Labor leaders stand up, show out for Kamala at DNC
The Democratic National Convention’s (DNC) nomination of Vice President Kamala Harris for president and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as the next vice president commenced with a wave of endorsements from the nation’s largest labor unions.
On the very first night of the convention, an impressive gathering of union presidents took the stage. AFSCME’s Lee Saunders, SEIU (Service Employees International Union) President April Verrett, LIUNA (Laborer’s International Union of North America) President Brent Booker, Ken Cooper of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), Claude Cummings Jr. of the Communication Workers of America (CWA), and Liz Shuler of the AFL-CIO stood on stage together, they displayed the power of unions.
They also made it clear that because the Biden-Harris administration supported labor for four years, unions are planning to help get the Harris-Walz team elected.
Members of the crowd welcomed the labor leaders with cheers of “Union Yes! Union Yes!” as they lined up center stage to speak about what it means to have a government that cares about everyday workers and how their lives function, versus living in a nation where the federal government allows the worst aspects of capitalism to assault workers.
“We are all in for Kamala Harris because Kamala Harris has always been all-in for us,” explained SEIU’s Verrett: “Vice President Harris joined fast food workers on the picket line, and she walked a day in the shoes of a home care worker. She shares our vision for a modern-day labor movement. A movement that meets the needs of workers in the 21st century. And an economy that is ready for the future.”
“Four years ago, we faced a pandemic and a recession, with a president who didn’t care one bit what working people were going through: Enter Joe Biden and Kamala Harris!” AFSCME’s Saunders told the crowd. “Within weeks, they passed the American Rescue Plan, pulling the economy back from the brink and putting us back to work. They’re guided by a basic principle — more freedom for working people, including the freedom to join a union.”
“Every step of the way, Kamala Harris has been there for us,” declared IBEW’s Ken Cooper: “She’s bringing back American manufacturing to forgotten places throughout our country. She cast the deciding vote to save our pension plans. She’s lifted our apprentices up all over the nation. And guess what? She’s not afraid to use the word ‘union.’
“She has come through for all of us and it’s our turn to come through for her.”
“We all saw the digital divide during the pandemic,” said the CWA’s Cummings. “Millions of American families didn’t have access to high-speed internet at home. Too many kids were forced to go to online class in McDonalds’ parking lots. But as vice president, Kamala Harris helped pass the largest investment in broadband ever, she gave CWA members a seat at the table so we could work to connect every household to the internet, while creating good union jobs.”
“This election is about two economic visions,” reflected Liz Shuler of the AFL-CIO. “One where families live paycheck-to-paycheck, where people have no right to join a union––a CEO’s dream, but a worker’s nightmare––or, an opportunity economy where we lower the costs of groceries, prescriptions and housing. Where we go after big pharma, corporate landlords and price gougers. Where there’s no such thing as a man’s job or a woman’s job––or, like Donald Trump would say, a ‘Black job,’ just a good union job. That’s the future our president Joe Biden has fought for. And that’s the future Kamala Harris and Tim Walz will keep fighting for. Let’s build it together.”
Union leaders were bound to be featured at this year’s DNC convention. Chicago had competed against the cities of Atlanta and New York for the chance to host this convention. They won their opportunity by pointing to Chicago’s long and storied union organizing history.
President Joe Biden’s pro-union administration and the basic math which shows that winning over blue-collar union votes in battleground states will help the Democrats win the Oval Office along with down ballot tickets, made having a show of force with labor leaders highly important. “Endorsements are much more than words on a press release,” Harris-Walz Campaign Manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez wrote in an August 8 note regarding the importance of winning over union voters. “In a fragmented media environment, union leadership is uniquely effective at breaking through to their members and [is] one of the most trusted institutions among their members. There are 2.7 million union members in the battleground states. That means something when roughly 45,000 votes in key states decided the election four years ago.”
The one major union leader not present at the DNC was International Brotherhood of Teamsters President Sean O’Brien. The Teamsters have yet to endorse any candidate for the presidency and O’Brien was a featured guest at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. Members of the Teamsters National Black Caucus (TNBC) though, made it a point to come out with an endorsement of Vice President Harris. In an August 13 press release, the TNBC praised the Harris-Walz team for “advancing labor rights and supporting working-class Americans” and pointed to Trump’s anti-worker and anti-Black policies. The Democrats still want to court the Teamsters’ entire 1.3 million members though, and Vice President Harris is due to sit down for a roundtable discussion with union members soon.
On top of the other union endorsements, the DNC saw a fiery speech from the president of the United Auto Workers (UAW), Shawn Fain. The strategic head of the UAW famously led workers in a trilateral strike against General Motors, Stellantis, and the Ford Motor Company last year. This was the strike which saw Pres. Biden become the first sitting president to walk a picket line.
Fain’s UAW recently filed an unfair labor practice FCC complaint against former President Donald Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk after the two giggled during an X/Twitter interview about their ability to fire any workers who even talked about going out on a strike. Fain showed up at the DNC to endorse Kamala Harris’s presidency because, he said, “Kamala Harris is one of us: she’s a fighter for the working class. Donald Trump is a scab!”
After pointing to all the times Trump promised to do more for workers but consistently did nothing, Fain said, “In the words of the Great American poet Nelly: ‘It’s getting hot in here!’” The UAW leader peeled off his jacket to reveal that he was wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the words: “Trump is a scab. Vote Harris.”
“It’s hot in here,” Fain said to hoots and applause from the audience, “it’s hot in here because you’re fired up and you’re fed up and the American working class is fired up and fed up. The American working class is in a fight for our lives.”
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