Workers could influence the US election; some sectors lean towards Trump

The NAFTA signed by Clinton and Obama’s bailout of Wall Street caused jobs to be lost in that country // Kamala Harris promises to lower the cost of living and taxes

▲ Democratic candidate Harris at a rally with the electricians union, in WisconsinPhoto Afp

▲ Republican Trump talks with Albert Abbas, owner of Arab food businesses.Photo Ap

Jim Cason and David Brooks

Correspondents

La Jornada Newspaper
Saturday, November 2, 2024, p. 19

Washington and New York. Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris began much of her speeches this week with promises to reduce the cost of living and taxes, as well as more free health care for the families of the country’s workers, but four days before the election , the vice president still cannot stop the political hemorrhage of labor sector voters in favor of the anti-union billionaire businessman, her Republican opponent.

In fact, throughout this year, polls continue to record that almost two-thirds of white working class voters without a university education say they will vote for Donald Trump, and support for the former president among Latinos and African Americans without higher education, although is relatively small, it is growing, according to recent surveys.

Working class people are angry, and some of them are considering Trumpacknowledged democratic socialist Senator Bernie Sanders in a speech supporting Harris and the Democrats in Erie, Pennsylvania. The current system is brokenhe emphasized to the applause of working families from that deindustrialized area.

He pointed to the loss of jobs when factories in this region – in the middle of one of the key states in this election – were closed and moved to Mexico after the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was approved. He also pointed to the effects of the government’s decision to bail out big businesses and banks in the 2008 financial crisis while forcing employees to reduce their retirement benefits and salaries, all of which were done under Democratic-led governments.

For many members of the working class, the contrast between Harris and Trump could not be clearer. She is part of a government that has given hundreds of billions of dollars to invest in public infrastructure projects, which it has insisted be built with unions. He has promised to raise the federal minimum wage and supports expanding child care assistance programs, health plans and retraining plans for new jobs. All of these are issues that, according to polls, are supported by large labor majorities.

Support for unions grows

At the same time, workers’ organization, after years of decline, is growing with the approval, and sometimes even support, of the government. In 2008, only 48 percent of the national population said they supported unions, but today the figure is 70 percent. Harris’ candidacy enjoys the support of most of these national unions, including the AFL-CIO labor union. An analysis by the University of Pennsylvania of Harris and Trump’s economic proposals concluded that the Democrat’s policies will benefit those at the bottom of the income distribution, something that is also positive for those at the top.

However, the working class vote has not been won by Harris and her party, and even in national unions, where their leadership supports her and/or has been endorsed, the bases are divided, especially in industrial sectors, such as the automotive and steel union, as La Jornada detected in talks with employees last year. That reality is why the powerful Teamsters union decided not to endorse either presidential candidate this year. In September, that organization’s internal polls recorded that 58 percent of its members support Trump and only 31 support Harris.

For many workers, particularly those who had good union jobs, their anger against Democrats is rooted in Bill Clinton’s decision to sign NAFTA with Mexico and Canada. Remains a persistent issue in MichiganRon Bieber, president of the Michigan AFL-CIO, told The Guardian. Everyone knows someone here in Michigan who lost their job because of the treaty.he stressed.

Not only there. In 2023, the last Master Lock padlock factory in the United States, in the key state of Wisconsin, closed its doors as it moved production to Nogales, Sonora. In 1969, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, had the second-highest median income in the country. By 2021, that city had lost more than 80 percent of its manufacturing jobs and had the second-highest poverty rate of any major city in the country; just one example of the profound impact of NAFTA on American industry and laborwrote journalist Dan Kaufman in the New York Times, documenting the reasons why Democrats have lost support among what were their most loyal bases.

Trump called NAFTA the worst trade agreement (ever signed)in a speech at the Republican Convention, taking up a phrase from his first campaign. He repeats that at his rallies and also how he wants to impose high tariffs on Mexico and other countries, with the purpose of forcing companies to return jobs to the United States. He tends not to talk much in this campaign about how he renegotiated NAFTA and signed another trade agreement in 2018 when he was president.

Many workers who lost jobs due to NAFTA managed to find new ones, but their wages were, on average, 20 percent lower.former Michigan Democratic congressman David Bonior, who led the opposition to NAFTA in the 1990s against President Clinton of his own party, told the Guardian. The lifestyle deteriorated greatly in my district. Clinton promoted NAFTA, but many workers perceived this as a betrayal.

Democrat Barack Obama’s government was not much better for workers. With the Wall Street bailout in 2008, he gave General Motors and other big companies billions of dollars in public assistance, but employees at those companies were forced to accept concessions in their salaries and benefits. Obama later signed the Trans-Pacific deal with Asia, which seemed to realize the Democratic leadership’s faith in free trade, even though hundreds of thousands of American jobs moved to that part of the world. Trump annulled that agreement as soon as he entered the White House.

Bonior and union leaders say Trump is neither pro-worker nor supportive of unions. In fact, he has threatened to favor the dismissal of union members and supported Elon Musk, his billionaire friend and ally, for threatening to fire employees if they dare to try to unionize their companies. But for now it may be too late for Harris and the Democrats to win back the vote of these members of the working class, warns the veteran labor journalist at The Guardian, pointing out that the specter of NAFTA continues to harm the Democrats.

After Obama, former congressman Bonior commented, “many working people said they were fed up. They decided that ‘we are not going to be with the Democrats,’ and then Trump came along to fill that void. What he did was very intelligent,” he concluded.