Which Candidates Can Working Families Most Trust In 2020?

I spend a lot of time on the phone with congressional candidates trying to figure out who to believe and who not to believe. How progressive are they? How courageous? How capable? It didn't take much of a discussion to figure out AOC was going to be a super-star if she ever beat Joe Crowley, which seemed impossible to everyone (but her and her posse). But she beat him-- and she's a superstar. Sometimes we get disappointed. I talked so much about how great Jared Golden (ME) would be... but did he ever turn out to be a dud! I got that all wrong. Rashida Tlaib-- somehow just tasting her mother's cooking-- plus glimpsing at her record in the Michigan state legislature-- made it clear exactly what kind of a congresswoman she was going to be. And she is! It makes it so much easier when candidates are already where they have to be and don't need persuading.

Yesterday, Jeremy Gantz noted in his piece for In These Times, Here's Where The 2020 Candidates Stand On Labor, that "Democrats have a history of empty promises when it comes to bolstering unions and workers' rights." Amen, brother! He then asks-- and tries to answer-- Who can be trusted in 2020? He noted that "During the primaries, Democratic presidential candidates have always made a point of showing up at union halls and playing up ties to working people: It’s one of the first pages in the Democratic political playbook. Biden officially started his campaign at a Teamsters banquet hall in Pittsburgh, announcing he is a 'union man.' Warren kicked off her campaign at the site of the historic 1912 textile workers’ Bread and Roses strike in Lawrence, Mass. Klobuchar and Sen. Cory Booker (N.J.) mention union members in their extended family while speaking to union audiences."

But historically, what comes next is what Gantz calls "a pivot to the center during the general election. After fighting for union endorsements during primary season, the Democratic nominee zeroes in on swing voters, taking union voters for granted even as unions send a door-to-door army to get out the vote. Labor has been a core part of the Democratic Party’s coalition going back to the Great Depression." Does anyone have to guess that that will be "union man" Joe Biden? But who can working families actually trust and believe?

Eighty years later, in 2016, something changed. Donald Trump had the best GOP presidential candidate performance with union households since 1984, trailing Hillary Clinton by only 8 percentage points. In 2012, Mitt Romney trailed Barack Obama in this demographic by 18 points. All of which raises the question: Are Democrats losing labor as a reliable constituency? Dems can still count on union endorsements, to be sure. But with Trump attacking from the left on free trade, support from white male union members-- who still make up a plurality of the movement’s members-- is up for grabs.

This uncertainty was born of neglect: Since the 1970s, as the country’s industrial base withered and unionbusting flourished, Democrats in Washington have done little to reverse the labor movement’s decline. Under Presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, union money and organizing muscle helped deliver control of Congress and the White House to Democrats. Each time, the party failed to pass labor law reform that would have empowered workers and bolstered the movement.

In 2016, the party paid an electoral price for their waywardness. This time around, will candidates do more than pander during the primaries? Public support for labor is at a 15-year high, especially among young people, women and college graduates. Nearly half a million workers were part of a strike or lockout last year-- the highest figure since 1986. Might we finally see Democrats place unions at the heart of their political agenda? It’s far-fetched, but conceivable. Candidates know they can no longer take union votes for granted.

More significantly, the center of gravity on labor and economic issues has moved left.

“There’s this sense now that we have a big problem of inequality and capitalism run amok,” says Nelson Lichtenstein, a history professor at University of California, Santa Barbara, where he directs the Center for the Study of Work, Labor and Democracy. “That’s clear on the Democratic side. But what is the solution? Is it about taxation? Or is it vitalization of the union movement? That latter idea has become more understood.”

In some ways, candidates’ rush to the left makes it harder to discern just how deeply committed they are to strengthening unions. Everyone always says they want to rebuild the middle class. Who really wants to rebuild the labor movement?

