What do unions look for when they endorse candidates? Hint: It's not the party label
By BERRY CRAIG
AFT Kentucky Local 1360
It's hardly a secret that unions mostly endorse Democrats for public office, but it's not because of the party label. Unions endorse candidates who consistently support unions.
Check out the AFL-CIO's online Legislative Scorecard.
On a scale of 0 to 100 percent, the AFL-CIO rates all U.S. representatives and all senators on where they "stand on issues important to working families, including strengthening Social Security and Medicare, freedom to join a union, improving workplace safety and more."
The latest scorecard is from 2023. The AFL-CIO scored House members on 10 bills the federation considered especially significant for working people.
The average score for all House Democrats was 99 percent. Six percent was the average score for all House Republicans.
The scorecard doesn't just rate lawmakers for 2023. It also tabulates a "lifetime" score, or how they have voted since they were first sworn in.
How did Kentucky's six congressmen score?
Republicans
First District, James Comer, 10 percent n 2023 and 12 percent lifetime.
Second, Brett Guthrie, 10/12
Fourth, Thomas Massie, 10/15
Fifth, Hal Rogers, 10/15
Sixth, Andy Barr, 10, 10.
Democrat
Morgan McGarvey, Third District, 100, and 100 lifetime.
A note on former Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer of Oregon, Donald Trump's nominee for labor secretary, who was elected in 2022 and was defeated last November by Oregon State AFL-CIO endorsed Democrat Janelle Bynum. Much of the media described Chavez-DeRemer as pro-union mainly because she was among only a handful of Republicans to join several Democrats in co-sponsoring the Protecting the Right to Organize Act (PRO Act for short) and the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act. Some critics charged that her record is more pro-Trump than pro-union. Longtime Kentucky union activist Kirk Gillenwaters, president of the Kentucky Alliance for Retired Americans and a Louisville United Auto Workers Local 862 retiree member, suspects she endorsed both bills knowing that neither one could overcome certain Republican filibusters in the Senate and that Trump picked her as a ploy to win union support. Gillenwaters pointed out that lawmakers sometimes co-sponsor a bill they know is going nowhere just to curry favor with voters or groups that might support them. “Voting records aren’t based on sponsoring bills," he said. "It’s how you vote on them.”
Chavez-DeRemer scored 10 percent on the 2023 scorecard, having voted the union position only on a stopgap continuing resolution to avoid a government shutdown. She also endorsed Trump.
While AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler praised her, notably for supporting the two bills, she added, "But Donald Trump is the President-elect of the United States—not Rep. Chavez-DeRemer—and it remains to be seen what she will be permitted to do as Secretary of Labor in an administration with a dramatically anti-worker agenda. Despite having distanced himself from Project 2025 during his campaign, President-elect Trump has put forward several cabinet nominees with strong ties to Project 2025. That 900-page document has proposals that would strip overtime pay, eliminate the right to organize, and weaken health and safety standards."
How did Republican Senators Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul score?
The scorecard also rated members of the Senate on seven bills important to unions.
The average score for all Senate Republicans was three percent. Ninety-nine percent was the average score for all Senate Democrats
McConnell, 0 percent in 2023, 17 percent lifetime.
Paul, 0, 10.
Comparing the 2024 Democratic and Republican platforms on unions.
Many people don't bother to read a party platform. "But don’t dismiss it as fluff; at least since World War II, it can tell you a lot about [how the party will spend your tax dollars] and seek to regulate your behavior if it wins power," wrote Marjorie Hershey, a professor emeritus of political science at Indiana University, for The Conversation.
The Democratic platform spells out the party's labor philosophy and policies.
Democrats know that Wall Street didn’t build America. The middle class built America – and unions built the middle class. President Biden and Vice President Harris are proud to lead the most pro-union Administration in history. President Biden named staunch labor allies and former union leaders to positions across the government, and empowered them to fight for good jobs and workers’ rights. Biden is the first President to walk a picket line, joining UAW workers on strike in Detroit before they won historic wage increases last year. He knows that when unions win, all workers benefit and as we rebuild our economy for the future, every worker needs a voice and a fair shot.
Democrats will keep fighting to pass the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, to give everyone the right to organize for better pay, benefits and working conditions, and to hold abusive bosses accountable for violating workers’ rights. We oppose state right-to-work laws, which drive down wages and leave workers unsafe; and we support penalizing employers who engage in union busting. We’ll work to pass the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act, guaranteeing public sector bargaining rights; and to codify a right to organize for domestic workers, farm workers, and other unprotected laborers. Democrats will continue to create strong labor standards for jobs created with taxpayer dollars through legislation and with strong Buy American rules. Consistent with the law, we will ensure that federal grants and other assistance to employers are contingent on recipients committing to not interfering with workers’ efforts to form a union. By leveraging the benefits of federal grants for infrastructure, manufacturing and services, we will seek to ensure that all Americans have the opportunity to participate in the American Dream.
We’ll strengthen enforcement and penalties for safety, wage, and other labor and employment violations. And, Democrats will continue to aggressively hold companies accountable for violating child labor law. We’ve increased funding for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to protect workers on the job; and we’ll continue to support workplace whistleblowers.
