Dear Friend,

Without naming the company, President Biden has made clear that his administration supports the union side in a labor election. Everyone knew he was referring to about 6,000 workers at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama. “You should all remember,” Biden said, “that the National Labor Relations Act didn’t just say unions are allowed to exist. It said that we should encourage unions.”

Writing for The New Republic, Timothy Noah was equally clear when he said, “No president has done anything remotely like this in my lifetime.” He added that the “Alabama vote, Biden said, is ‘vitally important,’ and he put management on notice that ‘there should be no intimidation, no coercion, no threats, no anti-union propaganda. No supervisor should confront employees about their union preferences.’”

Noah knows that some media outlets will “attempt an idiotic pantomime of evenhandedness.” Not so at The New Republic. We know our style of fearless, independent journalism is what keeps our democratic norms protected. Try three months of digital access for just $5, and see for yourself.

Noah summarized the story in this way: “Biden’s right. The preamble to the landmark 1935 law, known to some as the Wagner Act, states, ‘It is declared to be the policy of the United States to eliminate the causes of certain substantial obstructions to the free flow of commerce … by encouraging the practice and procedure of collective bargaining.’” He added that “it is, as [Biden] once said in a different context, ‘a big fucking deal.’” 

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Sincerely,

Kerrie Gillis, publisher