Remember when then-candidate Joe Biden promised to be “the most pro-union president you’ve ever seen”?
It’s been a go-to line during his presidency. And as his term draws to a close, he claims to have delivered.
True, under Biden’s leadership, the National Labor Relations Board went after some of the unions’ biggest enemies: Amazon, Starbucks, and American auto manufacturers, for example. But those efforts were less about helping workers—who weren’t showing much love for “Union Joe” before he dropped out—and more about helping union officials.
In only that sense was he “pro-union.”
And by that definition, Vice President Kamala Harris may be more “pro-union” than Biden.
Sure, Harris says less about unions than Biden. She didn’t use the word “union” in the debate against former President Donald Trump or in her only interview since the nomination. She didn’t mention unions once in her convention speech (neither did her VP running mate Tim Walz) or in her recently released economic plan.
It’s nowhere on her campaign website unless you count the “Union Strong” T-shirts selling for $36.
But those running the country’s largest public sector unions—the American Federation of Teachers, the National Education Association, the Service Employees International Union, and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees—seem very sure Harris will reward their loyalty.
Not only did each of those unions quickly endorse Harris after she replaced Biden, but they put all their chips on it, with AFT, SEIU, and AFSCME describing their commitment to Harris as “ALL IN.”
Why are union executives so sure of a return on their investment?
For starters, Harris’ political connections with public sector union leaders go back to her run for California attorney general in 2010.
Big Labor broadly endorsed her, and several large public sector unions—SEIU’s Local 1000, in particular—dragged her across the finish line by dumping enormous sums into her campaign. She won a tight race by a tiny margin—just 74,000 votes out of 8.8 million ballots.
Years later, then-Attorney General Harris, seemingly in return for SEIU’s support, blocked the sale of several nonprofit hospitals headed for bankruptcy. SEIU needed leverage against the buyer, a national health care company, which was then fending off the union’s organizing efforts.
Harris provided that leverage. According to a lawsuit later filed against Harris, SEIU’s president “repeatedly” told the health care company that Harris would approve the purchase if it allowed SEIU to organize its hospital workers.
Harris’ “pro-union” advocacy—and public sector unions’ continued campaign donations—also marked her time in the U.S. Senate.
There, she backed politically doomed measures that signaled her support to union leaders. In 2018, she co-sponsored the proposed “Workplace Democracy Act,” a prime example of political doublespeak, authored by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.
Far from safeguarding workplace democracy, the initiative would allow union leaders to represent workers without an election allowing workers to vote on their union representation. Notably, under the Biden-Harris administration, the NLRB has undone many of those democratic protections for workers by administrative fiat.
As vice president, Harris has pushed hard to save the flailing unions representing federal employees. She chaired the White House Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment, a collection of high-ranking officials tasked with identifying ways to promote “worker power, worker organizing, and collective bargaining.”
Under Harris, the task force’s recommendations included ideas such as eliminating “barriers to union organizers being able to talk with employees on federal property about the benefits of organizing a union.” Such recommendations directly assist public sector unions in organizing against the federal government.
Harris’ efforts to boost public sector unions worked. Despite declining union membership rates nationwide, the unionization rate among federal employees reportedly increased by 20% during Harris’ vice presidency.
Just last year, membership increased by 60,000 workers. Union executives are thrilled.
Yet, rank-and-file employees didn’t receive the fruits of Harris’ relationship with union bosses.
In fact, federal employees, supposedly represented by these union executives, gained little in exchange for their union dues. In 2024, they received relatively small pay raises, which disproportionately went to federal employees in liberal cities like Seattle, San Francisco, and New York.
Even the current administration’s Federal Salary Council—whose membership includes powerful union executives—continues to complain that federal employees supposedly receive less in pay than their private sector counterparts.
So, while the Teamsters refuse to formally endorse Harris, the largest public sector unions know exactly what they’d be getting: the most pro-union president since Franklin D. Roosevelt.
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