California unions endorse Kamala Harris for president, citing her strong labor record

Labor groups, quick to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris early this week after she emerged as the presumptive Democratic candidate for president, hope the former California senator will build on the pro-worker agenda established by the Biden administration — if she can beat former President Donald Trump.

Following President Joe Biden’s announcement on Sunday that he would not seek reelection this November, some of the biggest labor groups in the country warned a second Trump term could widen wealth inequalities and lead to workers losing health care access. Given the alternative, labor leaders expect workers to play a pivotal role campaigning for Harris in the dramatically altered 2024 presidential race to ensure unions still have an ally in the White House next year.

“Workers and their unions are going to be extremely active in this election because there’s never been more at stake for working people,” said Sal Rosselli, the president emeritus of the National Union of Healthcare Workers, which endorsed Harris on Monday.

That same day, the AFL-CIO announced that the executive board, which represents about 12.5 million workers, unanimously endorsed Harris for president. The same day, the Service Employees International Union California, which represents 700,000 workers in the state, also backed the vice president.

On Thursday, Harris heralded the power of unions at the American Federation of Teachers convention in Houston while casting her opponent as an enemy of workers. The teachers union endorsed the vice president earlier this week.

“One of the best ways to keep our nation moving forward is to give workers a voice, to protect the freedom to organize, to defend the freedom to collectively bargain, to end union busting,” Harris said.

Harris’ association to Biden, widely regarded as the most pro-worker president since President Franklin D. Roosevelt, already endeared her to the labor movement. But Harris has pro-labor bonafides of her own.

As California’s attorney general, Harris initiated the investigations that lead to a $575 million settlement with the hospital group Sutter Health after it was accused of inflating healthcare costs for Californians through anticompetitive practices. As a senator for the state, Harris co-sponsored a bill in Congress to mandate breaks and overtime pay for domestic workers.

While the labor sector has traditionally supported Democratic candidates, experts say that union participation in the 2024 presidential election will be critical.

Support from unions is more than an endorsement, said Saba Waheed, director of the University of California, Los Angeles Labor Center, “With that comes resources, like actual workers who will go out into the field for you.”

Harris understands that labor groups are a powerful organizing mechanism, with “boots on the ground” that can knock on doors in swing states, Waheed said. While unions expect a Harris administration will continue prioritizing a pro-worker agenda at the federal level in the same way her predecessor has.

With these endorsements, Waheed added, labor groups are saying, “We’ll fight for you. We will back you in this really concrete way, but what you have to show us is that you are there for working people.”

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the United Food and Commercial Workers, and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers also issued Harris endorsements this week.

“We are ready to make history by sending the nation’s first African-American, Asian-American, woman President to the Oval Office with a worker-powered victory this November,” said David Huerta, President of SEIU United Service Workers West, in a statement.

SEIU Local 1000 President Anica Walls said in an interview that Harris has a solid pro-labor track record as vice president, which includes protecting the pensions of over a million workers through the American Rescue Plan, the 2021 stimulus package in response to the COVID-19 induced recession. Walls also noted Harris’ support for the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, an attempt to reform federal labor legislation that passed the U.S. House in 2021 but did not make it out of the upper chamber.

Walls said the nearly 100,000 California state workers represented by Local 1000 are a powerful organizing force. She hopes her union’s mobilization efforts will ensure a pro-labor administration, like Biden’s, will be in the White House in 2025. SEIU California plans to send 21 delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago next month.

“That’s what our members would like to see out of Vice President Kamala Harris, have her continue in the work that she’s done, and maybe even step it up a notch, right?” Walls said. “Making sure that job security, health care and pensions stay intact for workers.” She hopes Harris will secure even more protections and benefits for workers at the federal level. Labor leaders in the state hope a Harris administration could lay the groundwork at the federal level for the California universal health care bill Gov. Gavin Newson signed in 2023.

Earlier this month, International Brotherhood of Teamsters President Sean O’Brien spoke at the Republican National Convention, signaling that Democrats have not won over the support of every major union.

O’Brien’s presence at the RNC frustrated some other labor leaders who see Biden’s administration as a strong ally to the union. O’Brien did not endorse Trump but he did rail against corporate greed and promise to work with national leaders who support union priorities.

“We will create an agenda and work with a bipartisan coalition ready to accomplish something real for the American worker,” said O’Brien on July 15. “I don’t care about getting criticized. It’s an honor to be the first Teamster in our 121- year history to address the Republican National Convention.”

Rosselli, of the National Union of Healthcare Workers, said labor’s enthusiastic support for Harris should be no surprise when considering the alternative.

Rosselli contrasted Harris’ labor record with conservative policy agendas outlined in Project 2025 that threaten protections for public employees by reinstating Trump-era executive orders that deprioritize seniority when laying off workers and prevent representatives from working on union activity during their work hours. Trump has distanced himself from Project 2025 but several of his former staffers were involved in creation and planned execution. Harris criticized the agenda on Thursday, calling it a “plan to return America to a dark past.”

NUHW’s support for Harris was so early, Rosselli said, that the union’s board voted to endorse the vice president on July 13 in the event Biden dropped out when it appeared the president’s chances of reelection were dwindling.

Rosselli, who is also a delegate for the California Democratic Party, said his members are excited to get involved in the campaign in California and other states where the race will be closer, like Nevada.

Jake Grumbach, an associate professor at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, said labor support is one of the most valuable endorsements that Harris could receive.

“California is a pretty strong labor state and Kamala Harris consistently had the support of labor within California,” Grumbach said.

Harris’ alignment with Biden, who was the first U.S. president to walk a picket line last September with United Auto Workers strikers, further improves voters’ perception of her as a pro-labor Democrat, which Grumbach said is helpful to build excitement around a late-to-the-race candidate and will get voters out to the polls.

Republicans under Trump have worked to appeal to working class voters, Grumbach said, though two big legislative efforts pushed by his administration were high-end tax cuts and ending Obamacare, both of which are unpopular with the working class. Despite the effort to portray Republicans as a party for American workers, few labor leaders have endorsed the former president.