Arizona union workers weigh 2024 presidential choices as Kamala Harris and Donald Trump vie for support

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump debate Sept. 10, 2024, as seen at a Democratic watch party in Mesa attended by Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. (Photo by Emma Jeanson/Cronkite News)

WASHINGTON – About 10,000 votes would have tipped the last presidential contest in Arizona. The state has about 133,000 union members so, like other slivers of the electorate, these and their issues could be decisive.

Traditionally, Democrats hold a major edge with organized labor due to their consistent support for higher wages and the right to unionize.

“They’re willing to fight for us,” said Michael Thornton, 63, a diesel mechanic in Tucson and member of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.

But former President Donald Trump scored a major win recently when the Teamsters, the nation’s biggest union, decided not to issue a presidential endorsement for Vice President Kamala Harris.

“Under Trump, we had hope, we had opportunity, and we had results,” Arizona Teamster Joe Shea said on a Trump campaign call with reporters on Wednesday.
Harris boasts an otherwise strong record with unions – though that does her more good in battlegrounds like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Just 4.2% of employees are unionized in Arizona, which is half the national average.

But unions supply more than just votes. They’re a key source of volunteers for phone banking, knocking on doors and putting pressure on lawmakers, said Linda Lomo, president of Arizona Alliance for Retired Americans.

Arizona’s largest unions include the Arizona AFL-CIO, with over 185,000 members, and the United Food & Commercial Workers, with 24,000. Both advocate for workers’ rights, better work conditions, fair wages and job protection.

Harris touts endorsements from Teamster locals in battleground states – not the national union, but prizes that could also impact the outcome.

President Joe Biden calls himself the most pro-union president in history. He became the first president to walk a picket line when he joined striking workers at an auto parts plant near Detroit.

Harris has pledged to continue his pro-union agenda. Activists are confident that she will.

She promises on the stump to foster an “opportunity economy” that provides affordable housing and tax cuts for the middle class. During her failed run for president in 2019, Harris, then a California senator, walked a picket line with striking auto workers at a General Motors plant near Reno, Nevada.

That record appeals to union workers like Desi Navarro, a Tucson city employee and vice president of her Communications Workers of America local.

“We need a friendly face in the White House that will help us expand rights rather than try to take them down,” she said.

As a senator, Harris had a 95% voting record with the AFL-CIO. She chaired a task force Biden established on worker organizing and empowerment that issued scores of recommendations aimed at strengthening labor unions.

At the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents about 750,000 federal employees, public policy director Jacque Simon cited Harris’ support for the PRO Act, a proposal that would strengthen collective bargaining rights.

House Republicans have blocked the bill.

“Ever since she’s been a politician, she has been an advocate of the right to join a union and organize a union,” said Simon.

“She was part of the most pro-union administration in American history,” Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, told supporters during a Labor Day stop in Milwaukee. “From sticking up for workers to voting for fair legislation, to walking picket lines, she was there with workers every step of the way.”

Most unions have been chilly toward Trump, apart from those involved with border enforcement and policing.

Brandon Judd, former president of the National Border Patrol Council, which represents Border Patrol officers, has been a leading Trump ally.

“He listened to the men and women that were on the front lines on exactly what needed to be on that wall,” he said, stumping with the former president in August at the border in Hereford, Arizona.

In early September, Trump collected the endorsement of the Fraternal Order of Police, the nation’s largest police union.

At a Trump rally on Aug. 23 in Glendale, Justin Harris, president of the Arizona Police Association, declared his group’s support for the former president.

“He always had our backs,” he said.

Other unions shun Trump, whose administration weakened overtime protections and put up roadblocks to collective bargaining.

In 2018, Trump signed executive orders that riled unionized federal workers. One made it easier to fire low-performers, cutting the time they had to show improvement from 120 days to 30. Another mandated renegotiation of contracts to reduce waste. A third capped the time union leaders can spend on union activities to 25% of their work hours.

Trump appointed three justices who tipped the balance on the Supreme Court. The conservative majority he engineered ruled that public employees can’t be required to pay union dues, a major blow to unions.

Against that record, Trump and his campaign emphasize the inflation of the Biden-Harris era and insist that he would be better for working Americans.

“We support the right of workers to make their voices heard in negotiations,” Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, told reporters on the conference call Wednesday. “We also support the right of workers to actually have their wages go far enough to feed a family and to buy a house.”

The AFL-CIO gives Vance a zero on its scorecard.

But Tim Murtaugh, a senior adviser for the Trump campaign, touted polling data from the Teamsters. “Rank-and-file Teamsters preferred Trump over Harris, 59% to 34% in an electronic poll,” he told reporters.

“Paychecks are not stretching as far as they should, thanks to Harris and Biden,” he said.

Given the rank-and-file support for Trump, the Teamsters leadership’s decision not to endorse Trump was something of a win for Harris.

“Neither major candidate was able to make serious commitments to our union,” Teamsters President Sean O’Brien said when he announced the decision.

Trump had angered unions with a comment during an online conversation with Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, about friction with auto workers.

“They go on strike and you say, ’That’s OK. You’re all gone,’” Trump said.

That did not sit well with union activists.

“I will never, ever allow people to fire workers for exercising their right to strike or organize,” O’Brien said on PBS, adding that Trump’s comments weighed against him as Teamsters leaders considered their endorsement options.

That was shortly after O’Brien had made an appearance at the Republican National Convention, which was unusual for a union leader.

But as labor analyst Harley Shaiken noted, O’Brien glossed over Trump’s actual policies on organized labor, focusing instead on his response to an assassination attempt days earlier.

“Courting workers is very different from being pro-labor,” she said.