The White House has announced that President Biden will no longer attend the national convention of the largest teachers’ union on Sunday, July 7, and deliver a speech, as the union declared a strike on Friday.
Biden was scheduled to speak at the National Education Association Staff Organization event in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but the event has been canceled due to the strike.
In a statement released on Friday, Biden’s campaign team stated, “President Biden is a staunch supporter of unions and will not cross picket lines. The President still plans to visit Pennsylvania this weekend, and we will share more details later.”
The National Education Association Staff Organization represents staff working at the headquarters of the National Education Association (NEA), the largest teachers’ union in the United States. NEA represents teachers and education support professionals in public schools, higher education faculty and staff, as well as college students preparing to become teachers and retired education workers.
The organization has set up picket lines around the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, where the 103rd Representative Assembly of the union is taking place. This is the second strike organized by the union this year due to unfair labor practices.
The union has filed two complaints of unfair labor practices to the National Labor Relations Board, concerning issues of unpaid overtime and failure to respond to information requests. However, the organization has stated that it remains committed to a fair negotiating process.
The strike is expected to continue through the weekend, with some of the planned activities of the union being delayed or canceled.
President Biden has often described himself as the most pro-labor president in American history. In September last year, during the major strike of auto workers in Michigan, he became the first sitting U.S. president to join a picket line.
First Lady Jill Biden, a teacher and NEA member, had initially planned to appear with her husband at the event in Pennsylvania on Sunday to show support for his campaign in this battleground state.