Portside

The 2020 platform of the Democratic Party is the most pro-labor it has ever been. But the onus is on us [to make sure that] once we get him elected, we don’t get bought off by coffee at the White House.

Despite being a champion of workers' rights, endorsed by SEIU and UE, Pitsburgh AFL-CIO leaders who are tied to the fossil fuel industry are spending massive amounts of money to try and prevent her re-election.

While candidates and political parties use mostly volunteers to get the public to help them optimize ad spending, Working America aims to shape attitudes in face-to-face conversations, usually standing on a front stoop with a cracked screen door or a barking dog between a canvasser and a malleable voter. Over the past 12 years, the labor group has held repeat conversations on their front porches to advance progressive policies and candidates.

The AFL–CIO is a multifaceted institution composed of scores of autonomous unions, so President Richard Trumka’s leadership can hardly turn around this cumbersome vessel all that quickly. But the new emphasis is clear: the unions should ally with progressive partners and devote more energy to make the kind of changes in social policy that can benefit millions of poorly paid and insecure workers.