Is Joe Biden Really The Most Pro-Union President Ever?

Joe Biden likes to think of himself as the “ most pro-union president ” in U.S. history. As his time in the White House winds down and his legacy begins to take shape, there’s no doubt that he has a strong case to make for himself.

Biden, sometimes called Union Joe, has spoken unabashedly about the value of collective bargaining throughout his one term as president. He’s stacked labor agencies with pro-union appointees who are making it easier for workers to organize. He’s openly scolded employers for trying to prevent their workers from forming unions. And he’s even stood alongside striking autoworkers on a picket line — a first for a sitting president.

Yet union membership is hovering near a historic low following a decades-long decline, with barely 1 in 10 workers belonging to a union. There’s little evidence that Biden’s pro-labor policies and bully pulpit have revitalized the labor movement, at least not yet. And much of his union-friendly imprint, shaped as it was without the cooperation of Congress, could be erased by another Donald Trump presidency .

That’s not to mention the record Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose New Deal created bedrock labor standards and paved the way for a massive unionization wave.

So HuffPost put a simple question to several historians who’ve studied the labor movement in the U.S.: Is Biden really the most pro-union president ever?

Some of their answers, written via email, have been edited for length.

Joseph McCartin, Georgetown University:

Eileen Boris, University of California, Santa Barbara:

Gabriel Winant, University of Chicago:

Nelson Lichtenstein, University of California, Santa Barbara:

Tejasvi Nagaraja, Cornell University:

Jeff Schuhrke, Empire State University:

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