Vice President Kamala Harris will return to Philadelphia on Tuesday to deliver the keynote address at the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) convention, the White House announced Saturday.
The visit will be the vice president’s fourth trip to Pennsylvania in 2024; joined actress Sheryl Lee Ralph for a conversation about reproductive rights in Montgomery County on May 8, and last month she spoke at a roundtable discussion on student loan debt with teachers in Philadelphia.
In February, Harris visited Pittsburgh to highlight the Biden administration’s $5.8 billion allocation for lead pipe removal and neat water projects. The funding for this project, which includes more than $200 million for Pennsylvania, is part of a bipartisan $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill.
The vice president’s Tuesday speech will come one day after SEIU is scheduled to elect a modern president. April Verrett, SEIU secretary-treasurer, is running unopposed for this position and the union leaders expressed their support for her candidacy. Verrett would be First black president of SEIU.
Harris joined SEIU and nursing home workers in Wisconsin last monthpromulgating two final regulations establishing minimum staffing requirements for federally funded nursing homes and helping raise wages for home and community-based services workers.
SEIU represents about 2 million health care, service and government workers, he said It planned to spend $200 million in March support President Joe Biden’s re-election bid, as well as assist Democrats in battleground states in 2024.
Biden has described himself as the “most pro-union president” and has won the support of major labor organizations, including the United Auto Workers and the United Steelworkers. During an appearance in Pittsburgh last month, he told steelworkers that he was a “union man from his belt buckle to the sole of his shoe.”
He is believed to be the first president in history to picket joined striking UAW workers last September in Michigan.
