UNBURDENED: How Harris can have unions’ back

Labor strategist Michael Podhorzer on how the next president can champion an American workers’ movement

The current relationship between the U.S. Government and labor unions could best be described as fraught. President Biden may have been the first sitting president to visit a picket line, but the overall legal structure in this country still overwhelmingly favors employers over workers. Can a potential Harris presidency shift that balance?

Although unions are experiencing a surge in organizing efforts and favorable public opinion, the progress of the American labor movement at large is being held back by decades of anti-labor policies that require congressional and executive action to roll back. In this installment of our Unburdened series — named after Vice President Harris’s catchphrase — labor researcher and former political director of the AFL-CIO Michael Podhorzer shared his thoughts on how a potential Harris-Walz administration could take advantage of this zeitgeist to provide meaningful support to American labor.

---

UNBURDENED is The Ink’s interview series named after Vice President Harris’s catchphrase, where we ask some of the smartest policy minds out there to envision a bold, aggressive Harris agenda to materially improve people’s lives — unburdened by what has been.

Previously: Relations with China, featuring Jane Perlez; Border security, featuring former Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson; debt and education and economics, featuring Astra Taylor; and foreign policy, featuring Matthew Duss

---

As always, if you like what we do here, would you consider joining us as a supporting subscriber? This is what makes it possible for us to bring you this work and keep going. We are grateful.

---

Michael Podhorzer on a labor agenda for Harris

First off, just for context, there is a difference between what I would advise her to do when she is president and what I would advise her today. That's because 80 days from the election, time spent doing anything other than defining the America Trump will bring forth and defining herself has a huge opportunity cost. That would be much less the case if you were asking a year ago. As I've often said and written, especially in this moment of extreme threat, taking policy positions can do little to move the needle. 

Furthermore, I've argued that the prerequisite for any meaningful durable progress in the US is a stronger labor movement. No victories that contest capital are possible without it. Compare all that was accomplished in the forty-five years from 1932 to 1975 with the 45 years following that period — business' capture of the Democratic Party in the mid-70's was the beginning of the end. What Anand wrote so well about in Winners Take All is what happens when you choke off the power of collective action. So, with respect to Harris and the Democratic Party, the question is whether it is willing to accept an unavoidable truth that FDR realized: Capitalism cannot be tamed without a strong labor movement and no serious progress can be made without constraining capital.

Here's a partial response along three main themes. I could have answered more, but hopefully, you get the idea.