Image by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen.

Every four years, like clockwork, our two major parties serve up presidential candidates whose commitment to the cause of labor is more rhetorical than real.

This is most obviously true of conservative Republican courting of working-class voters. That venerable bait-and-switch routine reached its 21st century apex in the form of Donald Trump’s successful faux populist campaigns for the White House in 2016 and 2024. Post-election, his first and now second administration quickly displayed little interest in helping anyone other than Trump’s own billionaire class supporters.

Democratic contenders for the White House tend to disappoint as well, under the influence of similar wealthy donors–despite their party’s pro-labor platform on paper, better overall track record, and partial reliance on union funding.

Consider for example the issue of private sector labor law reform. It was nominally backed by Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden during their respective presidential campaigns over the last half century.

Once in office, not one of these Democrats, with the exception of Carter, got anywhere close to strengthening the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) via legislation. All of them did improve labor law enforcement through better NLRB appointments, administrative rule-making, and case-by-case decisions, with the Biden Administration being best at all three.

Overcoming fierce management opposition to statutory change–and, in the Carter era, a Senate filibuster– was always left to organized labor itself and its few reliable allies on Capitol Hill. Democrats in the White House never put labor law reform ahead of business-backed priorities like deregulation, privatization, or trade liberalization, with minimal protection for workers negatively impacted by it.

Early in Barack Obama’s first term, there was strong majority support, in both the House and Senate, for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). But his administration prioritized healthcare reform, over EFCA, and did not push for Senate rules reform that would have made progressive legislation, of any sort, more achievable. Nevertheless, national unions continued to endorse and spend millions of dollars on Obama, when he sought the presidency a second time.

Before and after his administration, the labor officialdom was similarly enthused about other corporate Democrats like Al Gore, John Kerry, or Hillary Clinton, whose presidential campaigns did not succeed. One common denominator in labor, throughout this period, was limited consultation with rank-and-file workers about presidential endorsement decisions.

Ten Much Ignored Rules

The AFL-CIO itself has highlighted the shortcomings of this “traditional candidate endorsement model.” In a 15-year old guide called “Ten Rules for Talking to Union Members About Politics,” the federation declared that “union political action should always be ‘of, by, and for’ the members.” Otherwise, it will not counter widespread working-class cynicism about “politics and politicians.”

According to the AFL-CIO, its affiliates can “demonstrate that internal decision making about union political action is consistent with the core goal of empowering working people” by “providing members with opportunities to be involved…in the candidate evaluation and endorsement process.”

This can be done by holding candidate forums, conducting opinion surveys, and sharing election-related information with the rank-and-file. And if the union is truly democratic, holding a binding membership vote to make its ultimate choice.

That form of rank-and-file empowerment is rare indeed, even in unions considered more progressive. As a result, organized labor was confronted, in the last three presidential election cycles, with challenges to top-down decision-making about the relative merits of candidates competing in the 2016 and 2020 Democratic Party primaries and the 2024 general election.

These grassroots initiatives took the form of two rounds of “Labor for Bernie” (L4B) campaigning, involving thousands of rank-and-filers around the country, and last year’s bottom-up rallying of “Teamsters Against Trump” (TAT). The experience of L4B and TAT is worth examining amid the current soul-searching about why too many working-class people, including union members, voted for billionaire-backed candidates—or didn’t vote at all.

Union activists trying to make their voices heard, in oppositional fashion in the future, will face similar obstacles to challenging and changing leadership decisions about what politicians to back or not. Those hoping to launch more labor-backed independent candidacies, outside a corporate-dominated Democratic Party, will have an even harder time enlisting local and national union backing for such ventures, if past levels of official support for Labor for Bernie are any guide. (Lets hope Trump-related upheavals within unions improve labor-left prospects there.)

At the very least, as described below, L4B and TAT supporters learned some valuable lessons about how to shape rank-and-file opinion about politics, pressure AFL-CIO affiliates to adopt better approaches to political education and action, and boost “labor voter” turn-out for candidates actually worthy of the union label or to defeat those who threaten the very existence of unions.

Labor for Bernie, 2016

Senator Bernie Sanders’ announcement in March, 2015 that he was running for president was initially regarded by supporters of Hillary Rodham Clinton as just a minor irritant. Sanders was one four lesser-known figures (including two state governors and a former Senator) trying to make Clinton’s expectated coronation as the Democratic Party nominee for the presidency in 2016 a trifle more difficult.

Corporate Democrats viewed Sanders with particular resentment as a party crasher. For the previous 25 years in Congress, he had been a frequent critic of both major parties. He also proudly maintained his ballot line brand as an “Independent,” rather than become a Democrat (while he caucused with them in the House and Senate). Most Clintonites viewed the anti-war socialist as a marginal protest candidate of the Dennis Kucinich sort, who wouldn’t win a single state primary (other than possibly Vermont’s).

Unfortunately for Clinton and a national AFL-CIO eager to endorse her, Sanders started out with a few more out-of-state friends than they realized—and quickly attracted hundreds of thousands more. Among them were union activists in the northeast with much past personal experience working with Bernie on key labor causes, locally, regionally, and nationally. Sanders’ working-class orientation, political independence, and rejection of corporate money was a major selling point for them, not a personal liability.

As Don Trementozzi, leader of a Communications Workers of America (CWA) local based in New Hampshire, pointed out: “Bernie was not on the fence or the wrong side, like Hillary Clinton, when our union was campaigning against the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). He was helping us lead the fight against that job killing free trade deal back by Democrats and Republicans alike.”

In far off South Carolina, its state fed president, Erin McKee, was a fan of Sanders because, unlike Clinton, he was a reliable ally of the fight for a $15 an hour minimum wage, for fast food workers and everyone else.

John Murphy, a Carpenters Local 40 steward in Lowell, Mass., favored Sanders because of his “long record of supporting workers and their right to unionize.” When some fellow........

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