Union Workers Prepare for Unified GOP Control
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07 Nov Union Workers Prepare for Unified GOP Control

Posted at 14:09h in 2024 Election, Collective Bargaining by

“Republican politicians can say they are pro-worker, but they have to show they are pro-worker by recognizing workers’ crucial right to organize and bargain,” Georgetown Professor/Labor Historian Joseph McCartin told the BCTGM Voices Project podcast on October 31.

The podcast discussion, recorded a week before the 2024 presidential election, was moderated by BCTGM Communications Director Michelle Ellis and joined by Organizing Director John Price. It provided a look-back on the legislative journey of Labor through the 20th Century, from Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal until today.

Invoking the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 and the PATCO Strike of 1981, the conversation offered perspective on the BCTGM’s political positions in the 2024 election.

Following the conversation, on November 5, voters would elect former President Donald J. Trump and a Republican majority to both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. A recent Gallup poll showed the economy ranked as the most important of 22 issues among committed voters, and was the biggest influence on their choice for president.

“Workers seemed to connect lower costs during Trump’s first term with a more pro-worker economy,” says BCTGM International President Anthony Shelton, “despite the unique economic challenges of a global pandemic at the time, and all that the Democrats did to protect workers and help the middle class recover.”

This is a fact that the Labor Movement must contend with as it prepares to represent workers against the many anti-union proposals written into Project 2025.

“The Labor Movement has never been monolithic,” McCartin continued, speaking on the political identity of Union members. “Unions have a fiduciary responsibility to educate their members, but there has always been a diversity of opinion,” he said. “It’s a free country and that is how it ought to be.

“The way I see it, however, is if a political candidate supports a law that has become ineffective at protecting the right to bargain, and opposes any effort to improve that law, then I don’t care what they are saying about being in favor of the working person,” McCartin discerned. “If they don’t want workers to have a voice, then they aren’t pro-worker.”

Union members have always been good at coming together when it matters, according to Price. “I know when I’m out there organizing, I’m often among BCTGM members who say they are Republicans,” he said, “but they also understand what collective bargaining rights are.”

“Those conservative BCTGM members especially should push their legislators to support Union workers. Advancing legislation like the PRO Act would be a good start.

“Legislating a pro-worker society is about more than lowering costs. You also have to give workers a fair opportunity to raise their wage to meet the moment,” Price concluded.

LISTEN TO THIS ON OUR PODCAST:

EPISODE 37: History of Political Action in the Labor Movement

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