If you zero in on the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) ACT, the answer appears to be: most of the leading candidates. Co-sponsored by 40 senators and 100 members of the House, the PRO Act offers a litany of labor law reforms. The larger context here is that the United States has among the weakest workers’ rights protections of any industrialized country-- on par with Myanmar, Pakistan and Ethiopia. Over the past 40 years, employers have aggressively fought unionization through (perfectly legal) tactics like “captive audience” meetings, when workers must sit and listen to anti-union presentations, or the (sometimes legal) firing of striking workers.

The PRO Act would strengthen the right to organize and strike by, among other things, eliminating so-called right-to-work laws, banning permanent strike replacements, legalizing secondary boycotts and picketing, and broadening the definition of “employee” to include many current independent contractors. Compared to the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), the reform law pushed by the labor movement during the 2008 election cycle that ultimately died in the Senate, the PRO Act is a progressive smorgasbord. But the PRO Act does fall short of EFCA in one significant regard: While EFCA enabled workers to organize through a majority sign-up process (“card check”), the PRO Act only requires card check if an employer is found to have violated labor law during a failed union election. Every current senator running for president backs the bill.

With multiple leading candidates able to point to a history of support for unions, today’s Democratic field stands in stark contrast to the 2016 primary with its binary choice of establishment liberal Hillary Clinton versus change agent Bernie Sanders. Nearly all unions endorsed Clinton, many early on, rankling rank-and-file Sanders supporters. This time around, unions are in no hurry to back a candidate-- only the International Association of Fire Fighters has done so (Biden got the nod). The American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the National Education Association and others have unveiled new endorsement approaches to more deeply engage both candidates and members (and, one assumes, to close any perceived distance between the wishes of the rank-and-file and executive boards).

“There’s intensity for a bunch of candidates this time,” says Randi Weingarten, president of the AFT. The union endorsed Clinton in July 2015 and poured $1.7 million into her campaign and pro-Clinton PACs.

Heartburn from the calamitous 2016 election appears to be giving the union endorsement process a dose of democracy. As millions of union members decide who to back, they’ll be wrestling with the question of which candidate would most effectively fight for their interests. Because the leading Democratic candidates are staking out similar ground to make their case, it’s important to look at the candidates’ records, how central the union movement is to their theory of change, and what unilateral actions they would be willing to embrace as president (should Congress fail to act).

This much is clear across the Democratic primary field: Raising the federal minimum wage to $15 and taxing the rich have become table stakes. All the leading candidates-- Biden, Booker, Buttigieg, Harris, former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (Texas), Sanders, Warren-- support both. Beyond those two issues, the top of the field is replete with differences big and small.

It’s easy to sort out where candidates stand on a raft of proposed legislation. It’s harder to know what they would try to do for the labor movement if all those proposals become moot-- which will be the case should the GOP hold the Senate.

Biden is an old pro at signaling he’s a fighter for the union cause, but it’s hard to find an example of him sticking his neck out for workers. In May, Biden held a fundraiser at the Los Angeles home of a board member of Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, a subsidiary of healthcare giant Kaiser Permanente. The National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW), which has a longstanding dispute with Kaiser in California over mental health staffing levels, called on Biden to cancel the event. They never heard back, says NUHW President Sal Rosselli. NUHW members protested outside the house, but Biden “went into the event and didn’t even talk to our folks,” Rosselli says. “That’s very disappointing.”

Biden also didn’t endear himself to the labor movement by voting for NAFTA and supporting the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement, both of which unions opposed. Biden did support EFCA as a senator but has not committed to the PRO Act, and his campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

In contrast, the leading presidential candidates from the Senate have been out front on labor law reform. Sanders has been pushing the Workplace Democracy Act (WDA) for decades (beginning as a congressman in 1992), which is co-sponsored by Booker, Harris and Warren. The WDA can be seen as a forerunner of the PRO Act; it also legalizes secondary boycotting, stops companies from delaying a first contract with workers and gives bargaining rights to many workers who are currently classified as independent contractors. (Unlike the PRO Act, it would let all workers unionize via card check as a matter of course.) Sanders’ method has been persistence: He reintroduced the WDA throughout the 1990s in the House, then brought new versions into the Senate in 2015 and 2018. As with other issues, such as Medicare for All, the Democratic Party has now caught up to him.

