What do workers look to gain or lose this election?
Eleni Sefanit
I remember the one moment where I was proud to say I attended New York University- a notoriously elitist, money-driven, corrupt institution, to put it lightly. That day was in Spring of 2021, where within a week anyone, from the NYU President to Senator Bernie Sanders, was giving their remarks on the GSOC-UAW Local 2110 Union Strike of NYU grad student employees, and their collective bargaining fight for a living wage.
One of the thousands of grad students who were striking was my Teaching Assistant. She sent a comprehensive email to the class detailing her reason for joining the strike - including her shocking $381 a week salary. She assured us that many of us will end up in grad school, and be TA’s ourselves, and that she hopes we remember this moment in the future. And that I did.
Getting my first look into labor organizing and collective bargaining at an institution like New York University, whose 5.4 billion dollar endowment is greater than the GDP of the countries of Belize and Gambia combined - was just dipping my toes into understanding the 6.13 trillion dollar institution all Americans live under: the US government. For workers and their unions, this election has been a unique and unprecedented moment, and has spurred the dividing question amongst the labor movement: is endorsing government officials worthwhile?
Political ties
Labor unions endorsing candidates can be dated all the way back to Phillip II’s establishment of the 8 hour work day in the 16th century. Many unions today including AFL-CIO, the largest labor union in the United States, have consistently endorsed Democratic presidential candidates, such as Joe Biden in 2020 and Hillary Clinton in 2016. Republican administrations have notoriously pursued anti-labor initiatives, including Ronald Regan’s order to fire 11,000 federal employees during the 1981 Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization or PATCO Strike. But U.S. politicians, Democrats and Republicans alike, have a history of sabotaging labor unions and collective bargaining strikes.
Jonathan Swan of the AFL-CIO Union, a federation representing a wide range of municipal and trade workers, spoke on the failures of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama’s administrations . through the passing of anti-worker bills including the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and Obamas’ attempted Trans-Pacific Partnership, were both rejected by workers under the belief it would only increase employment internationally and not provide enough
enterprise regulation.
Unions have persisted to hold successful strikes and bargaining without political affiliation or support. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, one of the largest American unions, recently announced it is not endorsing a 2024 presidential candidate despite backing each Democratic nominee since Bill Clinton. In 1997 Teamsters organized the UPS Workers Strike of 1997, one of the most successful strikes in U.S history, and were met with backlash from newly re-elected Bill Clinton, with the president stating “'This strike is beginning to hurt not only the company but its employees and the people who depend on it''.
Teamsters has maintained their labor victories, from 10,000 jobs created from the 1997 UPS Strike or the UPS 2023 contract’s wage increases, health protections, and 22,500 open positions.
Workers rights across the Atlantic
In the U.K, the Labour Party was founded on the foundations of union organising, with major labor unions in the U.K. having direct affiliations with the nation’s governing party. But in recent years, new conflicts of interests within the U.K.’s labor movement and electoral politics and a growing shift towards centrism has led to the erasure of support from labor unions.
Despite the recent victory of the U.K’s newly elected Labour Party Prime Minister Keir Starmer, relations between British labor unions and the government are fraught with tension. UNITE - a prominent union and backer of the Labour Party, publicly announced they would not be endorsing the Labour Party's General election Manifesto this year. Unite believed there were more protections needed for workers- specifically within employers’ zero-hour contracts and “hire and fire policies”. This is starkly different to Unite’s stance to Labour under Corbyn’s leadership, when they contributed £3m to the Labour Party’s 2019 campaign.
This highlights the fundamental conflict of interest between grassroots labor unions and government officials - money. In the 2023 Writers Guild of America and SAG- AFTRA strike 60,000 entertainment workers mobilized nationally to fight unfair compensation and advocated for better protections from the use of artificial intelligence. Both unions backed Kamala Harris for 2024 President after their public statements in support of the strike. Entertainment workers contributed $43,700,000 to political campaigns in 2020 alone. Yet despite this, the Democrat party passed laws in direct conflict with these workers’ interests. Harris’ consistently supported anti- SAG-AFTRA WGA strike policies including endorsing the widening use of artificial intelligence, her political donor relationships with major strike target entertainment executives including Disney, and a lack of stance on intellectual property and patent regulations.
The past four years in both the U.S. and the U.K. have shown whether you are a TA making minimum wage or the most acclaimed actor in Hollywood, real and lasting action comes from the people first. Given that union workers make up 20% of voters in U.S. swing states for the 2024 election, American Presidential and Congressional candidates need to put their mouth where their money is and listen to the unions they depend on for their continued support.
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