Biden speaks at church service in Philadelphia on Sunday and attends campaign rally in Harrisburg

president Joe Biden speaks during a campaign rally on March 8, 2024 in Wallingford, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

President Joe Biden canceled his appearance at the National Education Association conference in Philadelphia on Sunday after a union representing NEA workers announced There was a strike on Friday.

“President Biden is a staunch union supporter and will not be breaking picket lines,” the Biden campaign said in a statement on Friday. “The President still plans to travel to Pennsylvania this weekend and we will provide further details at a later date.”

PennLive reported Friday that Biden would appear in the Harrisburg area on Sunday at an invitation-only ice cream event at the Biden-Harris campaign office in Lower Paxton Township.

“On Sunday morning, President Biden will speak at a church service in Philadelphia,” a campaign official told the Capital-Star. “In the afternoon, the president will travel to Harrisburg, where he will participate in a community campaign event.”

The National Education Association Staff Organisation (NEASO) announced in a press release on Friday that it had filed two unfair labour practice cases. complaints against the NEA at the National Labor Relations Board. The union accuses the NEA of wage theft and “failure to provide the union with information it requested regarding the outsourcing of more than $50 million to contractors.”

The NEA said in a statement Friday that it “values ​​our employees and remains fully committed to a fair negotiation process.”

The statement added that it was “deeply concerned that misinformation” had been passed on during the contract negotiations.

“The National Education Association has threatened to hold its convention virtually to avoid a picket line. It is reprehensible that a union would entice its members to break a picket line. It also confirms what we have always said: The NEA has abandoned its union values ​​with its actions at the bargaining table,” NEASO President Robin McLean said in a statement. “The NEA would rather cancel a multi-million dollar convention than comply with labor law. NEA members should be asking where their hard-earned membership dues are being spent – and wasted.”

Biden often describes himself as the most union-friendly president in history, and breaking through a picket line would be problematic. In September Biden went to the picket line with the striking United Auto Workers unions. It may have been the first time in modern history that a sitting president took part in an active strike.

The NEA stands for Public school teachers and support staff, college and university faculty and staff, college students preparing to become teachers, and retired educators.

NEASO’s contract expired on 31 May 2024. According to his website It represents 350 of the NEA’s approximately 3 million members.

The appearance with the First Lady Jill Biden would have been Biden’s ninth visit to Pennsylvania this year, and his first in the state since his shaky performance at the presidential debate last week.

Biden’s most recent appearance in Pennsylvania, also in Philadelphia, took place in late May with Vice President Kamala Harris to Start the campaign’s Black Voters for Biden-Harris initiative.

Update: This article was updated on July 5, 2024 at 1:05 p.m. with a statement from the NEA, at 5:40 p.m. with information about an event in Harrisburg, and at 9:30 p.m. with updated information from a campaign staffer.

The post “Biden will speak at church services in Philadelphia on Sunday and attend a campaign rally in Harrisburg” first appeared in the Pennsylvania Capital-Star.