President Joe Biden entered a large room on the fourth floor of the United Steelworkers headquarters in Pittsburgh shortly after 2:30 p.m. Wednesday and delivered a 22-minute speech that we’ll try to neatly summarize in a single sentence. Take a deep breath:
He declared his support for unions and American workers, pointed out the 15 million jobs created since he took office, talked up his infrastructure bill and the Inflation Reduction Act, and slammed his competition (referring to Donald Trump as only “my predecessor”). He also told a few family stories from his boyhood days in Scranton, reflected on the passing of his son Beau, who died of cancer after working near a burn pit while serving in Iraq (the president paused and looked down during this moment, seeming to gather himself), and announced tough moves against low-cost Chinese steel and aluminum imports that undercut higher quality products made in the United States.
That last bit about Chinese imports was the news of the day — the Biden team earlier sent out a notification that the president plans to call for a federal investigation into whether China is violating international trade law by dumping products on international markets. This steel and aluminum, produced by low-wage workers and subsidized by the Chinese government, poses a threat to American steel producers and to the nation’s steelworkers.
And if the Chinese are found to be violating trade law? Biden proposes tripling tariffs on those Chinese imports.
“I’m not looking for a fight with China,” Biden said. “I’m looking for competition, but fair competition.”
It’s a message that went over well with a crowd of union members, labor leaders and local Democratic elected officials, including Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey and Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato.
Biden added that his administration is investigating Mexico’s role as a pipeline for shipping unfairly priced steel and aluminum from China and other countries into the U.S.
His other steel-related comment came when he denounced the proposed sale of U.S. Steel, a presence in Pittsburgh for well over a century, to Japan’s Nippon Steel Corp. That $14.9 billion deal recently received the approval of U.S. Steel shareholders. Biden said he’s committed to keeping U.S. Steel a “totally American” company.
Then his attention turned to the the Chinese ship-building industry, which he indicated may also be using anti-competitive practices. That, too, will be examined, he said.
“Ship building is critical to our national security, including the strength of the United States Navy,” Biden said.
Since he’s in the midst of a presidential campaign, Biden peppered his speech with comments on Trump, whom everyone sees as a lock to become the Republicans’ nominee, despite the fact that he’s spending his days in a Manhattan courtroom. (“He’s busy right now,” Biden quipped, bringing chuckles from the crowd).
While touting the impact of his infrastructure bill — “over 51,000 new infrastructure projects all across America, so far,” he said, “we’re just getting started” — Biden noted that Trump repeatedly declared his commitment to infrastructure but failed to follow through during the four years of his presidency.
“He never built a thing,” Biden said.
He slammed Trump for deriding American veterans killed in wars as “suckers and losers,” a comment reported in the Atlantic and later confirmed by former White House chief of staff John Kelly. At this point, Biden recalled four of his uncles who volunteered on the same day to fight in World War II — one, “Uncle Bosie” or Ambrose J. Finnegan, was shot down and killed while piloting a plane on a reconnaissance mission in New Guinea. And Biden mentioned his oldest child, Beau, who served in Iraq as a member of the Delaware Army National Guard and died of brain cancer in 2015. Biden has blamed his son’s illness on toxic exposure during the Iraq war.
Of Trump, Biden said, “That man doesn’t deserve to have been the commander-in-chief for my son, my uncle.”
The America Biden described in his speech differed markedly from the crisis-ridden and economically collapsing country often described by Trump and echoed on conservative talk shows and podcasts. The president talked about new jobs (the creation of “492,000 new jobs so far in Pennsylvania alone”), a trade deficit with China that’s the lowest in more than a decade, a $1.5 billion investment in six clean steel projects, and private-sector investments in advanced manufacturing and clean energy.
“America is rising,” he said. “And we have the best economy in the world.”
Then Biden recalled Trump’s record while in office.
“My predecessor rolled back protections for American workers,” Biden said. “He opposed the increase overall for federal minimum wage. He put union busters on the National Labor Relations Board.”
To the room full of union workers and leaders, Biden acknowledged his debt to organized labor, which backed his 2020 campaign. And he ended his speech extolling their virtues.
“Folks, because of you, the American worker, I’ve never been more optimistic about America’s future,” he said. “And I mean it. I really, truly am.”
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Steelworker Rob Hutchinson introduced Biden. He was asked to do this on Monday, when he was in the literal heat (standing outside on blacktop) of an election in which he was running for president of Local 1219 at U.S. Steel’s Edgar Thomson Works in Braddock.
He wasn’t sure how the voting was going and he was tired, but, he’s a big fan of the president. “He’s always so cordial, polite and supportive of us,” Hutchinson said. “I wasn’t going to pass up a request to come down and support him.”
Hutchinson won the election, and his introduction was heartfelt, as he referenced how his father and his grandfather were union workers at Westinghouse.
“He has our backs,” he said of Biden, “just like we knew he would.”
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Jenise Brown, one of 19 people standing behind Biden while he spoke, learned she’d be on stage shortly before the event began. She wore a “Women of Steel” T-shirt and, like those beside her, held a United Steelworkers sign.
“It was wild to get to meet him and be involved in the action,” said Brown, who, in addition to teaching kids about dinosaurs, co-chairs Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility (IDEA) Coalition and serves as president of United Museum Workers.
Her local, organized by the USW, just bargained its first contract, which has had a significant impact on workers — and managers.
“We have a good working relationship with upper management,” she said. “I think there’s been a culture shift now that [the contract] is in place. People have a place to go and someone to talk to, and we can take their concerns to management, and management listens. So there’s a lot of good back and forth that is happening. That’s good for the workers and good for management.”
She was thrilled to be chosen as one of those standing behind the president.
“We’re kind of a baby local, a baby unit, so to get to be involved in something at this level makes me feel the Steelworkers are taking seriously both the big contracts in the steel industry, and all the big players that are so important, and also some of our little cultural and higher eds that are really starting to gain ground.”
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Outside the USW building, the street and sidewalk at the corner of the Boulevard of the Allies and Stanwix Street across the street were lined with groups protesting Biden’s support for Israel in the conflict with Hamas and his economic policies. A group of striking Pittsburgh Post-Gazette workers also carried signs in an effort to make the president aware of their 18-month unfair labor practice strike.
Biden’s motorcade came down the ramp from the Fort Pitt Bridge to the Boulevard of the Allies at 1:40 p.m. Some of the vehicles lined up in front of the building, but Biden’s car followed one Pittsburgh police vehicle into the building’s underground garage and he apparently used an indoor elevator to get to his event, never going outside near the crowd.
But on the way back to the airport, he and his entourage stopped at a Sheetz store, where they picked up an order of sandwiches, and Gainey snapped a photo of Biden with a customer who was delighted to run into the president of the United States there.
Pittsburgh Union Progress staff writer Ed Blazina contributed to this report.
Steve is a photojournalist and writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but he is currently on strike and working as a Union Progress co-editor. Reach him at smellon@unionprogress.com.
Bob, a feature writer and editor at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, is currently on strike and serving as interim editor of the Pittsburgh Union Progress. Contact him at bbatz@unionprogress.com.