Long won by the Democrats, the vote of unionized workers is today uncertain. But it could decide the outcome of the presidential election in key states in the Midwest…
To hope to win the presidential election, Kamala Harris will have to massively convince and mobilize the unions and their membersparticularly in the key states of the North of the country (Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania) and Nevada, which have the highest density of unionized employees in the country: this is the case at least 12% of workers in these states.
If the rate of unionization of American employees has declined sharply in recent decades, going from 20% in 1983 to 10% today (i.e. 14.4 million people), unionized workers remain a significant electoral force in many states of the Rust Belt (rust belt), this industrial region in the north-east of the country so nicknamed because the factories which have long made it rich are now often abandoned. However, even if the Democratic candidate has received the support of the largest union centers in the country, doubts remain about the electoral behavior of unionized workers themselves.
Their electoral loyalty has become more than uncertain, with some no longer hesitating, as in 2016, to openly break with the instructions of their organization. It is these internal divergences which led to the truck drivers union, Teamstersor even that of firefighters, International Association of Fire Fightersnot to call for voting for any candidate during the presidential election of November 2024.
These decisions, and the conditions in which they were takenillustrate the heterogeneity of union organizations, as much as the difficulties of the Democratic Party in convincing certain segments of the electorate of unionized workers, increasingly attracted by the populist discourse of Donald Trump. If unionized workers traditionally support the Democratic Party, and if Kamala Harris is still credited by opinion surveys with a large lead among unionized workers and their families, the gap with Donald Trump, for this electoral group, is reminiscent of more the 2016 presidential election than that of 2020.
The Democratic Party and the unions, a troubled relationship
The recent history of the relationship between the Democratic Party and labor unions (Union in English) is the story of a decoupling more than a total rupture, between a political organization accused of having abandoned the working class for the benefit of the business world, and employee protection organizations subject to a growing disconnect between the decisions of union leaders and their base.
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Since the 1990s, Democratic candidates have faced a certain disaffection on the part of unionized workers, which was not immediately reflected at the ballot box, but rather in the state of mind of employees. The Clinton administrations’ commitment to free trade treaties was instrumental. These treaties, embodied in particular by NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, which entered into force in 1994, have often been perceived as contrary to the interests of workers and responsible for the relocation of companies to the countries of the South. This disaffection of unions towards the Democratic Party peaked during the 2016 presidential election.
This election saw many white, unionized workers abandon their traditional partisan loyalty and express their discontent by voting for Donald Trump, the Republican candidate who promised to renegotiate NAFTA and bring jobs back to American soil. Although few unions officially supported Trump in 2016, many unionized workers broke with the pro-democratic instructions of their unions for the occasion.
Some quickly became disillusioned with pro-business policies and Trump administration’s anti-union…but not all.
The Trumpist strategy towards employees: identity vote versus class vote
In fact, Trumpist rhetoric did not target members of the working class in their social or professional condition (“unionized workers”), but addressed their cultural identity by activating discourses around the so-called “social downgrading of men.” Whites.”
By promoting an identity vote to the detriment of a class vote, Donald Trump succeeded, in 2016, to capture a larger share of the electorate of unionized workers than Mitt Romney, unsuccessful Republican candidate in the 2012 presidential election. 64% of union voters then voted for the Democratic candidate, outgoing President Barack Obama, and 30% for Romney, a difference of 34 points. In 2016, about 55% of union voters voted for Hillary Clinton and 38% for Trump, a margin of just 16 points in favor of the Democratic candidate. A comfortable lead, certainly, but down by almost 18 points compared to the 2012 election.
In 2016, this unionized “white male” electorate nevertheless provided Trump with the few thousand votes that contributed to his victory in key states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, and therefore to his accession to the White House.
Will Trumpist rhetoric once again have an effect on unionized workers in key states, and influence their vote as in 2016 and 2020? No one can predict it today.
Joe Biden’s success with union workers
If the Democratic Party continues to receive the vote of a majority of unionized workers, the vote gap for this category of the population between the two parties has narrowed significantly in the key states forming the Blue Wall Democrats (Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania).
It is in this reduced gap that the presidential elections of 2016 and 2020 were played out. During that of 2020, the vote of unionized employees in favor of Joe Biden had increased slightly compared to that for Hillary Clinton in 2016 (60%), while Trump maintained his score. According to a study by Center for American Progress Action Fundpublished in July 2024, the results of the 2022 mid-term elections confirmed the trend initiated in 2020.
In addition to the relative rejection that Donald Trump may generate, two factors can help explain the recent increase in the vote of unionized employees in favor of the Democrats.
The first explanatory factor is linked to the personality and personal trajectory of President Biden. In 2020, he presented himself as the defender of the working and middle classes, emphasizing his own social origins (he was raised in the working-class neighborhoods of Scranton, Pennsylvania) and his attachment to the union movement and its role in the construction of the American middle class. A sign of the importance given to Labor Union by Biden, he is the first sitting president to have attended an employee strike in person. On September 26, 2023, he traveled to Belleville, Michigan, to meet striking employees of the United Auto Workers (UAW) union, and assured them of his support. Megaphone in hand, he told them that they “deserved a significant salary increase”, before adding, regarding the leaders of the Big Three (General Motors, Ford, Stellantis/ex-Chrysler) “we saved them, it is time for them to act in our favor”.
Second, during the first three years of his presidency, Biden and his administration took numerous actions to protect the rights of workers and unions.
The renewal of industrial policies initiated during his mandate through the adoption of major infrastructure financing plans and the development of a more ecological economy (Bipartisan Infrastructure Law in 2021 And Inflation Reduction Act in 2022), will have helped to revive industrial economic activity, while promoting the unionization of employees and assuring unions that part of the public contracts resulting from these policies should go to unionized employees.
In April 2021, President Biden also created, by executive order, the White House Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowermentchaired by Vice President Kamala Harris, whose goal was to help workers organize and be in a better position to negotiate with their employers. Finally, Biden undid many anti-union actions initiated by the Trump administration, for example by appointing to the National Labor Relations Board many members favorable to employee rights and unions, replacing those appointed by Trump.
2024 presidential election: for a few thousand votes…
The union vote, without being sufficient to win a presidential election, is nevertheless necessary and crucial for the Democratic candidate, at the head of a heterogeneous political coalition in which each group and each voter will have to be mobilized.
In four key states – Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Nevada – victory will be decided by a few thousand votes and the electorate of union workers will be part of it. A few thousand votes on November 5, 2024, will correspond to a few percent more or less participation from the traditional Democratic electorate, and a few percent of unionized votes in favor or against the Democratic candidate. This is why the Biden administration took very seriously the dockers’ strike initiated by the International Longshoremen’s Association on 1er October, to the point of putting pressure on the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX, the organization representing container shipping companies) for a rapid resolution of the social conflict. This strike, which ultimately only lasted three dayscould have changed the course of the presidential election if it had been prolonged and affected the daily lives of millions of Americans due to rising prices, food and medicine shortages, etc., which it could have generate.
In 2020, Joe Biden succeeded in bringing a larger majority of unionized workers back into the Democratic fold. For the 2024 election, it remains to be seen whether Kamala Harris will be able to capitalize on the legacy of Joe Biden, the most pro-Union American presidents as he likes to define himself, and if the pro-union policies implemented by his administration will pay off in return…
