"The Union Movement Is Very Excited About Harris and Walz"

In an exclusive interview with The Nation, AFSCME President Lee Saunders explains organized labor’s enthusiasm for the Democratic ticket.

John Nichols


Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, speaks during the 2024 Democratic National Convention at the United Center in Chicago on Monday, August 19, 2024.
(Bill Clark / CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

In his first solo appearance as the Democratic candidate for vice president of the United States, Tim Walz flew to Los Angeles to appear before 4,000 members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), one of the most powerful and engaged labor unions in the United States. Walz, for many years a dues-paying member of two public-sector labor organizations, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, thanked the assembled delegates for “having a fellow union member” as their convention speaker and declared, with as much passion as a Minnesotan can muster, that “AFSCME stands for all that’s right.”

That wasn’t political small talk of the sort that candidates engage in when they are simply tapping the bases of constituent groups in their coalitions. That was a sincere expression of gratitude from a former member of Congress and a governor who has relied on the support of AFSCME—a 1.4 million-member union with a long history of identifying and supporting rising stars in the Democratic Party—to win his own elections, and to help him make Minnesota what Walz describes as “one of the best states for workers in the nation.”

Walz’s connection with AFSCME runs deep. Like Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, he has high regard for the union’s president, Lee Saunders, who for many years has chaired the political committee of the AFL-CIO, served on the Democratic National Committee, and built a reputation as a uniquely savvy and influential political strategist and policy advocate. A working-class intellectual who trained as a labor economist but has always maintained the enthusiasm of a grassroots organizer, Saunders sees organized labor in the context of broader movements—he’s long been active with the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a group he currently serves as treasurer—and progressive governance.

Recalling their history together, Walz said of Saunders, “We’ve done a few door knocks, we’ve done a few phone banks, we’ve done a few rallies, and we’ve worked together on a few laws to improve people’s lives.” Hailing the union president as “the friend to every American worker”—those who have organized as union members and those who have yet to organize—Walz said Saunders and AFSCME understand the basic premise of progressive trade unionism: “you don’t win elections to bank political capital to win another election; you take that political capital and you burn it as fast as you can to improve people’s lives.”

FULL story: https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/lee-saunders-interview-labor-harris-walz/