Shuler slams GOP anti-worker ticket and their platform

AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler speaks at the Illinois convention of the AFL-CIO. | Illinois AFL-CIO

ROSEMONT, Ill.—Expanding on her prior attack on the Republican ticket of Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, and its extremist platform, formally Project 2025, AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler directly contrasted the duo and the document with Democratic achievements for workers and labor’s strong support for the new Democratic front-runner, Vice President Kamala Harris.

Shuler spoke against the background of increasing enthusiasm among union leaders and rank-and-file voters—union and non-union–for the substitution of Harris for incumbent Democratic President Joe Biden atop the party’s ticket this election year.

The nation’s largest union, the independent 3-million-member National Education Association, endorsed Harris on July 31, the same day Shuler spoke. So did the United Auto Workers. Both endorsements free up union people power and voluntary campaign contributions for Harris.

Shuler’s speech to the Illinois AFL-CIO Convention, at a unionized Crown Plaza Hotel in the Chicago suburb of Rosemont, drew frequent applause. She praised Illinois as a national model for workers’ rights legislation, notably for inserting the right to organize and bargain into the state constitution.

Meanwhile, the switch to Harris has thrown the opposition, Trump and Vance, for a loop. They’re having to recalibrate their strategy. They thought they’d have it easy against Biden. Now voters are doubting Trump’s age, 78, and his sanity as Harris surges in the polls.

The two wealthy Republicans, Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, are convenient targets for Harris, Shuler and their allies: “A real estate billionaire,” Trump, and “a venture capitalist,” Vance, Shuler said.

The two Republicans also represent the worst of the corporate capitalist class. Trump is a convicted felon who stiffs his construction workers, cheats on taxes and a misogynist who embraces white nationalism. Unions call venture capitalists like Vance “vulture capitalists” for how they destroy companies and workers all in pursuit of private profits. Shuler noted Vance’s “zero score” on key AFL-CIO votes. That’s not all.

“He’s demeaning women, calling them ‘childless cat ladies.’ And he doesn’t want them working outside the home. Women are half the country!” They’re also half the paid U.S. workforce.

“Do you think they’re going to be our champions?” Shuler sarcastically asked about the duo.

NEA President Becky Pringle was even more caustic about Trump and laudatory of Harris.

“Vice President Kamala Harris is a tireless advocate for students, public education, and working families. She has the experience, qualifications and dedication needed to continue delivering for students, educators and working families. She has delivered time and again for students and educators,” said Pringle, a Philadelphia science teacher.

“Now is the time to unite and ensure Donald Trump, a convicted felon, who has gutted public school programs and plans more of the same does not win in November.”

New reformist UAW President Shawn Fain and his reformist board cited Harris’s record as part of Biden’s administration. “Our job in this election is to defeat Donald Trump and elect Kamala Harris to build on her proven track record of delivering for the working class,” Fain said.

“We stand at a crossroads in this country. We can put a billionaire back in office who stands against everything our union stands for, or we can elect Kamala Harris who will stand shoulder to shoulder with us in our war on corporate greed.”

As for Project 2025, that GOP platform is the brainstorm of the far-right anti-worker Heritage Foundation. It’s pushed by “some of the weirdest people” ever in politics, Shuler explained.

“One key piece of the Republican platform is to eliminate public sector unions,” she said. Another is “to enact the Team Act,” a longtime corporate and right-wing goal. “Remember company unions?” Shuler asked. The Team Act would legalize them again.

But the GOP isn’t satisfied with truncating unions and stifling workers’ voices. They’d “eliminate Occupational Safety and Health Act enforcement and penalties. They’d eliminate the Education Department. They’d eliminate protections against discrimination and harassment on the job.

“There’d be no protection of the right to organize. And they’d allow states to opt out of [federal] minimum wage and overtime pay laws.

“Kamala Harris walked picket lines. Donald Trump crossed picket lines” which the Theatrical and Stage Employees marshalled during bargaining with studios last year, said Shuler. Harris walked the picket lines while a California senator, the AFL-CIO reports. And when Harris learned Biden was retiring from the race, Shuler said, one of the VP’s first calls was to the AFL-CIO chief.

In that phone talk, Harris promised to continue to push lawmakers to enact the Protect The Right To Organize Act, labor’s top legislative priority. It would help level the playing field between workers and bosses in union organizing drives and first contract negotiations.

“She said ‘I’m ready to keep fighting for workers and the labor movement.’ I told her ‘You had our back,’” when Shuler unexpectedly succeeded Richard Trumka as AFL-CIO chief, who died of a heart attack. “And we will have yours.”

Gov. J.B. Pritzker, D-Ill., elected twice with strong union support, continued in the same vein. He then signed into law a ban the state AFL-CIO pushed on mandatory/ forced worker attendance at so-called “captive audience” meetings. Such conclaves filled with threats and lies are a common tactic the corporate class and union-busters use against organizing drives.

Corporate threats of discipline or firing for non-attendance accompany demands to sit in those meetings, often silently listening to harangues. The law outlaws those corporate threats.

Pritzker and Gov. Tim Walz, DFL-Minn., a Minnesota union teacher, are the two latest names mentioned as potential running mates for Harris. Walz was the first to call the GOP Trump-Vance ticket “weird.”

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CONTRIBUTOR

Mark Gruenberg

Award-winning journalist Mark Gruenberg is head of the Washington, D.C., bureau of People's World. He is also the editor of the union news service Press Associates Inc. (PAI). Known for his reporting skills, sharp wit, and voluminous knowledge of history, Mark is a compassionate interviewer but tough when going after big corporations and their billionaire owners.