Will 2020 Be the Year Presidential Candidates Actually Take Labor Issues Seriously?

Call it a sin of omission, but the historic decline of labor union power was on full display during recent CNN town hall meetings with 2020 Democratic presidential aspirants Sens. Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris and Amy Klobuchar.

All three nationally televised forums featured questions on a range of issues from students, nonprofit directors, community leaders and other traditional Democratic constituencies (including undisclosed lobbying firms), but not a single question was asked about national labor law.

It's not just CNN, either. By and large, the announced 2020 presidential candidates have not spoken at length on the stump about their agenda for labor, at least not yet, instead sticking to broader themes such as economic inequality and policies like raising the minimum wage, Medicare-for-All, free college tuition and universal child care.

"The candidates are making a distinction between labor policy and labor issues," David Yepsen, the host of Iowa Press and a leading expert on presidential politics, told In These Times. "It's politically safer to talk about health care, expanded Medicare, and a higher minimum wage than it is to talk about things like card check."

Most voters don't understand the latter, even though you've got to do things like the latter to get the former," Yepsen added. "If you don't find ways to strengthen the labor movement, there isn't going to be the political support to do the things needed to rebuild the working class."

The failure of the Obama administration and a filibuster-proof Democratic congress to pass the 2009 Employee Free Choice Act is a good example. The legislation would have made it easier for workers to form a union with a simple 50 percent majority. But there was little political will by the Democratic leadership at the time to get it done given other priorities such as an economic stimulus, Obamacare, reining in Wall Street and withdrawing troops from Iraq.

The issue agenda of the Obama White House was perhaps justifiable at the time, but it also came with a steep opportunity cost. The Democrats' failure to strengthen union bargaining and consolidate a working-class base of political support when they had the chance helped lead to an eventual Republican takeover of government between 2010 and 2016, paving the way for future attacks on labor by right-wing governors and the Supreme Court.

Has the new crop of 2020 presidential candidates learned this lesson? All of the declared candidates who are considered front runners have strong ties to organized labor.

With the notable exception of Klobuchar, nearly all of the senators running for president-- Gillibrand, Harris, Warren and Booker--co-sponsored Sanders' 2018 Workplace Democracy Act, which would overhaul existing labor law and make it easier for workers to form and fund their own unions.

"The Workplace Democracy Act is Sen. Sanders' key labor union legislation," a spokesperson for Sanders told In These Times.

According to Sanders' congressional office, the Workplace Democracy Act would enable unions to organize through a majority sign up process; enact 'first contract' provisions to ensure companies cannot prevent a union from forming by denying a first contract; eliminate "right to work" laws; end independent contractor and franchisee abuse; legalize secondary boycotts and picketing; and expand the 'persuader rule' to weaken union-busting efforts.

As Sanders explained when introducing the latest iteration of the bill last year, "Corporate America understands that when workers become organized, when workers are able to engage in collective bargaining, they end up with far better wages and benefits... and that is why, for decades now, there has been a concentrated well-organized attack on the ability of workers to organize."

Sanders, Harris and Warren have all also taken symbolic actions since announcing their presidential runs in order to highlight their close relationship with unions and the working class.

Warren, for example, formally announced her candidacy for president in Lawrence, Massachusetts, the site of the 1912 strike by textile workers known as the "Bread and Roses Strike."

"Supporting labor and making it easier for American workers to join a union is absolutely a priority for Sen. Warren," Jason Noble, Warren's communications director, told In These Times. "She is a co-sponsor of the 2018 Workplace Democracy Act, introduced a bill in 2017 to ban "right to work" laws, and has been very vocal about the need for stronger labor organization and wider access to unions."

Warren's Accountable Capitalism Act would also allow workers at corporations with more than $1 billion in revenue to choose up to 40 percent of the company's board of directors, shifting the balance of power toward the rank-and-file.

California is one of the last remaining union strongholds in the country, and Harris has hired the former president of the state's largest and most diverse labor union, SEIU's Laphonza Butler, to be her senior campaign advisor.

"Sen. Harris is a strong and passionate supporter of organized labor and workers' rights," the Harris campaign's national press secretary, Ian Sams, told In These Times.

"She's sponsored multiple bills in the Senate, including Workers' Freedom to Negotiate Act, WAGE Act, Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act, Workplace Democracy Act, and Protecting Workers and Improving Labor Standards Act."

In February, Sanders publicly jumped in on the side of striking workers in Erie, Pennsylvania after announcing his own 2020 candidacy. Since 2016, he has also joined workers in fights against Amazon and McDonalds, helping them to win major wage increases.

"Many blue-collar workers supported Trump in the last election," Yepsen, the Iowa-based national political analyst, said. "Both presidential candidates and labor leaders have to figure out ways and messages to move them back onto the progressive side if they hope to get 270 electoral votes for a presidential candidate. The phrases 'labor policy,' 'labor movement' and 'organized labor' aren't well understood by voters. 'Health care' 'minimum wage' and 'improved education' are understood. So give the candidates some credit for talking about important issues in a way people can understand."

As Yepsen previously noted, however, this kind of thinking may help win elections, but it can also lead to a paradox. Focusing on easily-understood, 'bread and butter' issues--talking about working families but not union power--and relying on congressional voting records and scorecards instead of stump speeches and bold new proclamations won't build a popular mandate for labor law reform, or the long term working-class political power that comes with it.

"Most Americans take for granted the things the labor movement has done for them over the decades--child labor, minimum wage, a 40-hour work week, health care," Yepsen said. "A lot of workers have forgotten that too. The good news for labor is that people seem to be waking up. The polls show support for unions increasing and look at the success teachers have been having."

On another measure, worker militancy has been on the rise--a record number of workers engaged in strikes or work stoppages in 2018. This increased labor action will have to be harnessed by voters in order to push even the strongest candidates into elevating union rights as a priority issue on the campaign trail.

Workers in early voting states can help do so by attending campaign events and asking the candidates to publicly explain their support for the Workplace Democracy Act--or whether or not they back a national "right to strike" law for public sector unions.

The more explicit presidential politicians are about labor rights on the stump, the more likely union power will become a "day one" issue if a Democratic president takes power in 2020. In the long run, this may be one of the only effective ways to both win progressive social change and defend workers' gains from the inevitable right-wing counterattack.