With much at stake, labor unions knock on millions of doors in final campaign push

As November 5 draws closer, labor unions are blanketing swing states with tens of thousands of canvassers, deploying far more resources than in past elections in a bid to get the labor-friendly ticket of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz elected.

Some of the outreach is directly targeting union workers, active and retired, who along with their household members make up an estimated one in five voters in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, according to the AFL-CIO.

The American Federation of Teachers has sent hundreds of its members from New York to Pennsylvania and from Illinois to Wisconsin to canvass “labor doors.” The United Auto Workers has similarly deployed union members to fellow members’ homes and work sites, in addition to an aggressive phone, text and mail campaign.

“When members hear directly from other members about what’s at stake and which candidate will have their backs, we’re able to break through,” said UAW president Shawn Fain in a statement.

In Philadelphia and surrounding suburbs, the hospitality union UNITE HERE is going beyond union members, focusing primarily on Black and Latino voters in working-class communities, whom the union has identified as least likely to vote. The union says it’s deploying some 2,000 canvassers across ten states in 2024, a five-fold increase from 2016.

“Some Latinos know nothing about Kamala,” says Wernel Martinez, a hotel worker from Orlando who was hired by UNITE HERE to knock on doors in Pennsylvania.

Meanwhile, the Service Employees International Union, whose 2 million members include many health care workers, has set a goal of knocking on a million doors in the final four days of the election alone.

A study in contrasts

While both presidential candidates have been trying to woo the working class, their views on unions and labor law and regulations could hardly be farther apart. Harris has said she will strengthen unions, including by passing the PRO Act which would make it easier for workers to organize. As president, Donald Trump sought to weaken unions, going as far as stripping federal employee unions of power and voicing support for Right to Work laws, which allow workers to opt out of paying union dues.

While the Biden administration enacted rules to expand overtime to millions more workers, Trump in public remarks has admitted as a business owner, he hated paying overtime and would hire more people to avoid having to do so, a comment the AFL-CIO has highlighted as part of its voter outreach.

With such a contrast, it’s no surprise that most major labor unions were quick to endorse Harris after she entered the race in July. However, there are some notable exceptions, including the Teamsters. Its leadership declined to make an endorsement following an internal survey that found members prefer Trump over Harris by a 2-to-1 margin, and meetings with both candidates that left union leaders unsatisfied. After the non-endorsement, many of the Teamsters’ regional and local branches announced their own endorsements of Harris.

“People want to talk to somebody like them”

As part of the AFL-CIO’s massive canvassing effort, Skylar Goodman, a political organizer with the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, has been knocking on doors in every corner of Philadelphia since July, some days averaging five to seven miles on foot.

“People want to talk to somebody like them,” says Goodman, who grew up in northeast Philadelphia, helping out her father, a tow truck driver, in the summers.

Earlier in the campaign, she’d strike up conversations on issues specific to unions — such as union jobs created under legislation championed by the Biden-Harris administration — and on broader issues like abortion.

She would zero in on Trump’s record, pointing to his picks for the U.S. Supreme Court, which led to the overturning of Roe vs. Wade, and policies he enacted while in office that diminished the power of unions, many of which were rolled back by the Biden administration.

“It’s like all this cleanup work was done and then a tornado is going to run through it all again” should Trump win, Goodman has warned.

But the persuasion phase of this campaign is largely over. Now, it’s all about making sure people have a plan to vote.

Pennsylvania was decided by just 44,000 votes in 2016, and just over 80,000 in 2020, so buttoning up even a handful of votes matters. But even in blue Philadelphia, it’s not the easiest thing.

People don’t want to talk politics, but they’ll whisper

On a recent weekday morning, a lot of people aren’t home, and the few who come to the door don’t want to share whom they’re voting for.

“Some folks are more worried about how people in their life are going to react to their decision,” says Goodman. “People will whisper it at me. They won’t come out and have a conversation, but they’ll whisper, ‘I’m a Democrat. I’m voting for Harris.’”

That fear of being at odds with neighbors and family members is one reason Goodman has chosen to spend so much time talking with voters this election.

“We can disagree,” she says. “We don’t need to get angry with each other because we don’t see things the same way. We all live different lives. Of course, we’re going to see it different.”

Union polling finds outreach is swaying voters

With less than a week to go until the election, unions say their collective campaigning is making a difference, even if the ground game remains challenging.

Last week, the UAW released a poll of 800 UAW members and households in key swing states. It found Harris holding a 29-point lead over Trump among those who reported hearing from the UAW about the election, compared to just a 6-point lead among those who said they’d not heard from their union.

“These numbers highlight the effectiveness of the union’s aggressive strategy to inform members about the candidates’ positions on key economic issues, including protecting overtime pay, overhauling harmful trade deals, preventing offshoring, expanding retirement security, and taking on corporate greed,” the UAW said in a statement.