The United Steelworkers, which represents about 850,000 workers in metals, mining and other industries, also endorsed Harris, saying she is a “crucial part of the most pro-union administration of our time,” United Steelworkers International President David McCall said in a statement.
Labor experts say Harris is a natural choice for unions because as vice president she played a key role in overseeing relations with labor groups during an administration seen as the most pro-union since the New Deal.
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“Union activists and elected leaders realize that defeating Trump is critical,” said Larry Cohen, a former president of the Communications Workers of America union, which endorsed Harris, and a Democratic operative working on voter turnout. “Support for Harris should be automatic given the stakes.”
Harris’ endorsements also poured in earlier this week from the American Federation of Teachers, United Food and Commercial Workers, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, among others.
“We are all for Kamala Harris,” Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which represents more than 1 million public sector workers, said in a written statement Monday afternoon. “Vice President Harris is exactly the right person to address this situation.”
Several other major organizations that previously endorsed Biden, including the Building Trades Unions of North America, the United Auto Workers and the Association of Flight Attendants, are still weighing their decisions.
UAW sources said its board “will meet in the coming days to decide our next steps,” calling Harris “an ally and champion of the UAW and the entire working class.”
Labor support is expected to be critical for the Democratic Party to defeat former President Donald Trump, particularly given the high union density in the key swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.
Unions are among the Democratic Party’s largest funders and are among the largest contributors to Biden’s campaign.
Labor leaders who backed Harris pointed to her record in the White House, where she co-chaired a task force on worker empowerment with former Labor Secretary Marty Walsh that included nearly 70 recommendations to make it easier for workers to organize and bargain collectively. They also highlighted her frequent meetings with union leaders and members, as well as her decision to refuse to cross a picket line during a strike at a Los Angeles hotel last year.
So far, one of Harris’s strongest supporters within the labor movement has come from health care unions in California, her home state.
Just hours after Biden officially dropped out of the race on Sunday, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the nation’s largest private-sector union, announced that its executive board had voted in favor of Harris.
April Verrett, president of the SEIU, which has about 2 million members in health care and other industries, praised Harris in an interview with The Washington Post on Monday for his record as a “champion of care work and caregivers,” a top priority for the union, which represents nurses, doctors, home care and nursing home workers. Verrett cited Harris’ role as vice president in passing new safe staffing standards in nursing homes and improving the affordability of home care and child care.
“We know her very well. We know her work,” said Verrett, who said he has known Harris for years because of their work in California. “It’s no surprise to anyone that we enthusiastically endorsed her for president.”
Sal Rosselli, president emeritus of the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW), which represents about 19,000 health care workers in California, said his union called the union’s endorsement of Harris “the obvious choice.”
The union had already voted weeks earlier to support his candidacy if Biden withdrew when signs appeared his candidacy was in jeopardy, Rosselli said, so it was able to act quickly Sunday.
“When Harris was district attorney in San Francisco, she made sure first-time offenders had job opportunities in the health care industry,” Rosselli said.
For months, Biden and Trump have been jostling to position themselves as allies of the working class, even though nearly every major union had pledged its support to Biden before he dropped out of the race.
Last week, the president of the Teamsters, a powerful union of about 1.3 million workers, mostly in the transportation sector, took the extraordinary step of speaking at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, angering White House staff and some union leaders.
The union has yet to endorse the race and has said its members’ votes “will not be taken for granted.”
