Liberal unions ramp up Harris campaigning after Teamsters defect

RENO, Nevada — Union volunteers who power Democratic campaigns — many of them, working-class women — have supercharged their efforts to send Vice President Kamala Harris to the White House following endorsement snubs from the male-heavy Teamsters, firefighters and port workers unions. Their redoubled efforts are a test of whether so-called care economy workers can sway the election in favor of Democrats despite fissures in the labor movement and Donald Trump’s gravity with working-class men. ”This was important to us, regardless of the Teamsters and the firefighters,” said UNITE HERE President Gwen Mills, whose hospitality union is aiming to knock on 3.5 million doors in what it calls the largest labor-led canvass for Harris. “We all have members in our unions who took to Trump, but as a majority, we don’t,” Mills said, “and we feel like it’s our job as the leadership of the union to be engaged with our members about the difference that these two administrations would make.” Teamsters president says lack of endorsement is a 'wake up call' SharePlay Video UNITE HERE’s fieldwork is just the latest push by a progressive labor group to buttress Harris in the final sprint before the election. The National Education Association has targeted digital ads and canvassed union households in eight swing states while the AFL-CIO reports that its 60 unions — which represent domestic workers, school employees and other professions — have spoken with more than 3 million voters, the most in the federation’s history. The Service Employees International Union, the nation’s largest health care and building service labor group, has bolstered its multi-swing state operation by busing members from Los Angeles to Nevada and Arizona to knock doors. Several of the efforts extend to wide swaths of working-class voters, but the Harris campaign assigns special importance to labor groups’ ability to communicate with their members — who number 2.7 million in battleground states, according to a past memo from campaign manager Julie Chávez Rodríguez. “That means something when roughly 45,000 votes in key states decided the election four years ago,” Chávez Rodríguez wrote in August, which would turn out to be the month before the Teamsters became the largest union to decline to endorse Harris. “Endorsements are much more than words on a press release. In a fragmented media environment, union leadership is uniquely effective at breaking through to their members.” Kamala Harris speaks to supporters. The Harris campaign assigns special importance to labor groups’ ability to communicate with their members — who number 2.7 million in battleground states, according to a memo from campaign manager Julie Chávez Rodríguez. | Scott Olson/Getty Images Union leaders still in Harris’ corner agree that the rank-and-file — despite struggles to make inroads with members who support Trump — has an ethos that can sway fellow working-class voters who boosted the former president in past elections. Several of those groups including the AFL-CIO have targeted ads and canvassing efforts at union members, their family members and eligible voters within the same low- and middle-income demographics. “What we do best is having one-on-one conversations with workers about the stakes of the election,” said AFL-CIO spokesperson Steve Smith. “That contact is more important than it has ever been due to the cynicism in the American electorate.” The unions that make that contact with voters most frequently on Democrats’ behalf are still campaigning for Harris, even after the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and International Association of Fire Fighters peeled away. Those more conservative unions were not central to the party’s ground game in years past even when they had endorsed the Democratic nominee. “The labor unions that turn people out are usually the teachers, the service employees” and unions representing health care employees, said Doug Herman, a Democratic strategist and Obama campaign alumnus. “That’s the biggest chunk in terms of percentage of labor.” MOST READ financial-markets-wall-street-97462.jpg The stock market’s surprising bet on who will win the presidency Mark Cuban Shows Democrats What They’ve Been Missing DeSantis’ war on ballot measures ignites fury in Florida: ‘This is still a democracy’ Black turnout is lagging in North Carolina, a warning sign for Harris Dems see signs for optimism in gender gap in early vote Democratic presidential campaigns routinely draw large numbers of volunteers, but expanded canvassing by unions could prove important for Harris “because everything matters in a tight election,” said Herman. “You never know which contact or which piece of communication is going to be the one that turns the light switch on for the voter.” The 310,000-member California Teachers Association doesn’t usually canvass for presidential candidates, but it recently dispatched hundreds of members to turn out votes for Harris in the neighboring swing state of Nevada. “I absolutely think abortion will drive our members to vote. Women have died.” Becky Pringle, president, National Education Association The CTA, the largest union of its kind in the nation, visited the homes of independent voters during its outing in