Biden Urges Americans to Come Together to Fight Pandemic

President-elect Joe Biden promised Monday that his administration would fight the coronavirus pandemic and spur an economic recovery in 2021 but also urged Congress to pass a stimulus bill this year to deliver immediate relief to struggling Americans.

Biden said lawmakers should approve a bill like the $2.2 trillion HEROES Act that the House of Representatives passed, as his team begins to work with business and labor to make plans for combating the pandemic-related downturn once he takes office.

Biden met with the chief executives of General Motors Co. and Microsoft Corp., as well as key labor leaders, on Monday before speaking in detail about the economy for the first time since winning the presidential election.

“We’re ready to come together. The unity was outstanding,” Biden said of the virtual meeting, which he attended from Wilmington, Delaware. “It was really encouraging, quite frankly, to get people, business and labor, agreeing on the way forward.”

Biden lamented the lack of coordination with the outgoing administration as President Donald Trump’s refusal to accept the results of the election has blocked an official transition, including classified briefings.

“More people may die if we don’t coordinate,” he said. He noted that recent positive news about vaccine effectiveness needs to be paired with the “huge undertaking” of getting a vaccine distributed. “If we have to wait until January 20 to start that planning, it puts us behind,” he said.

The incoming Biden administration’s economic plan is based on the “Build Back Better” proposals offered during the campaign. He said no government contract will be given to companies that don’t build their products in the U.S.

“We can make sure our future is made here in America and that’s good for business and that’s good for American workers,” Biden said.

Mary Barra of GM and Satya Nadella of Microsoft were among the business leaders who met him on Monday to discuss how business and labor can work together. Labor officials participating in the conversation included Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO and Rory Gamble of the United Auto Workers, as well as a number of other labor leaders.

Trumka said in a statement he raised safety issues for workers during the meeting, telling the group that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has been “totally absent during this pandemic” under the Trump administration, according to prepared remarks.

He called on OSHA to develop an “emergency temporary standard” to protect workers from contracting the virus when they return to their workplaces.

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