funds. O’Brien has visited the White House on multiple occasions under Biden, though the two do not have as extensive a relationship as the president enjoys with other labor leaders. “This president believes that workers have the right to strike, that they have the right to ask for fair wages for fair benefits,” White House press secretary KARINE JEAN-PIERRE said Monday. “He believes in collective bargaining, he thinks that’s an important tool that works. And so this is very much a pro-union president. So he’s certainly not going to get in the way of that.” When asked if the White House would promise not to intervene if the UPS workers went on strike, Jean-Pierre said “we are confident that both sides are going to come to an agreement.” The Teamsters privately are also expressing confidence they’ll get what they want from UPS. Already they have succeeded in getting UPS to agree to install air conditioning in vehicles and to do away with a two-tier wage system established under O’Brien’s predecessor, JAMES P. HOFFA. The two sides are still in disagreement about pay for part-time workers. UPS, for its part, says that it routinely updates the administration on the state of negotiations and is expressing optimism about where negotiations are headed. “We expect that we will reach an agreement through the collective bargaining process with the Teamsters,” said UPS spokesperson NATASHA AMADI. MESSAGE US — Are you JAMES P. HOFFA? We want to hear from you. And we’ll keep you anonymous! Email us at westwingtips@politico.com. Did someone forward this email to you? Subscribe here!
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