Vice President Harris has solidified support from labor unions following President Biden’s withdrawal, but some powerful labor unions remain undecided and have come under heavy criticism.
With union support, Harris could win over working-class voters in seven key battleground states that will play a major role in the outcome of the presidential election.
While more than a half-dozen national labor unions have endorsed Harris, two unions with a large presence in battleground states, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the United Auto Workers (UAW), have yet to endorse her for the Democratic nomination.
Harris has been working with Biden, who has sought to be the “most pro-union president in history,” as the labor movement has become more active due to the rising cost of living after the pandemic. Whether Harris can rally together labor unions could be key to her winning the Democratic nomination and the White House.
So far, major labor unions have endorsed Harris, including the 1.9 million-member Service Employees International Union, the 1.7 million-member American Federation of Teachers and the 700,000-member Communications Workers of America.
The AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest labor federation with 12.5 million members in 60 different unions, also endorsed Harris on Monday night, calling her a “tenacious fighter for working people.”
“With Kamala Harris in the White House, we will continue to build on the Biden-Harris Administration’s strong legacy of creating good union jobs, growing the labor movement, and making our economy work for all of us,” AFL-CIO President Liz Schuler said in a statement Monday.
The United Steelworkers (USW) also endorsed Harris on Tuesday night, with USW President David McCaul calling her “a key member of the most pro-labor administration in our lifetime.”
But amid a wave of support from unions, the lack of support from the 1.4 million-member Teamsters, the 3 million-member National Education Association teachers union and the 400,000-member United Auto Workers (UAW), whose president, Sean Fain, stood on the picket line with Biden last year, is a major sticking point.
Breaking with tradition, Teamsters Chairman Sean O’Brien spoke at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee last week, praising former President Trump, the man who faced an assassination attempt, calling him a “tough son of a bitch.”
But O’Brien drew mixed reactions at the convention after criticizing the Republican Party’s past opposition to union policies.
“The Teamsters and Republicans may not see eye to eye on a lot of issues,” O’Brien said.
In his speech, O’Brien praised Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri for his support of railroad workers and also praised Trump’s running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, for his stance on a range of labor issues.
“J.D. Vance has done a great job on the Teamsters issue in the short time that we’ve worked together,” O’Brien told Fox News earlier this month, praising Vance’s positions on an aircraft manufacturing bill and a type of independent contractor employment agreement.
O’Brien’s warm words for the Republican Party, which has never hosted a Teamsters chairman at its national convention, have drawn smoldering criticism from detractors.
Slogans including “International Brotherhood of Trump Supporters,” “Sean O’Brien is a class traitor” and “Mr. Trump, stand up so Mr. O’Brien can kiss your ass” were projected onto the exterior of the Teamsters headquarters in Washington on Monday night.
Fein, who has perhaps done more than any other union leader to shore up Biden’s image as a pro-union president, has also sent conflicting messages since Biden dropped out of the presidential race.
The head of the UAW said Monday that the union plans to take its time before formally endorsing another candidate.
“Right now we’re looking at a number of things,” Fein told MSNBC host and former Biden press secretary Jen Psaki. “Our team is looking at other people, not as potential presidential candidates, but as potential vice presidential candidates or something like that.”
The UAW has previously engaged in political maneuvering over its endorsements, notably withholding its initial endorsement for 2023 candidate Joe Biden in order to win expanded worker benefits as part of the transition to electric vehicles.
“There is a real risk that the transition to EVs will be a race to the bottom. We want national leadership to support us before making any commitments,” Fain said in the 2023 memo.
Fain joined the UAW president on the picket line last September and then voiced his support for Biden on behalf of the union earlier this year.
Labor experts say there is significant political diversity within labor unions and that a premature declaration of support could alienate some members.
“The numbers vary depending on who you ask, but within the labor movement, particularly the UAW and the Teamsters, it’s between 25 and 45 percent. [that] “There are fewer Republicans,” Arthur Wheaton, director of labor studies at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations, told The Hill.
Wheaton said Republican appointees to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which administers much of the nation’s labor law, have tended to be more unfriendly to labor unions than Democratic appointees in recent decades.
“Unfortunately, the NLA tends to lean toward either the Democratic or Republican side, so it vacillates between being pro-labor and anti-labor. It hasn’t always been that way, but it has been for the last 20 to 30 years. President Trump appointed an anti-union management team that is more interested in weakening unions than strengthening them,” he said.
While a minority of American workers remain unionized, the post-pandemic inflation has coincided with a surge in work activity and the growing popularity of unions among Americans.
In 2022, with inflation rising 9 percent per year, 71 percent of Americans support labor unions, the highest level since 1965. In 2023, that number drops slightly to 67 percent.
The summer of 2023 has been informally dubbed the “summer of strikes” as numerous labor disputes broke out across the country, involving a variety of industries, including transportation, care, leisure, and manufacturing.
Researchers at Cornell University’s School of Labor Relations recorded 470 work stoppages involving about 539,000 workers last year, amounting to 25 million strike days.
According to ILR data, the number of strikes increased by about 9% from 2022 to 2023, but the number of workers involved increased by about 141%.
“This increase was primarily due to large, high-profile strikes, including the SAG-AFTRA strike, the Kaiser Permanente Union Coalition strike, the Los Angeles Unified School District strike and the UAW stand-up strike,” Cornell University labor analysts said in their annual report.
Official data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics is less comprehensive, but indicates that the number of strikes from 2023 onwards will increase to the highest level since 2000. Work stoppage days in 2023 accounted for 0.04% of total work hours.
