Both Trump and Harris claim to support the working class: Where do they stand on labor?
Labor Day weekend, about 65 days out from Election Day, often starts the home stretch of the presidential election campaign.
The federal holiday also celebrates a demographic that both former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris claim to advance: the labor movement.
“President Trump is making lasting inroads with union leaders and broadening the Republican tent in a historic way," Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told USA TODAY in a statement, while blaming Harris for inflation.
In an Aug. 8 memo shared with USA TODAY, Harris-Walz campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez argued union support is a key part of the Democratic path to victory.
"Kamala Harris has fought for labor and workers’ rights her entire career, during her time as a State Attorney General, United States Senator, and as Vice President," Chavez Rodriguez said, adding Harris "promises to continue the pro-worker agenda of the Biden-Harris administration."
While Trump performed better than expected among Union workers in 2016, some of that support shifted back to President Joe Biden in 2020. Experts say that Biden's popularity among union workers is likely to carry over to Harris. And unlike 2016, unions may be energized by the recent wins from several major strikes.
"It suggests labor's got some muscle and some fire in their tank," Bob Bruno, director of the Labor Education Program at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, told USA TODAY in an interview. "If you think you can win...you're really gonna push a whole lot harder.
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Harris' record: Expert says she gets some credit for Biden's union popularity
The Harris campaign seems to tout Biden's record as a pro-union president to justify the labor movement's draw to Harris, and Celine McNicholas, policy director at nonpartisan research organization Economic Policy Institute Action, agrees.
"There are parts of the Biden administration... (his) record on benefiting workers that I think Harris deserves unique credit on, because she was essentially the tie-breaking vote," said McNicholas said.
She said a marked difference between the Trump administration and the Biden administration is their agency nominations.
"Looking at any administration's ability to act effectively on behalf of workers, you've got to have nominees to the critical agencies that understand the issues and that are pro-worker and pro-workers right to a union," McNicholas said, pointing to National Labor Relations Board general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, who Harris cast the deciding vote for.
Harris also chaired the White House Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment aimed at reducing barriers to unionization.
"I think that those acts, to me, are demonstrations of her willingness to engage, her prioritization of these issues, and of the kinds of nominees that we would likely see from her administration," McNicholas said.
Trump tapped into worker anger heading into 2016, but slashed NLRB funding
Progress for many workers' rights issues was stagnant leading into 2016, and Trump tapped into that frustration, McNicholas pointed out.
"He was maybe the first Republican in a long time to kind of, like actually give some voice to that outrage," she said. "But I think it stops there."
She said he proposed cuts to worker protection agencies, and Economic Policy Institute called moves under his administration to overturn worker protections "unprecedented."
"With the incredible flurry of activity that...came from the Trump administration, the chaos, I think, actually served to....obfuscate their actual progress on some of these anti-worker and anti-fair economy policies that they really consistently pushed forward, McNicholas said.
But it appears that some of his rhetoric stuck. Teamsters president Sean O’Brien, a prominent labor leader who has not yet given an endorsement, spoke at the Republican National Convention. He commended Trump for not being afraid of criticism.
Harris campaign touts record, pledges to pass PRO-Act
Harris has been endorsed by dozens of unions, her campaign says. Several leaders from the nation's largest unions spoke at the Democratic National Convention, including United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain, who created a viral moment when he revealed his "Trump is a scab" T-shirt.
The Harris campaign memo on working with unions detailed her pro-worker record dating back to her time as California Attorney General, when she addressed wage theft. While in office as a U.S. Senator, she walked picket lines in two strikes, the memo states. It also pointed out that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz was once a union member with the National Education Association when he was a teacher.
A spokesperson with the campaign also noted that, if elected, Harris would pass the Protecting the Right to Organize Act. Known as the PRO Act, the bill would give workers more power to organize, and has passed the House multiple times but has not been signed into law.
Among the 2021 bill's provisions was to upend so-called "right-to-work" laws, which make it harder to fund unions by not requiring members to pay dues. Currently 26 states have "right to work" laws, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. It also would have expanded who could join unions and prohibit some anti-union tactics by employers.
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Trump campaign promises 'America first' for workers
When asked why union workers should vote Republican, the Trump campaign railed on the Biden-Harris administration for inflation and the state of the economy.
It also offered several economic and foreign policy promises, including:
Across-the-board tariffs on foreign-made goods. He has previously floated 10%-20%, and also said he would match tariffs from other countries.
Restore energy independence.
Ban Chinese and foreign ownership of all U.S. critical infrastructure.
Bruno said these are not necessarily pro-worker policies, but rather stoke a sense among some working class voters that America is falling behind. In fact, economists widely agree that tariffs harm the economy, by reducing employment and among other symptoms.
"I think it's a cynical, but somewhat effective, way to anger and tap into that... sense of grievance that workers have," he said. "And actually try to distract them from what we know about policy, what we know about job creation."
But as Bruno pointed out, union voters are not single issue voters and may base their decision on a candidate's stance on other issues like immigration, abortion or crime.
Project 2025, though not part of Trump's official agenda, also paints a bleak future for the labor movement McNicholas said, calling it an "anti-union," and "anti-worker" document.
"I think it is a fundamental misunderstanding of organized labor," she said. "I think it harkens back to a time when labor was synonymous with white men, and that is far from the modern labor movement."
Contributing: Joey Garrison; Jeanine Santucci
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump and Harris' stances on labor, unions and the working class