(Bloomberg) -- Kamala Harris is counting on union support to help power her to victory in November. Labor leaders are lining up to oblige, even if she hasn’t spelled out just how she’d follow a president hailed as the most worker-friendly in generations.
Some union leaders say they’re confident she’ll champion their issues at least as strongly as did Joe Biden. Others who are reserving judgment still say she’ll be a more reliable ally for unions than Donald Trump. And for all Democrats, Harris offers a better chance of beating the former president than Biden.
“Until I see some of the people that will be put in the administration, I can’t tell you,” said Marc Perrone, president of the United Food & Commercial Workers, when asked if she’d be any more or less pro-labor than Biden.
But, he added, “I am comfortable at this time with her at least being more pro-worker than Trump ever thought about being.” Perrone cited Trump’s recent comments celebrating the idea of Elon Musk getting rid of workers who go on strike.
Labor voters will be essential to winning key battleground states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. About a fifth of the electorate there are union voters, according to the AFL-CIO.
Activists are counting on the trust that unions enjoy with their members to turn out voters who might otherwise might not go to the polls, or lean toward Trump for cultural or economic reasons.
Harris is wasting no time making her case.
“When unions are strong, America is strong,” she told the American Federation of Teachers in one of her first major speeches after entering the race, pledging to sign a long-stalled sweeping labor reform bill into law if elected. This weekend includes a stop in Detroit to speak to the United Auto Workers before a Labor Day event with Biden and union members in Pittsburgh.
Trump has made inroads with the rank and file, especially in Midwest swing states, with his populist appeals. Teamsters President Sean O’Brien accepted an invitation to speak at the Republican convention. Trump picked a running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, whose ties to Appalachia could help strengthen the appeal to working-class voters.
O’Brien said the Teamsters are holding off on endorsing a candidate at least until the union’s leaders have a chance to sit down and talk with Harris.
“We’re waiting on Vice President Harris to commit to come meet with us,” O’Brien said Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation.
For her part, Harris chose a running mate with strong union support in Tim Walz, picking the Minnesota governor over another prospect, Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, who some in labor had opposed.
Some union activists worry that Harris’ ties to corporate leaders may temper her pro-labor commitments. Her husband, Doug Emhoff, told donors on Aug. 26 that “she totally gets it” when it comes to the needs of business, saying she wants a “forward-looking economy that helps everyone.” And some business executives have said they expect her to reach out to corporate America.
Her campaign makes clear labor will get plenty of attention, too. “Kamala Harris promises to continue the pro-worker agenda of the Biden-Harris administration,” her campaign manager said in an August memo.
Indeed, some union leaders say they’re optimistic that she’ll expand on the current administration’s record, including by doing more to bolster the availability and quality of child care and elder care jobs.
“She has been a staunch champion of workers her entire career,” said April Verrett, the president of the Service Employees International Union. “I just know that she will really lean into building the care economy.”
Still, Harris lacks the longstanding relationships with unions that Biden built over decades.
“Joe Biden has a 50-year history with the labor movement,” said Seth Harris, who served as deputy director of the Biden-Harris National Economic Council. “But I think she’s shown the same level of commitment, the same level of dedication. She’s developing the same understanding of workers.”
Harris’ allies argue she’s got a strong record of backing unions and just has to amplify that message.
“It’s very much deeply ingrained,” AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler said in an interview. She first met Harris in California during the 2010 gubernatorial campaign of Jerry Brown.
“We were all over the state, on airplanes together, and I had a chance to really connect with her,” Shuler said. “The policies, of course, are still in formulation, but we know the values, and the values are that she sees workers as central.”
Harris supported state legislation in California in 2019 – when she was seeking the Democratic presidential nomination – that would have limited the ability of gig companies to classify workers as contractors. She took that position even though Tony West, the chief counsel at Uber, who became a public face of business opposition to the law, is married to her sister, Maya.
Union officials see positions like that, as well as Harris’ appearances at autoworkers’ and fast-food chain picket lines, as evidence that she shares Biden’s allegiance to the union cause.
As a senator, Harris introduced the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. As vice president, she headed the White House Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment, which issued recommendations on how agencies throughout the government could make it easier to unionize.
To underscore her commitment, labor advocates urge Harris to call out more companies for price-gouging, to spend more time campaigning with union members, and to emphasize her support for Biden appointees like trade representative Katherine Tai and Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan.
Harris hasn’t made any public commitments on those officials yet, and Khan in particular has drawn the ire of some wealthy Democratic donors for her tough antitrust stands.
Harris “definitely sees herself as pro-labor and is likely to continue the pro-labor Biden-Harris record,” said former AFL-CIO spokesperson Jeff Hauser, who now runs the progressive watchdog group Revolving Door Project. “I think there will be questions about how much she can and will try to extend it, and if there will be any minor retrenchment.”
In Pittsburgh, Harris steps into another contentious issue for unions: the proposed $14.1 billion sale of United States Steel Corp to Nippon Steel Corp. of Japan. The United Steelworkers union strongly opposes the takeover. Biden has said the company would remain US-owned, “guaranteed,” but has stopped short of killing the deal. Trump has said he’d block it. Harris hasn’t said where she stands.
Of course, any nostalgia unions may have for Biden’s candidacy is tempered by the reality that his drop in the polls before he left the race threatened to torpedo Democrats’ hopes for stopping Trump, as well as holding seats in Congress.
Harris’ surging fortunes have energized her allies in other races, raising hopes Democrats may be in a stronger position to enact pro-worker policies after the election.
In membership polling by UFCW, Harris did about 6 points better than Biden against Trump, and 20% more members said they planned to vote with her as the nominee, said Perrone, the union’s president. “While our members liked Biden’s policies, I think they thought that his age had actually taken its toll.”
(Updates with Teamsters president’s comments in 10th paragraph.)
©2024 Bloomberg L.P.