Why Democrats earned union votes — but may not get them
It takes a long time to change things
Welcome to a Sunday edition of Progress Report.
It’s hard not to obsess over headlines and campaign decisions at this point, given the planet-sized stakes of the election, but with just over two weeks to go in such a close race and people already voting in many states, it’s hard to know whether anything that happens from this point forward will even make a difference. There’s got to be a better way for democracy to function, but I guess we can worry about that once it’s saved from Elon Musk’s techno-fascistic fantasies.
Just a reminder that we are still raising money for legislative candidates running in crucial swing state districts — we’ve sent around $10K directly to these grassroots candidates in just over a week, and you can pitch in more here.
Tonight, we’re talking about the most recent developments in working class policy, why union members would benefit from voting for Democrats, and why that may not happen.
Note: To make this work as accessible as possible, I’ve lowered the price for a paid subscription back down to Substack’s $5 minimum. If you can’t afford that right now, please email me and I’ll put you on the list for free. Every paid subscription makes it easier for me to comp one while becoming sustainable.
Vice President Kamala Harris barnstormed around Michigan on Friday in a bid to secure the support of union members and blue collar workers, assailing President Donald Trump’s record on labor issues and touting her own pro-union bonafides.
“When the UAW went on strike to demand the higher wages they deserved, Donald Trump went to a non-union shop and attacked the UAW. He said striking and collective bargaining don't make a ‘damn bit of difference,’” Harris told an audience in Grand Rapids, referring to the rally Trump held at the invitation of an auto parts manufacturer while workers were on strike across the Midwest.
The vice president contrasted Trump’s dismissive remarks and the empty promises he made to save manufacturing jobs with the Biden administration’s support for the strikers and the major investments it has directed toward expanding domestic auto manufacturing in Michigan. At a UAW hall in Lansing, Harris pointed out the $500 million federal grant that will help convert a GM plant to electric vehicle production.
In late December, the plant laid off 350 workers after GM ended production of the iconic Camaro muscle car. At the time, Lansing’s mayor suggested that the factory should be a candidate for conversion, and the grant was announced this past July.
The investment is an example of the sort of tangible benefit that Democrats need to deliver to working people as a matter of both organizing principle and political necessity — no matter how many votes do or do not come of it, reviving industry and creating thousands of jobs is a worthy way to wield power.
But this situation also serves as a perfect case study of the maddening dynamic they face when running against Trump’s GOP: Electric vehicles have engendered a backlash among some workers because they require fewer hands to manufacture, which Trump has exploited by promising to end a non-existent EV “mandate” and returning to the gas engine. That he did nothing for auto production during his first term hardly registers.
Lies aside, what Trump does have is an ongoing line of communication with blue collar workers through his rallies and media apparatus. Harris, on the other hand, has spent much of the past month begging Silicon Valley for donations and trying to win over wealthy suburban Republican voters who just can’t stomach a second Trump administration. That has largely obscured a rapidly evolving political-labor landscape, which has over the past few months been animated by a series of events that could quietly shape the election.
Tonight I want to review those events, look at the Biden administration policies that have been so instrumental in advancing the rights and well being of workers, and unpack why they haven’t seemed to connect with many rank and file members.
A new paradigm for organizers
We can start with this past Tuesday, when Jennifer Abruzzo, the NLRB’s general counsel, struck a defiant tone when asked about the abundance of lawsuits from corporations challenging the agency’s very structure.
“Everybody in this country needs us,” Abruzzo said at an event in DC. “It would be chaos if the agency was not allowed to perform its functions and do it properly.”
Encouraged by the Supreme Court’s recent decisions against the administrative state, Amazon, SpaceX, Starbucks, and many others want the NLRB’s in-house judges to be declared unconstitutional, which would make enforcement of laws protecting labor activity in the workplace all but impossible.
The administrative law judges have issued one game-changing decision after another based on Abruzzo’s reinterpretation of labor laws, which she has framed as simply returning them to the original intent of their authors. Perhaps most important has been the Cemex Doctrine, which protects union elections from employer interference — if NLRB judges decide that an employer’s union-busting was severe enough that it made a fair election election impossible, the unit is automatically recognized and the employer faces mandatory bargaining.
That may sound like legalese, but the protections have played an outsized role in the doubling of union elections under Abruzzo’s purview. At the same time, companies have refused to bargain until challenges to the NLRB’s structure are settled. Interestingly, Brett Kavanaugh late last week refused to hear a request to block a bargaining order while one of these lawsuits gets litigated in federal court. Just what that means for the future of the NLRB’s power in this right-wing court era remains to be seen, but it’s a curious wrinkle.
Abruzzo is also responsible for significantly expanding the compensation that employers must repay wrongly fired workers. The NLRB still can’t impose the kind of fines that federal courts can impose, but they do add up; several weeks ago, an agency judge found that Starbucks could owe workers more than $3 million.
Then there’s the joint employer decision, which found companies like Amazon are responsible for contractors whose schedules and daily activities they control. That has opened the door for the Teamsters to start organizing Amazon delivery drivers in earnest, and last week, they signed up a whole bunch of them in Queens and California.
