Biden swings through the ’Burgh to meet with union folks

Two days after the Republican vice presidential nominee crossed a picket line set up by striking workers producing this publication, the sitting U.S. president, who walked a picket line with striking autoworkers last summer, arrived in Pittsburgh to praise organized labor. 

President Joe Biden didn’t hurl the word “scab” during his remarks to a group of union laborers — at least we didn’t hear him utter the word, although it was a bit hard to hear clearly from the press section at the back of the room — but his message was clear: If Donald Trump gets anywhere near a picket line, he will cross it.

“He doesn’t give a damn about union workers, or any workers,” Biden said. “He views unions as getting in the way of accumulating wealth.”

Swing state voters will decide the future of Western civilization in little more than a week (not our words, read Saturday’s story), and union workers are a key part of the coalition Democrats hope will lift vice president and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris to the Oval Office and thus keep Trump out of it.

That coalition, by the way, is like nothing those of us at PUP have ever seen, and some of us have been around long enough to have covered Ronald Reagan. It includes former Vice President Dick Cheney, once considered by progressives to be nothing less than a snarling blood brother of the evil one himself, and Taylor Swift, attendee of Kansas City Chiefs games. (We’re kidding, Swifties! We recognize her as the badass singer-songwriter that she is!)

OK, we’re getting loopy now from lack of sleep. Reporters who rode in the “local press” van during Biden’s visit will understand — bleary-eyed Ryan Deto of the Trib; Bill O’Driscoll of WESA, somewhat embarrassed when the van driver called him a celebrity; Pete Sirianni of the New Castle News, groggy after covering a Friday night high school football game; Abigail Hakas, writing for the Pennsylvania Capital-Star while taking classes at Chatham University; Trib photographer Shane Dunlap, who got the best photo spot (we were envious).

These are the weary local journalists struggling to keep Western Pennsylvania up to date on all the big-time politicians passing through Pittsburgh and telling voters what’s what. Nobody ever mentions them, but they’re playing a vital role in what everyone is calling the most important election in modern history, and maybe the history of the country. Their work is nonstop this election cycle, so we’re listing them here.

But enough of that. We’re wasting time. We have only nine more days to write stuff like this, so here goes:

Air Force One, highly polished and gleaming in the sun, landed on a runway at the 171st Air Refueling Wing around 12:20 p.m. Biden stepped off and walked straight to a small greeting line. U.S. Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, being the tallest of the waiting group, held up a phone for the obligatory selfie.

A few minutes later, Biden’s motorcade of 20 or so vehicles roared down the Parkway West, city-bound, where the Fort Pitt Tunnel displayed its awesome power to force all motorists to pump the brakes upon entering. Not even those chauffeuring the world’s most powerful man could resist.

Downtown, Biden’s limousine made its way along Fort Pitt Boulevard. Small groups of people standing on street corners squinted in the sun as the motorcade rolled by. Some waved or took cellphone pictures. One woman gave a thumbs-down gesture.

The vehicles parked on Penn Avenue, and the press folks hustled out of the van and up two flights of stairs to a room filled with people wearing orange sweatshirts emblazoned with LiUNA! We were in the Eighth Street headquarters of Laborers’ International Union of North America, Local 1058. 

The union’s general president, Brent Booker, stood before a crowd of a few hundred (it wasn’t a large room) and declared himself “a Joe Biden Democrat.”

Booker talked about all the jobs involving union workers in the solar farms industry and in the green industry, including battery manufacturing, in Wisconsin and Michigan. These are all the result of bills passed during Biden’s administration, he said. He also mentioned Biden’s infrastructure bill and the years of jobs it will provide, and an act passed in 2021 that rescued more than a million pensions.

Biden’s impact on working families will be multigenerational, Booker said.

“I’m a third-generation laborer,” he said. “My dad’s going to benefit from the pension relief bill that [Biden] signed. My son is 13; in five years he’s going to be dispatched out to an infrastructure project that had Joe Biden’s signature on it.”

With that, Booker introduced Biden, who mounted the stage to cheers. He talked about the jobs created during his administration (the Democrats have said their policies have resulted in 15 million new jobs since 2020). He hailed workers, especially union workers.

“Wall Street didn’t build the middle class,” he told the crowd, “You built the middle class.”

Biden discussed his working-class roots in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and talked about his grandfather and father, who once told him a “job was more than a paycheck, it’s about your dignity.”

Much of his talk centered around Trump, who he said lacked the character to be president of the world’s most powerful and influential country.

“This is decency versus lack of decency,” he said. “The choice couldn’t be clearer.”

“We’re not gonna let him win,” one union member called out.

Biden urged the union members to work for Harris and do what they can to help get her elected. 

“The last thing we need is for Donald Trump to win and undo all we’ve done,” he said. Biden brought up something Booker had discussed during his introductory remarks: the generational impact a president can have on working families.

“Don’t do it for me, do it for your kids, do it for family, do it for your grandkids, do it for your neighbor, do it for people you know, people who need a helping hand,” Biden said. “Donald Trump is a loser.”

He praised Harris, who he said “has a backbone like a ramrod.” And while mentioning all of his administration’s accomplishments, he noted that a lot of work yet needs to be done — on housing, education, access to health care.

At times, the crowd chanted “Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe.” And when he was finished speaking, Biden stepped off the short stage to greet the workers and take pictures with them. Then it was off to a union phone banking operation at the old headquarters of Steamfitters Local 441 on Route 51. 

There, in a second-floor room where 13 volunteers were making phone calls to voters, Biden entered with a gift — boxes of pizza from Fiori’s. One volunteer wearing a gray sweatshirt showed the president a selfie she’d taken with him the last time he visited, and the two marked the occasion with a second selfie. Before leaving, Biden pumped his fist in the air and said, “We’re going to win Pennsylvania.”

Those of us in the local press van got this information from the pool reporter. The room was so small we wouldn’t fit inside, so we waited in a van parked outside and tried to stay awake. We heard we’re in for at least a few more visits by the candidates themselves in the next several days.