At the same time, we’re pushing to guarantee workers the pay, benefits, and protections they deserve as well. We passed the Butch Lewis Act, keeping over 2 million people’s hard-earned pensions solvent. We also raised the minimum wage for federal contractors to $17.20 an hour, and will keep pushing Congress to increase it to at least $15 for all Americans. We’re making millions more hourly workers eligible for overtime pay; and we’ve cracked down on wage theft and exploitation, recovering over $750 million for low-wage workers wrongly denied pay. We’re making it harder for employers to misclassify workers as independent contractors to avoid paying them full pay and benefits. We’re banning most non-compete agreements, freeing workers to move between jobs and negotiate. And we’ve restricted mandatory arbitration, so fewer employers can silence wronged employees in a workplace dispute.
The Republican Platform says the party is dedicated "to the Forgotten Men and Women of America." But it doesn't mention unions or organized labor. Critics say the omission was a deliberate attempt to disguise Donald Trump and his party's anti-labor philosophy and policies.
"The idea that Donald Trump has ever, or will ever, care about working people is demonstrably false,” said Shuler in September, 2023, when it seemed all but certain that Donald Trump would win the 2024 GOP presidential nomination. "For his entire time as president, he actively sought to roll back worker protections, wages and the right to join a union at every level....Working people see through his transparent efforts to reinvent history. We are not buying the lies that Donald Trump is selling. We will continue to support and organize for the causes and candidates that represent our values.”
When he ran for president and won in 2016, Trump said he supported right to work. His White House threatened to veto the PRO Act when the Democratic-majority House passed it in 2020. Mark Gruenberg of People's World quoted then AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka: “This bill is for working people — and President Trump’s veto threat, though replete with inaccuracies and distortions, speaks volumes about who he is really fighting for….We will not rest until the PRO Act is the law of the land and the rights of workers are restored."
While the GOP platform is silent about unions, the far-right-wing Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, a blueprint for a second Trump term, is an all-out assault on organized labor, unions say. According to researchers for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees:
- Allowing states to ban labor unions in the private sector.
- Making it easier for corporations to fire workers who engage in collective action or organizing.
- Allowing corporations to get rid of unions even when the workers are protected by a signed union contract.
- Forcing workers to hold secret ballot elections to form a union even when their employer has agreed to voluntarily recognize it.
- Eliminating overtime protections for workers.
- Ignoring the federal minimum wage.
- Eliminating the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, which has relieved many AFSCME members of an overwhelming student debt burden.
- Ending merit staffing in the federal government so Trump can hire unqualified loyalists for thousands of positions now filled by qualified, trained, nonpartisan career employees — among them AFSCME members.
- Eliminating federal rules that protect children from working in mines, meatpacking plants and other dangerous workplaces.
Candidate Trump claimed he had nothing to do with Project 2025, but CNN turned up 140 people who worked in the Trump administration who helped write it. President-elect “has since nominated several authors or contributors from the controversial conservative presidential wish list to his administration,” reported Kiara Alfonseca and Katherine Faulders of ABC News.
Why the AFL-CIO endorsed Biden (both times), then Harris, when Biden opted against a second term.
The AFL-CIO endorsed Biden for reelection in June, 2024. It was the federation's earliest endorsement in a presidential race.
“There’s absolutely no question that Joe Biden is the most pro-union president in our lifetimes,” said Shuler. “From bringing manufacturing jobs home to America to protecting our pensions and making historic investments in infrastructure, clean energy and education, we’ve never seen a president work so tirelessly to rebuild our economy from the bottom up and middle out. We’ve never seen a president more forcefully advocate for workers’ fundamental right to join a union. Now, it’s time to finish the job. The largest labor mobilization in history begins today, supercharged by the excitement and enthusiasm of hundreds of thousands of union volunteers who will work tirelessly to re-elect a president they know has our backs and will always fight for us.”
After Biden bowed out, the AFL-CIO endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris. Said Shuler: “From day one, Vice President Kamala Harris has been a true partner in leading the most pro-labor administration in history. At every step in her distinguished career in public office, she’s proven herself a principled and tenacious fighter for working people and a visionary leader we can count on. From taking on Wall Street and corporate greed to leading efforts to expand affordable child care and support vulnerable workers, she’s shown time and again that she’s on our side. With Kamala Harris in the White House, together we’ll continue to build on the powerful legacy of the Biden-Harris administration to create good union jobs, grow the labor movement and make our economy work for all of us.”
Also, In September, 2023, Shuler noted that "UAW members are on the picket line fighting for fair wages and against the very corporate greed that Donald Trump represents. Working people see through his transparent efforts to reinvent history. We are not buying the lies that Donald Trump is selling. We will continue to support and organize for the causes and candidates that represent our values.”
Biden, the most-pro union president since Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s and 1940s, was indeed the first president to join a union picket line when he met striking UAW workers in Michigan. Trump came to Michigan, too, but sought UAW support by giving a speech in a non-union auto parts plant. The symbolism was not lost on organized labor.
Anyway, here's the bottom line: Shuler said the AFL-CIO will continue to support and organize for the causes and candidates that represent our values. She didn't say Democratic candidates, but evidence overwhelmingly shows that since FDR, they have been far more likely to represent the ideals and goals of organized labor than Republicans. Hence, Democrats get the lion's share of union endorsements.