It was one of the most intense moments at the Democratic National Convention on Monday night. Sean FineTrump, the president of the United Auto Workers, took the stage at the United Center, took off his jacket and revealed a red T-shirt that read, “Trump is a strikebreaker.”
The crowd, filled with loyal supporters of the party wearing the same T-shirts, began to chant “Trump is a strikebreaker.” Payne, an electrician who worked at an Indiana auto parts plant and is a returning figure to the more bare-knuckled style of labor leaders, praised the Democratic candidate. Kamala Harris Criticized as a “fighter for the working class” erase He was called “the stooge of the billionaire class.”
But while Fain evoked the militant labor bosses of an earlier era, behind the vintage style was a tech-savvy campaign machine intent on capitalizing on the moment. Soon, the digital infantry of Harris-Waltz’s team and the UAW were blasting the Fain video across social media, racking up millions of views, selling thousands of bright red T-shirts, and sending the word “scab” trending online.
The choreographed play reflected the systematic planning and preparation of the Harris-Walz campaign to amplify labor’s message and, equally important, to seek every opportunity to burnish its pro-union credentials to labor leaders and union leaders who actively court it. And for good reason: the union vote Decisive in 2024.
Harris’s campaign, which knows that Donald Trump may have lost to Hillary Clinton in 2016 because of his strong support among union workers in key battleground states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, knows that blue-collar voters could emerge this election season as a version of suburban soccer moms. They are a key demographic for victory.
“There are 2.7 million union members in the battleground state,” Harris-Walz campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez wrote in an Aug. 8 memo shared with CBS News. “That makes sense when four years ago, about 45,000 votes in a key state decided the election.”
Last week, Democratic convention organizers didn’t skimp on any details when it came to attracting labor. A record number of Democratic delegates (20 percent) were union members, and all delegates from all 50 states and territories stayed in union hotels. Nearly all the physical labor at the convention came from union labor, from stage construction to electrical work to makeup for speakers and performers. And the raucous appeals to unions were strategically placed at many of the celebratory roll calls.
The Harris campaign sees close collaboration with labor as a force multiplier.
“We’re in a fragmented media environment, and it’s very difficult to reach undecided voters,” one campaign official said. “The union is the ultimate verifier. They can cut through the noise and misinformation to get the facts out about our record on Trump.”
Once a key constituency of the Democratic Party, union members have been divided under Trump. The former Republican president has been effective in turning traditional Democratic voters across the aisle. Behind the scenes, it was clear that the Harris campaign was using old-fashioned hardball tactics to offset those gains.
When another prominent union official, Teamsters President Sean O’Brien, spoke at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee late last month, Democrats took notice. O’Brien praised Trump as a “tough guy” and said he “don’t care about being criticized” for being the first Teamsters official to speak at the GOP convention in its 121-year history.
But two weeks later, Trump laughed it off. With Elon Musk In a conversation about layoffs at X, the Republican candidate praised Musk as a “top cutter,” saying, “Look at what you do. You go in and say, ‘Do you want to quit?’ I won’t name the company, but when they go on strike, you say, ‘You’re all gone!’”
O’Brien quickly went into damage control, issuing a statement to Politico calling Trump’s comments “economic terrorism.” But the Harris campaign and labor alliance saw an opportunity to retaliate. The next day, the UAW’s Fain filed a complaint. Opposing both Trump and Musk The National Labor Relations Board has filed charges of unfair labor practices. The Harris campaign is delighted, according to sources close to Fain, and has urged Fain to go on air and talk about their movement.
O’Brien had been trying to win over the Democratic Party’s favor. He had asked to speak at the Democratic National Convention, but the Harris campaign ignored him, according to labor sources. Campaign officials did not respond to his requests. Then, in a move that seemed intended to undermine O’Brien, the Harris campaign invited several rank-and-file Teamsters to the convention festivities without their leader.
One Labor source, who asked not to be identified to speak freely about the incident, called it “arrogance.” Others said it was intended to send a gentle message that there could be consequences for supporting Trump.
“They may not have thrown the ball at his head, but they may have thrown it a little bit inward to get him to step away from the plate,” said Eddie Vail, a political and labor strategist who has represented unions including the AFL-CIO. A Harris campaign source simply said it made no sense for O’Brien to speak at the convention because he wasn’t ready to endorse the Democratic nominee.
But by the end of the campaign, Harris’s campaign officials said they were open to the possibility of a rapprochement with Teamsters leaders. In what one labor source called a “virtue signal,” Harris accepted an invitation to meet with the union’s executive committee, which is expected to include O’Brien.
“Both sides want to make it clear that they are continuing to talk to each other,” the source said.
Harris faces a tougher challenge than her predecessor in winning over unions. President Biden’s close ties to unions were forged after years of building a “Scranton Joe” image, a politician whose middle-class background helped him understand the plight and aspirations of workers. But Harris, a Bay Area cosmopolitan, has had to work harder to define herself as a natural ally of the working class.
In 2020, Mr. Biden won 57% of the union vote in key Rust Belt states, while Mr. Trump won 40%. By most estimates, Harris will have to do at least as well as Mr. Biden to win this election.
Trump is also courting the working class in large numbers. In January, he attended the Teamsters’ rank-and-file presidential roundtable (Mr. Biden visited Teamsters headquarters a few weeks later) and praised the union, noting that many of his big projects were built by Teamsters workers. And in classic dealmaking, he pledged to give union leaders “seats” if they supported him in the election.
Harris’s team is strategic about courting labor. At last week’s convention, speakers seemed to take every opportunity to point out that Harris worked at McDonald’s while in college, and the candidate herself mentioned it in her acceptance speech. Harris spoke sentimentally but strategically about the modest East Bay neighborhood where she grew up, calling it “a beautiful working-class neighborhood with firefighters, nurses, construction workers.”
And as soon as Harris Presumptive Candidate Last month, her campaign sent her to key battleground states to meet with rank-and-file unionists, including UAW workers in Detroit. The campaign highlighted Harris’s pro-union record, noting that she walked a picket line with union strikers during her first presidential bid in 2019 and that as vice president she broke a tie in the Senate that allowed passage of the Butch Lewis Act, which restored pensions to more than 1 million workers.
Harris chose Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, whose straightforward Midwestern style, football coach persona and worn-out flannel shirt appeal to lunch-packing voters. Harris campaign officials say it’s no coincidence that Walz’s first solo campaign visit was to rally members of the American Federation of State, County and City Employees at its international convention in Los Angeles. And Walz, a former high school teacher, is a full member of the union, the American Federation of Teachers.
Ultimately, the labor vote will likely follow the candidate whom workers believe can best address the economic issues of the working class. Harris will almost certainly win the labor vote, but what really matters is Trump’s ability to close the gap with working-class voters through economic appeals on immigration and trade.
Robert Forant, a historian of the American labor movement, says the Harris campaign recognizes this and is making economic concerns part of its message.
“They’ve started talking about inflation being really important, and you can’t pretend it’s not.” But he said the Harris campaign needs to do more. Realities like acknowledging that working people have increasingly had to work multiple jobs to make ends meet have third-order effects, including the deterioration of family structures. “You have to thread the needle when you’re appealing to union votes,” Forant said.