Teamsters president Sean O’Brien is well aware of this development, because he was at a rally for those workers last week, one week after going on Theo Von’s podcast and screaming that Democrats “have f*cked us over.”
Show me the money
The administration’s effort to reverse the conditions that have led to the chill in organizing have been wildly successful, but they nonetheless impact a pretty narrow band of people — a narrow band of people who are already ideologically committed Democrats or, in some cases, even further left.
Existing union members tend to be less involved in organizing, and while I’ve met many workers on strike to help win younger workers equal pay and benefits, it’s only natural that a longtime UAW member, Teamster, or Machinist would be more focused on what the union has delivered for them. For a long time, it’s fair to say that they were not feeling the value of their monthly dues.
In so many cases, unions were forced to take horrible deals that created pay tiers, killed pensions, tied workers to unsustainable shifts, and reduced their health care benefits. The Teamsters, UAW, Machinists, food manufacturers, and other unions all found themselves in some deep holes entering the decade.
That’s started to turn around over the past three years, in part due to the administration’s public and private support. Julie Su, the acting Secretary of Labor, was involved in brokering a detente with a 61.5% pay raise for east coast longshoremen after two days on strike, and she’s been heavily involved in the bitter talks between Boeing and striking Machinists as their work stoppage has drifted into its second month.
The deal will be heavily scrutinized by IAM Local 751’s 33,000 Boeing employees, who overwhelmingly voted down a contract offer that came tepidly recommended by union leaders. This offer reaches a 35% pay increase over four years, nearly hitting the requested 40%, and returns the bonus that had been stripped out of another offer. It doesn’t return the pension, but there’s a 12% match on the 401(k).
I couldn’t tell you how closely rank and file members of other unions watch these kind of negotiations, or how much they feel invested in those talks, but only the UAW’s deal has really produced any kind of industrial ripple effect. A few solid contracts are not going to reset perceptions or provide the assurance that working people are looking for in an economy that’s stretched them thin with inflation.
Moreover, unions are no longer central to members’ lives in the way they were decades ago. People change jobs more frequently, labor leadership calcified, and the union hall does not function as a social hub. Nearly every national union has backed Kamala Harris, but member education by locals very much varies.
More than anything else, just about 10% of American workers are union members, and a majority of those are public employees. No matter how good organized labor has had it over the past three years, it doesn’t do much for a vast majority of working class Americans.
There are other, broader policies that the Harris campaign should tout, including the huge increase in the overtime threshold. Salaried workers who make up to $58K will be eligible for overtime pay, which opens it up to 4.3 million people, starting in January.
It goes without saying that Trump’s NLRB and Department of Labor had the exact opposite approach to workers’ rights, organizing, and pay, having rescinded joint employer standards and the overtime pay hike. And as I’ve outlined, Project 2025 calls for the total obliteration of the NLRB, OSHA, and Department of Labor, which would destroy the workplace for most Americans. If JD Vance and Elon Musk have as much influence as anticipated, the entire government could be privatized as the nation turns into a patchwork of techno-monarchies.
Still, very few people vote based on policy proposals or crackpot ideological missions, and voting in one’s own “self-interest” is more complicated than it seems. Like any other kind of voter, working class people and union members vote based on cultural affinities and vibes, judging personal values as much as personal finance. It’s how we wind up with Donald Trump mocking Kamala Harris for having worked at McDonald’s while in school, then enjoying the good PR that comes from a make-believe shift as a fry cooker.
Those photos are pinging all over the internet, while this righteous and pitch perfect retort from UAW president Shawn Fain will only reach a fraction of the people:
It’s genuinely hard to tell whether four years of good deeds will allow Harris to hold on to enough union and working class voters to win the Blue Wall states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. If she fails to win those states, there will be no shortage of blame to go around, and though it’s not exactly fair that Democrats get tagged as elites for raising money from wealthy donors and Republicans get to pose as populists even as they fatten up on nine-figure contributions from the sort of people who would have lairs inside volcanoes, the Harris campaign shouldn’t have expected anything less.
What scares me is that the damage that Trump’s fanatical backers will do to the regulatory infrastructure that guards workers’ rights will be so complete that rebuilding will take a generation, not simply a new general counsel. If only that were easier to communicate — or seemed like it actually impacted people.
Wait, Before You Leave!
Progress Report has raised over $7 million dollars for progressive candidates and causes, breaks national stories about corrupt politicians, and delivers incisive analysis, and goes deep into the grassroots.
None of the money we’ve raised for candidates and causes goes to producing this newsletter or all of the related projects we put out. In fact, it costs me money to do this. So, I need your help.
For just $5 a month, you can buy a premium subscription that includes:
Premium member-only newsletters with original reporting
Financing new projects and paying new reporters
Access to upcoming chats and live notes
You can also make a one-time donation to Progress Report’s GoFundMe campaign — doing so will earn you a shout-out in the next weekend edition of the newsletter!
The pictures of Trump working at McDonald’s should be labeled “impossible burgers only today!”