Harris makes pitch to union voters in ‘blue wall’ states

DETROIT - Vice President Kamala Harris sought to shore up the support of organized labor in so-called “blue wall” states at the end of the holiday weekend, stressing that union members have a binary choice in November between her and former president Donald Trump, a candidate she said has a history of hostility toward workers.

Harris campaigned in Michigan on Monday, then headed to Pennsylvania, where she addressed steelworkers alongside President Joe Biden - their first campaign event together since he announced he was dropping out of the race and endorsing Harris. And Harris’s running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, addressed a union gathering in Milwaukee, the largest city in another key state for Democrats in November.

In Pittsburgh, Harris said U.S. Steel should remain domestically owned and operated, echoing Biden’s words in March that warned against the steel producer being scooped up by a Japanese metal giant.

“The president mentioned it: U.S. Steel is an historic American company, and it is vital for our nation to maintain strong American steel companies,” she said. “And I couldn’t agree more with President Biden. U.S. Steel should remain American-owned and American-operated. And I will always have the backs of American steelworkers.”

An unconventional race that features a new name at the top of the ticket and a truncated sprint to the White House still held true to one late-summer ritual: politicians making their pitch to union workers on the holiday dedicated to laborers - though Trump and his running mate held no events.

In introducing Harris, Biden said she would be union-friendly in his mold, and that she played a part in a lot of the administration’s work improving the lives of middle-class families, including efforts to shore up benefits for union workers and to protect the right to organize.

“I have no problem walking a picket line, nor does Kamala,” Biden said to a crowd of about 600 wearing Harris-Walz union T-shirts at the local branch of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) on Pittsburgh’s Hot Metal Street. “We’ll always walk alongside you.”

“I’m honored to be considered the most pro-union president ever,” he said, later adding: “She’ll be a historic pro-union president.”

Biden told the crowd that his administration had worked to stabilize a financially troubled union pension plan, buttressing the retirements of more than a million workers. He said union work requirements were also baked into the federal infrastructure bill.

“Federal projects build American roads, bridges, highways, and will be made with American products by American workers,” he said.

Harris’s remarks about the sale of U.S. Steel to Japan-based Nippon Steel Corp. come amid efforts to rebuild American manufacturing, and both Biden and Trump have expressed their opposition to the deal. The effort is opposed by the United Steelworkers union, which has endorsed Harris. It also represents Harris staking out a major policy position during a race where she has not offered many.

U.S. Steel spokesman Tucker Elcock defended the proposed merger: “We’re confident that Nippon Steel’s acquisition of U.S. Steel will revitalize the American steel rust belt, benefit American workers, local communities, and national security in a way no other alternative can.”

Earlier in Detroit, Harris directed her fire at Trump, saying his record shows he will continue to be hostile to workers.

“As president, we will always remember Donald Trump blocked overtime benefits for millions of workers and blocked efforts to raise the minimum wage,” she said. “He appointed union busters to the National Labor Relations Board, and he supported so-called right-to-work laws.”

As she spoke, the gathered union members chanted, “Trump’s a scab” - a union insult for someone who crosses a picket line to work, weakening a strike.

Neither Trump nor his running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, had any advertised events on Labor Day - something the Harris campaign sought to draw attention to.

In the past two presidential election years, Labor Day has kicked off the 60-day sprint to the election. In 2020, Trump held a White House news conference on Labor Day, where he vowed to end the covid-19 pandemic and pull the country out of the economic slump it caused. Four years before that, he visited Ohio.

In a statement, Harris campaign spokesperson Joseph Costello said that Trump “is ditching workers on Labor Day because he is an anti-worker, anti-union extremist who will sell out working families for his billionaire donors if he takes power.”

Earlier Monday, Trump wrote posts on his social media platform, Truth Social, wishing workers a happy Labor Day and highlighting his administration’s work to bolster American workers while he was in office. He asserted that “Kamala and Biden have undone all of that.”

Harris is trying to garner the strong union support enjoyed by Biden, who has frequently described himself as the most union-friendly president in history. He was the first president to walk a picket line, in 2023, and unions - including steelworkers - helped him win Pennsylvania in 2020 and will probably be vital to Harris’s chances four years later.

Harris’s campaign sought to stress that she too would be protective of American workers. The selection of Walz as her running mate was seen as reinforcing Harris’s union bona fides. Both Walz and his wife are union members, and his tenure as governor was seen as filled with pro-worker benefits.

Walz has served as an emissary to labor groups since joining the ticket, addressing unions at three of his first four solo speeches for the campaign, including his Monday appearance in Milwaukee.

Speaking to union members of the Milwaukee Area Labor Council, AFL-CIO, at its annual “Laborfest” event, Walz continued to argue that he and Harris are the top allies of laborers while accusing Trump and Vance of being anti-union.

“It’s not bragging if it’s true: She was part of the most pro-union administration in American history,” Walz said of Harris, also touting his own work as a former union member and governor of Minnesota. “From sticking up for workers to voting for fair legislation to walking picket lines, she was there with workers every step of the way.”

He told attendees wearing shirts from the Wisconsin SEIU, Sheet Metal Workers International Association, AFSCME, NEA and the IBEW that Republicans had accused him of being in the pocket of organized labor, and he said he replied, “That’s a damn lie. I am the pocket.”

Walz drew applause for voicing support of the Pro Act, legislation to protect workers’ rights to organize, and argued that Trump and Vance have “waged wars on workers in the middle class.”

“I do say this: He does know something about working people, Donald Trump does. He knows how to take advantage of them,” Walz argued.

“When they wake up in the morning, they’re not thinking about you,” he said, adding: “If you think those guys were bad the last time he was in the White House, just wait if he gets another shot at it.”

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Cheeseman reported from Pittsburgh and Wells from Milwaukee. Tyler Pager and Maegan Vazquez in Washington contributed to this report.