President Biden’s Pro-Labor Executive Order Goes Beyond Law’s Intent

President Joe Biden today signed an executive order establishing a new White House task force aimed at promoting labor unions. The White House Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment will make recommendations within 180 days to the federal government on ways to help workers organize and bargain with employers. CEI labor policy expert Sean Higgins said the White House is overstepping the intent of federal law.

“The National Labor Relations Act was only meant to encourage collective bargaining when that serves the purpose of ending ‘substantial’ disruptions in industries, like worker strikes, that could harm the national economy,” Higgins explained. “The act is not a mandate for the government to encourage collective bargaining where there are no disruptions. In those situations, the NLRA says that belonging to a union is solely the workers’ choice.

“President Biden seems to believe joining a union is an obligation that the federal government must prod workers to do,” Higgins surmised. “This executive order is a harbinger of further aggressive sales tactics from this administration on behalf of its union allies.”