Reno, Nevada, earlier this month. Its president, David Goldberg, met enthusiastic Harris supporters, though one man slammed the door in his face. Goldberg and fellow volunteers also passed over several suburban homes that had Trump flags waving on their lawns though they were listed as having residents without a party affiliation. “That just speaks to the cult of personality around him,” remarked Goldberg, who came up through the ranks of the powerhouse United Teachers Los Angeles. Even for the progressive CTA, which routinely endorses and donates to state Democrats, pushing members onto the trail was unusual. Its leaders can’t remember a time when the union deployed members to campaign in a presidential race. The decision was panned by some Republican teachers who had come to Reno for a conference from a conservative part of the state and complained that it was inappropriate. “There’s tension with the decision to spend time walking and talking, and I hear you,” Goldberg told members in an address. But Goldberg, who has now led the union for a year, said he felt compelled to propose such a step to the union’s board. “Unions should not shy away from having deep political conversations,” he said in an interview, arguing that falling membership in churches and community groups in the U.S. has closed off important channels for political dialogue. “Unions are one of the last places where we actually can do this. We have an obligation. It makes us stronger, even when we disagree.” Most unions have endorsed the Democratic nominee again this cycle, though the Trump campaign has relished slipping support by groups representing industrial workers, trades and law enforcement. “While union leadership has been fully entrenched in Democrat politics for decades, the workers who comprise unions are supporting President Trump because they have paid the price for Kamala’s failed economic policies over the past four years and know President Trump stood strong for the American worker during his first term in office by putting more money in their pockets, negotiating good trade deals around the world, standing up for law enforcement and first responders, and protecting their jobs here at home,” Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. Partisan splits extend to the Teamsters and firefighters, who both have state and regional unions that have endorsed Harris despite their national counterparts laying off. Meanwhile, American union membership has dwindled since the election of President Joe Biden, who has proclaimed himself the most pro-union president in American history. Paradoxically, union ferment has spiked during his presidency, as strikes hit a 23-year high last year. A person holds a sign that says Labor for Harris Walz. Democratic presidential campaigns routinely draw large numbers of volunteers, but expanded canvassing by unions could prove important for Harris. | Scott Olson/Getty Images One of those walkouts was held by the United Teachers Los Angeles and the Service Employees International Union Local 99, which represents support staff like teacher assistants and bus drivers in the nation’s second-largest school district. Since the strike last year, SEIU 99 members have become more politically active in local and national elections, said President Max Arias. Of late, they’ve traveled to Phoenix and Las Vegas to campaign for Harris. ”People are way more engaged” since the strike, Arias said. “We have seen an uptick in a lot of our efforts, and we have no trouble filling up buses to Nevada or Arizona.” Weekend excursions from Harris’ home state have grown her army of volunteers, but national labor operations report that most of their volunteers live where they’re knocking doors. “We’re not parachuting in,” said AFL-CIO’s Smith. “We’re trying to ground these campaigns in the communities.” UNITE HERE drastically expanded its presidential campaign operations in 2020, after 98 percent of its members lost their jobs at the onset of the pandemic. It knocked 3 million doors that cycle and has already exceeded that number this year, focusing on immigration policy, which affects many of its members, as well as abortion rights. The leaders of majority-women unions have cast their role as especially important in messaging on abortion rights. The National Education Association has included the issue in its member-to-member persuasion efforts. “I absolutely think abortion will drive our members to vote,” National Education Association President Becky Pringle said in an interview. “Women have died.” Unions have boosted swing congressional candidates, too. The AFL-CIO is focused on races in Nebraska, Ohio and Montana, and the NEA has campaigned for Democrats in North Carolina and Montana. But Pringle also acknowledged the importance of winning battleground House seats in Democratic strongholds like California and New York when she joined “the big, bad, powerful” California Teachers Association in Reno. “California, no pressure,” she told members in an address. “But I’m depending on you to ensure that, come January, it will be Speaker Hakeem Jefferies.” Filed under: Labor Unions, Labor, Teamsters, California, Donald Trump, Playbook The unofficial guide to official Washington, every morning and weekday afternoons. 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