It took Sanders years to earn the backing of any national union. They didn’t flock to him when he first ran for Congress in 1988, but came around after he won congressional campaigns in the early 1990s. Today, Sanders remains as outspoken as ever about the power of unions-- they live at the heart of his agenda. “The trade union movement is the last line of defense against a corporate agenda that not only wants tax breaks for billionaires but wants to privatize Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid,” Sanders told In These Times via email. “We must strengthen unions and bargaining rights of workers everywhere.”

It’s not hard to imagine the other leading candidates saying something similar-- indeed, most have before crowds of union members. It’s Sanders’ long record of actually supporting labor actions that makes him stand out. Political candidates love to call their campaigns a “movement,” and Sanders is no exception, but it feels less cliched when a campaign actively urges supporters to join protests around the country-- like those held by University of California campus workers and Delta Air Lines flight attendants. “What Bernie is doing is very, very unique,” Lichtenstein says. “The most radical thing in this campaign cycle that’s happened is Bernie using his email list to get people to picket lines and protests.”

In March, Sanders’ staffers became the first presidential campaign staff to unionize, starting a trend. Castro’s campaign staff followed in May, and Warren’s team did so in June. The candidates each publicly supported the union efforts. “Every worker who wants to join a union, bargain collectively, & make their voice heard should have a chance to do so,” Warren tweeted.

Unlike Sanders, Warren can’t point to decades of direct solidarity work with the labor movement, but the two New England senators share much in common. Yes, Warren has called herself “capitalist to my bones” while Sanders keeps trumpeting his democratic socialism, but both have New Deal liberalism deep in their blood-- including the sense that worker empowerment is vital to economic justice-- and they broadly agree that American capitalism needs structural change.

Warren’s Accountable Capitalism Act is a good example. Introduced in the Senate in 2018, the bill would empower employees to elect at least 40% of board members at large U.S. companies. This new board could then (in theory) push management to do something about yawning pay disparities between the C-suite and average workers. For Sanders’ part, he unveiled plans in May to boost employee ownership of corporations and attended a Walmart shareholders meeting in June at the request of United for Respect, a workers’ rights group, to support a resolution to require Walmart to put hourly employees on its board.

Both senators want to do more than tinker around the edges of neoliberalism. This perspective, and a willingness to call out the rich as an enemy along class lines, is what sets them apart from their primary season peers.

“Strengthening America’s labor unions will be a central goal of my administration,” Warren told In These Times via email. “For too long, a worker’s right to unionize has been under attack. The rich and powerful have teamed up with the Republican Party to push for measures at all levels of government designed to decimate unions and collective bargaining.”

Warren says she wants to “modernize our labor laws for the 21st century,” noting various reforms included in the PRO Act, and that she would fight for “fully portable benefits for everyone and make sure that all work-- full-time, part-time, gig-- carries basic, pro-rata benefits.” She also wants to push to amend federal law so the president and federal courts cannot “enjoin lawful strikes that pose a threat to national health or safety.”

“Far too often, these injunctions have been invoked in strikes not because there is a genuine threat to national health or safety, but rather to curb the power of unions engaging in lawful strikes,” she says.

This attitude has endeared Warren to the labor movement. She spoke in Las Vegas at the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and Center for American Progress Action Fund’s National Forum on Wages and Working People in April, along with a handful of other candidates. “We need more power in the hands of employees,” she said. The Washington Post reported the crowd gave her its “most passionate response.”

...Jane McAlevey, a former union organizer and author of No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age, says that getting a sympathetic Democrat in the White House is only the first step. The next, McAlevey says, is a massive wave of strikes.



