Unions rally round Harris as Trump makes populist appeal to workers

US unions have begun to rally round Vice-President Kamala Harris as Democrats and Republicans gear up for a fight over the labor vote in November.

The unions who have rallied to Harris so far are keen to see a continuation of the Biden administration’s strong record of union support. Biden has been touted as the most pro-union president ever, and became the first sitting president to walk a picket line during the United Auto Workers strike last year.

Harris, too, has been a vocal union supporter and is already racking up endorsements.

The 1.9 million-member Service Employees International Union (SEIU) was among the first to endorse Harris. Harris has close ties to the union and announced new safe staffing standards for nursing home workers with the union earlier this year.

The vice-president has also secured the backing of other unions, including Communications Workers of America, International Brotherhood of Electrical, the American Federation of Teachers, the United Food and Commercial Workers, the United Farm Workers, the National Union of Healthcare Workers, and the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades.

Other major unions have yet to make an endorsement of Harris after endorsing Biden, including the National Education Association and United Auto Workers.

“For years,Vice-President Harris has shown a real willingness to listen to our members and working people everywhere about the issues that matter most to them,” said United Food and Commercial Workers international president Marc Perrone.

“As a US senator, she was a vocal supporter for essential worker protections during the pandemic. During her tenure as vice president, she was critical in the fight to lower prescription drugs and cast the tie-breaking vote to pass the Emergency Pension Plan Relief Act of 2021, safeguarding the retirements of over 350,000 union workers.”

In contrast, Donald Trump has only received the endorsement of the International Union of Police Association and the Florida Police Benevolent Association.

Union activists drove large numbers of members to the polls for Biden in 2020 and in the 2022 midterms. Having won in 2016 backed by voters in union strongholds in the midwest, Trump has once again positioned himself as the voice for workers and the working class.

Trump’s campaign to win over working-class and union member voters was much in evidence at the Republican convention last week. His vice-presidential pick, JD Vance, has been highly critical of Wall Street and also supported last year’s auto strike.

“We need a leader who’s not in the pocket of big business, but answers to the working man, union and nonunion alike,” Vance told the convention.

The first night of the convention ended with a speech from the Teamsters’ president, a first for the union. Sean O’Brien thanked Trump “for opening the RNC’s doors” to the union.

The Teamsters have yet to make an endorsement but O’Brien’s appearance has been criticized by some members and labor leaders over the stark differences between Trump and the Biden administration on labor rights.

For all of Trump’s blue-collar rhetoric, his policy record is more in line with pro-business, anti-union Republican orthodoxy.

Over 60 billionaires have backed his most recent campaign as he intends to make substantial tax cuts for the wealthy permanent if re-elected; net tax cuts of $325,000 annually for households in the 0.1% of most wealthy households, while increasing taxes on average of $1,600 per middle class household annually if the tax cuts are extended.

During the strikes led by the United Auto Workers, Trump consistently criticized the union’s leaders and held his own rally with attendees who held signs claiming they were union members in support of Trump. They were later outed as non-union members and non-auto workers.

In Wisconsin, Trump touted in 2017 that the FoxConn factory would be “the eighth wonder of the world” and create 13,000 jobs in the state, though the project never panned out.

“It was a failure,” said Kent Miller, president and business manager of the Wisconsin Laborers’ District Council.

Biden administration legislation, including the Inflation Reduction Act and the infrastructure bill, directly benefited members in Wisconsin, said Miller. He also cited the Biden administration’s improvement of union pensions.

“That was brought up to President Trump when he was in office, and the only thing that got accomplished was the trillion dollar tax break. He did not fix pensions, he did not create infrastructure bills,” said Miller.

“The policy speaks for itself and it’s very clear.”

Trump “made it harder for individuals to form a union, and put union-busting people in positions at the NLRB [National Labor Relations Board].”

Throughout his administration, Trump made several policy changes that attacked labor unions and favored employers over workers.

Under Trump, the NLRB allowed employers to halt union dues collections once a union contract expires, and overturned an Obama-era rule that allowed workers working as contractors or for franchises to unionize.

He also consistently proposed slashing the funding of the NLRB.

An analysis conducted by the Center for American Progress found the NLRB ordered corporations to reinstate more fired workers in Biden’s first year in office than the agency had in all four years of Trump’s presidency.

Republicans have also stymied efforts to pass the Pro Act, legislation aimed at modernizing current labor laws in the US and strengthening workers’ rights to unionize. Trump threatened to veto the legislation if it passed the House and Senate.

Trump’s nominations to the US supreme court paved the way for the 5-4 decision in the 2018 Janus case, which ruled that public sector workers who are represented by a union can not be required to pay union dues.

In 2018, the Trump administration proposed an overhaul of the United States Postal Service, including stripping workers of the right to collectively bargain wages.

In 2015 during his first presidential campaign, Trump said he would prefer to construct buildings without unions when asked on the subject. He has a history of using non-union workers for construction projects for his businesses, but using union labor for construction work at Mar-a-Lago and his own homes and he had a reputation, according to the IBEW, for deceiving workers on pay for the work they completed.

Future clashes between Trump and Harris over who supports workers are also likely to center on Project 2025, a conservative manifesto developed by dozens of former Trump administration officials. Project 2025 includes plans to further attack labor rights, including banning unions for public service workers and letting companies stop paying overtime.

Harris has touted the Biden administration’s strong record on labor rights. “President Biden and I are proud to lead the most pro-union administration in our nation’s history,” she said during an SEIU convention in May, before listing the Biden White House’s efforts to make workplaces safe, ban non-compete agreements, and make it easier for service workers to organize.

Some union leaders had publicly come out for Biden’s withdrawal. Harris may not have secured the nomination yer, but she seems well positioned to take over Biden’s legacy as a pro-union leader.

J’nee DeLancey, a UFCW member who is a grocery store worker at Town & Country Market, in Seattle, said: “As a union that is majority women, that has a diverse membership of many people of color, and of immigrants, we are very excited to have such a community-rooted and worker-driven candidate to support.”