Vice President Kamala Harris is coming to Philadelphia Tuesday to meet with labor leaders
Harris will participate in a moderated conversation with the international executive board for SEIU.
Vice President Kamala Harris will visit Philadelphia on Tuesday and speak with labor leaders from the U.S., including Puerto Rico and Canada.
Harris will participate in a moderated conversation with the international executive board for SEIU, the service employees union in Philadelphia, according to a White House official. The board, which meets twice a year, convenes on behalf of two million members who work in health care, public service, and janitorial and security services.
Officials from President Joe Biden’s administration have recently ramped up travel as they try to convey the impact of the infrastructure law, a key part of Biden and Harris’ reelection platform. The administration has long focused heavily on labor, trying to drive home how Democratic policies benefit the middle class.
Biden rolled out his budget proposal at a union training site in Northeast Philadelphia in March, telling union workers they had gotten him to the White House.
And Harris rallied with Philadelphia’s Sheetmetal Workers Local 19 on the Delaware River waterfront in April 2022. The stop was one in a series with then-Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh, from Google contractors in Pittsburgh to plumbers in the Midwest.
“Philadelphia, for myself, for President Biden, and I know for so many of you, this is what it all comes down to: dignity, and dignity of work,” she said at the April 2022 event. “The president and I will always stand with you … and our administration will do everything in our power to ensure the workers of our nation can succeed and thrive.”
With a reelection campaign sure to bring criticism of Biden’s age — he would be 86 at the end of his second term — Harris has kept a busy schedule of appearances and travel, touting the administration’s accomplishments and her role in them.
She’s been the administration’s key messenger on abortion, as well as some foreign policy and labor issues.
She chairs the White House Labor Task Force, which is working on reducing barriers to worker organizing. The group announced in March that the number of Federal Government employees in a union increased by nearly 20% from September 2021 to September 2022.
Harris’ visit to SEIU comes as labor leaders across the country are seeing growing momentum at companies known to quash organizing attempts, following victories for union organizers at Amazon and Starbucks last year.