The relationship between direct action, power and creating a crisis with a Democrat in the White House is “the missing link so often in this discussion,” McAlevey says. The labor movement should back a candidate who will “restore the fundamental constitutional right to strike” (as the PRO Act effectively would) and commit to never calling out federal troops on striking workers. “We need a candidate ... who commits to defending the right of workers to be on strike and using the full resources of the federal government to aid workers in re-claiming some of what’s deserved by the working class.”

Nothing like that has been seen in the United States since the 1930s, when FDR first entered the White House and waves of strikes followed. The backdrop was the Great Depression. Short of another crisis, far-reaching strikes are far-fetched. But one thing is clear enough: Waiting for Democrats to lead the labor movement out of decline is a losing strategy.

I wish Gantz would do as thorough a job on congressional candidates. If that's even actually possible. (He does talk about the other presidential candidates in his piece and you can read about them by clicking here and going back to it. But I decided to ask for comments from some of the candidates Blue America is backing this cycle.

Omaha progressive Kara Eastman emphasized that the Trump enabler she's running against has a clear record of stifling the legitimate aspirations of working families. "Bacon," she told me, "is all about supporting and strengthening the wealthy and large corporations. He touts the GOP tax bill-- a clear government hand-out. He touts the economy-- without ever mentioning the struggles of families in the district who have to work 2-3 jobs to make ends meet. He talks about unions but supports 'right to work' laws."

In contrast, she pointed out that she has "been fighting for working families, people living in poverty, and communities of color for my entire career. I have seen students in the district who cannot afford community college, mothers who are raising babies on their own who end up in bankruptcy because their car breaks down, and families in North Omaha who live in rental housing that most people would never step foot in. Government for the people should be just that. When elected, I will never stop fighting for working families who deserve a voice in the Nebraska 2nd."

Audrey Denney is also running for a seat currently held by a Trump-enabling Republican, Doug LaMalfa, in a largely rural northern California district. "Workers’ rights in our country have been under attack, and intentionally eroded for the past few decades," she said. "This is directly linked to the increasing poverty in our country and the growing gap between rich and poor. Unemployment in my district is significantly higher than the national average (7.4%, compared to 4.9% nationally in 2016). Incomes in CA-1 are less than state averages, and the poverty rate in the district is significantly above the state and national average. In the last fifty years, corporate profits have increased 500% and average CEO salaries have gone up 1,500%. It is ethically and morally wrong to perpetuate a system where it is possible for people working full time to live below the poverty line, while the businesses they work for make a profit. It is time that workers be fairly compensated for the work that they do, which supports the thriving of our economy. Reestablishing and fighting to protect the right of workers to organize is an essential step in poverty reduction, and rebuilding a thriving American economy and society.  I will fight for North State workers to bring more jobs to our region, increase job readiness and workforce development through improved career and technical education, and support workers’ rights."





Eva Putzova is in a primary fight against an "ex"-Republican, Tom O'Halleran, who didn't suddenly become pro-union when he changed his party registration. O'Halleran is still a union hater and no friend of working families. But Pelosi and Bustos still support him-- and even trick some unions into supporting him!-- because... these confuse Blue Dog and Democrat. Eva told us this morning that ""I support the current effort to reform our labor laws to make it easier for workers to organize as reflected in the Protecting the Right to Organize Act (PRO ACT) introduced into the House of Representatives in May of 2019. There are 175 Democratic co-sponsors on this bill. Four out of five of the Democratic House members from Arizona support it, with the exception of my opponent. I support the Raise the Wage Act that raises the minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2024. My opponent wants to weaken that legislation. I support Medicare for All. My opponent does not. I support expansion of social security benefits. My opponent does not. I support a federal jobs guarantee, paid family leave, extending full labor rights to farmworkers, and domestic workers. My opponent is nowhere to be seen or heard on these issues. Instead, he takes campaign contributions from corporate giants like Walmart, Verizon, APS, Wells Fargo, Cigna, and arms and prison industries. Working people in Congressional District 1 need a representative who will fight for their interests every day. But we will change more than the policy trajectory of this country. With my fellow progressives, we will change the rules of politics."