Harris touts administration's plans to help families, organized labor

Jun. 22—Vice President Kamala Harris made it clear Monday to a receptive audience on her first visit to Western Pennsylvania: there's a new sheriff in town as she touted the expanded child tax credit and took her case for the Biden administration's battle for an expansive infrastructure program and stronger labor rights.

Harris touched down on Air Force Two at the Air National Guard's 171st Air Refueling Wing in Moon at 11 a.m. and headed for Brookline, a working-class Pittsburgh neighborhood, for her first stop of the day at a local recreation center.

Excited city residents lined the narrow residential streets of Brookline, waving and snapping photos as Harris' motorcade wound its way through the neighborhood.

Rosemarie Sapsara, 70, was waiting at the corner of Breining and Oakridge streets, where she wanted to catch a glimpse of the motorcade.

The last motorcade she saw, she said, was that of John F. Kennedy in the early 1960s, when he rode past her childhood home in a convertible.

"I have a feeling it's good for America," Sapsara said of Harris' visit to Pittsburgh.

Stopping first in a craft room at the Brookline Memorial Recreation Center, Harris spent time with a group of children ages 7 to 13 in the day camp program before heading to a packed gymnasium. There, she joined Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh and an array of Pennsylvania Democrats, including Sen. Bob Casey of Scranton, U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb of Mt. Lebanon, state Attorney General Josh Shapiro, Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto and Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald.

Harris told the crowd the expanded child tax credit will have an enormous impact on families here and across the country when payments begin flowing to about 39 million families next month.

The plan, passed as part of the American Rescue Plan, expanded the child tax credit to up to $300 a month for children younger than 6 and up to $250 a month for children 6 to 18 in families with annual incomes up to $150,000. There is a sliding scale of reduced benefits for higher earners.

"The American Rescue Plan will lift half of the nation's children out of poverty," Harris said. "Here, in Pennsylvania, it will benefit 140,000 children. It will be felt by families and, by extension, our country for generations to come."

While families who filed tax returns or signed up for a stimulus check will receive the payments automatically, Harris said the administration is working to get the word out that others need to sign up for the benefit.

"Go to childtaxcredit.gov and fill out the forms, and the monthly payments will start coming," she said.

Casey and Walsh joined Harris in calling for the program to be extended for the next five years and promoted Biden's call for adding an expansive array of programs, including affordable child care, universal pre-K for 3- and 4-year-olds, and improving training and compensation for child care workers and the caregivers who provide services for the elderly and disabled.

"The pandemic exposed caregiving like never before," Walsh said. "Caregiving is the work that stands up for the rest of our economy. ... If the economy doesn't work for families, it doesn't work for anything."

As Harris promoted the administration's agenda, Republicans cast criticism of the vice president and the administration's expansive infrastructure proposal, saying it is not rooted in reality.

U.S. Rep. John Joyce, R-Blair County, was among the first to weigh in online with comments.

"From the economy to the southern border and our national security, the Biden-Harris Administration is failing to address escalating crises that have real ramifications for Americans in Pennsylvania and across the country," Joyce wrote. "Vice President Harris consistently ignores reality, while doubling down on big government interventions that hinder growth, impede competition, kill our commonwealth's vital energy jobs and hamper our nation's recovery from the pandemic. "

He noted Harris has yet to visit the nation's southern border, a frequent complaint from Republicans focusing on problems there.

Border issues failed to creep into the conversation as Biden and Walsh sat down with an assortment of labor leaders later at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 5 union hall on the Southside.

The first field meeting of the White House Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment included representatives from eight labor organizations ranging from Pittsburgh to San Francisco.

Unlike the previous administration, which touted tax cuts as the route to economic expansion, Harris and Walsh emphasized the need for a strong labor base and the administration's support for organized labor.

Walsh, a Boston native, is the son of Irish immigrants who traces his career in politics back to his involvement in the Laborer's Union. He assured the panel they have friends in Washington who are "not afraid to say the word union, not afraid to say collective bargaining."

He said stronger unions are critical to build support "for the fight for $15," the movement to raise the minimum wage.

Harris, likewise, made it clear the administration's sentiments are aligned with organized labor.

"It's great to be in the house of labor," she told the group gathered in the labor hall where Biden launched his presidential bid more than two years earlier. "When we support unions, that's about lifting up the middle class, and everyone benefits."

Harris said the administration is committed to addressing the barriers faced by workers seeking to organize.

In an exchange that sometimes became emotional, union representatives said they face enormous obstacles, ranging from high-powered lawyers committed to blocking their efforts to worker intimidation, when they attempt to organize.

Jennifer Chow, of the Communications Workers of America, said she was afraid to let her San Francisco coworkers know she was coming to Pittsburgh to join the panel.

A first-generation college graduate, the tearful woman told the panel she became involved with the union when she learned men with similar educations were being paid far more than she was for the same work.

Barbara Rosenthal, of the Service Worker International Union, told Harris and Walsh unions like SEIU face enormous obstacles when they attempt to organize front-line workers in massive hospital systems such as UPMC. She said it no longer works to organize one hospital at a time when a union is facing one of the largest employers in the state.

"The majority of people want to join the union, but they're terrified of losing their jobs," Rosenthal said.

After talking with the panel members, Harris and Walsh adjourned for a private discussion with Wynne Lanros, Amanda Parks and Rachel Davis. The three women could represent a new frontier for organized labor. The women, contractors for Google, organized the nation's first white-collar tech union in Pittsburgh.

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