WASHINGTON—The AFL-CIO prepared for this year’s election for months, identifying the top unions in every congressional district in the country to get them to mobilize members “and make sure people are being reached” with political issue messages, the labor federation’s president Liz Shuler says.
Talking with reporters after her second annual State of the Unions address, Shuler said the federation and its unions will send tens of thousands of volunteers, plus paid staffers, into the field prior to the voting. That includes 200 Steelworkers headquarters staffers already sent, with more, plus volunteers to follow, says Secretary-Treasurer Fred Redmond, a Steelworker.
Two independent unions, the Service Employees and the National Education Association, will be out there, too. “Everything is absolutely on the line,” in this vote, including all worker rights, Shuler stated.
Many staffers have been out there for up to a year, talking issues, comparing pro-worker and anti-worker positions, and taking notes for further use, she added. And they’ll stay there after November to keep contact with members and voters, listen to concerns, report back, and act upon them.
The federation is in the midst of gauging whether its political effort is succeeding. “Our baseline poll went out Friday,” Shuler said after her August 27 pre-Labor Day address. Then, “we’ll learn if we’re breaking through.”
The federation, Shuler added, is particularly enthusiastic about how it’s breaking through to younger voters who, in turn, became excited by the Democratic Party’s nomination of Vice President Kamala Harris for president.
The enthusiasm ran through the Democratic Convention the week before, Shuler said, but she also sees it wherever she goes. “We love Joe Biden,” for his pro-worker pro-union actions, said Shuler. But the young workers thought he was too old and losing his edge. Biden, the incumbent president, stepped out of the race amid declining polls and rising doubts from Democratic big givers that he could win this fall. He endorsed Harris.
Besides, Shuler noted, “Harris has a track record” of being both down-to-earth and pro-worker, both from her service as a senator from California and as vice president. In that chair, she cast deciding votes for pro-worker legislation in the evenly split Senate.
And Harris brings so much energy and enthusiasm to the campaign, and to her supporters, that “It reminds me of [Barack] Obama in 2008.”
Labor a big bloc in fall elections
If the enthusiasm continues, that means organized labor—which includes union members, their families, and their friends—will be a big bloc in the fall election, particularly in swing states, Shuler added in her address to the jam-packed crowd in the AFL-CIO headquarters’ main hall.
“It’s about workers continuing to find their power in two very distinct ways,” Shuler said.
“First: We are the ones who are going to decide this election. In these swing states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Nevada that are going to come down to one or two percent, union voters are 20 percent of the electorate. One in every five.”
Right now, Shuler said, in those same swing states, “union voters are plus-15 for Harris and non-union voters are negative two.”
That can be a big difference in key battlegrounds. Union households are 24 percent of all voters in Minnesota, 22 percent in Pennsylvania, 19 percent in Michigan, 18 percent in Wisconsin, 17 percent in Nevada, and 14 percent in Arizona, AFL-CIO Deputy Communications Director Steve Smith said later.
“Second: Our workers are powerful because they have something that is so rare today: They have the trust of those around them. They are credible political messengers. They can connect with each other and people in their communities, in a way no one else can,” said Shuler.
“We talk to each other in the break room every morning. We carpool home. We’re on the factory floor together, or in the teacher’s lounge, or outside on a construction site, braving the elements, while everyone else is asleep. We know each other, inside and out.
“And when you combine that trust with this organizing machine we’ve built, this ability to connect with our members, our families, our neighbors, and mobilize on a dime, you have a force multiplier. You have a movement that can actually deliver voters and win an election.”
That connection occurs despite what even Shuler herself calls some “difficult conversations” with workers, including union members, who are undecided, skeptical, or leaning towards voting for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, a former and anti-worker president and convicted felon, though Shuler didn’t mention that.
There were many such difficult conversations four years ago, but members of union households voted for Biden by a 56-41 percent margin, double the percentage edge Hillary Clinton had over Trump in 2016. “Many of us gave Trump a chance” to unite the country then, Shuler said. “He divided us.”
Unions are also backed by popular support, in polls and among young voters. Shuler said the surveys show nine out of every ten young voters support unions. And they’re convinced, she added, by record numbers of union elections, double-digit pay raises for 900,000 union workers—and the fact that half a million workers last year went out on strike, having had it up to here with corporate greed.
Which was Shuler’s other big point: That corporate titans such as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are laughing all the way to the bank while short-changing their workers.
Shuler rolled the video of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump gleefully congratulating Musk—one of the nation’s richest people—for firing workers who dared to speak up for themselves, much less unionize. Musk grinned and chortled throughout that dialogue.
Can’t let them divide us
“We can’t let them divide us any more,” Shuler exclaimed. “Every minute we let them talk about an immigrant coming here to ‘take our job’ is a minute we’re not focused on a system where Jeff Bezos makes $7.9 million every hour.
“Every second we let Elon Musk talk about people going ‘woke’ is a second we don’t spend on him and Donald Trump laughing at their ability to fire us.” After playing the Trump-Musk tape, Shuler commented: “They used to say that in back rooms. Now they’re saying it out loud (her emphasis).
“But all over the country, people are realizing there’s a movement where you actually ‘can’ fight back against people like that. Where you ‘actually can’ get some power and some control over your future. Where it’s not about your race, your gender, age, orientation, religion — it’s just about standing up for your freedom.” By unionizing.
Shuler also covered why people unionize. Three workers preceded her to the podium to elaborate.
Fairfax County, Va., special ed teacher David Walrod, president of Fairfax County Federation of Teachers, AFT Local 2401, told the crowd his union won the largest public-sector election since 1999. “Thanks to our work, 27,000 teachers, school counselors, bus drivers, cafeteria workers, and custodians now have the right to engage in collective bargaining,” he said.
Political groundwork produced that success. Unions in Virginia led the campaign against the business-oriented Old Guard that dominated state politics. Voters elected a narrowly Democratic legislature and it passed a law letting local governments decide whether public workers—such as teachers and firefighters—can collectively bargain. Fairfax, after county board debate, agreed.
Autumn Mitchell, a senior quality assurance tester at ZeniMax, and member of CODE-CWA (Campaign to Organize Digital Employees), highlighted her union’s victory in January 2023 of winning a union in her firm and becoming “bit by the organizing bug” and organizing game workers ever since. “I’ve been helping organize Bethesda Game Studios—who just won their union wall-to-wall recently.”
“Six years ago, none of us were organized in tech and gaming. The Communications Workers worked hard with us to build relationships and now our union represents thousands of game workers. We have a real opportunity to change the games industry for the better. I look forward to the next six years.”
Unite HERE Local 7 member Jaz Baxter, a hotel worker with the Hilton-Baltimore discussed the strike authorization vote that may lead to 10,000 hotel workers across the country walking off the job in a national strike demanding better working conditions, wages, and an end to their benefits being cut.
“If you know anything about Baltimore, right now we have 10-year veteran workers at the hotel making $16 an hour…when across the street 7-11 and McDonald’s is paying up to $18 an hour. So this is a tough fight for us. We work hard and work a lot of overtime just to make ends meet,” he said.
“The companies are making money hand over fist and the workers aren’t. We deserve to be treated fairly and we know we’re stronger together.”
“The labor movement is the most powerful force for progress,” AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Redmond said. “The future of this country hinges on the success of the labor movement. We don’t get involved in politics just to win elections. We make calls, knock on doors, and talk to our members so we can build worker power and win economic progress and social justice.”
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