Artists union president Jimmy Williams Jr. says “working people deserve a party that … puts their issues first.”
Vice President of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris meets with union workers at the International Union of Artists and Allied Trades training facility in Warren, Michigan, Monday, Oct. 28, 2024.
(Melina Mara/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Most unions in most countries have done everything they can to woo Kamala Harris voters, and their efforts have paid off—at least with their own members. The members of the trade union voted for the presidential candidate from the Democratic Party a solid margin of 57–39according to exit polls. That was comparable to the union vote for Joe Biden in 2020, a notable fact in an election year in which Democrats have declined among many demographics. “Actually,” noted Politics“union voters were one of the few groups not noticeably leaning toward Trump and the Republicans during what should be one of the party’s strongest election cycles in recent memory.”
Endorsed by AFL-CIO, United Auto Workers, United Steelworkers; International Association of Machinists; International Union of Service Workers; American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees; American Federation of Teachers; National Education Association; and dozens of other national and international labor organizations, Harris benefited from domestic educational campaigns which opposed her pro-union agenda the historically anti-union Donald Trump. When the International Racing Brotherhood failed to give its approval, regional councils and local unions across the country filled the void, with solid support for the Democratic Party candidate and active organizing on her behalf among Teamsters across the country.
Unfortunately, while the union vote went for Harris, her company lost ground in the middle working class voters non-unionized.
After the election, pundits and strategists criticized the Democratic Party for failing to reach out to non-unionized workers on the scale needed.
“It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that the Democratic Party, which has abandoned working class people, will find that the working class has abandoned them,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said in sharp reflection on the decline of democratic fortunes. “First it was the white working class, and now it’s also Latinos and black workers. While the Democratic leadership protects the status quo, the American people are angry and want change. And they are right.”
Sanders, who made dozens the company is discontinued across the country this fall for Harris blamed Democratic donors and strategists for failing to craft a message that would connect with disaffected voters — and those who didn’t vote. “Will the big money interests and well-paid consultants who control the Democratic Party learn any big lessons from this disastrous campaign?” he said after it became clear that Harris had lost and that the Democrats had lost the Senate. “Will they understand the pain and political alienation that tens of millions of Americans feel? Do they have any ideas about how we can counter an increasingly powerful oligarchy that wields so much economic and political power? Probably not.”
Sanders wasn’t the only one to express frustration. One of the most intelligent and open labor leaders in the country, the president of the International Union of Artists and Allies Jimmy Williams Jr held nothing back in his post-election analysis. Williams gained notice earlier this year when he called on the US government to “stop the financing of genocide” in Gaza and called on the Biden administration to immediately end all military aid to Israel. He’s not afraid to call out Democrats when they’re on the wrong side of an issue — and when they stumble on their strategies and messages.
Williams did just that this week after the election produced crushing results for the Democrats.
“That’s my take on the election,” Williams said. “For the past few months I have been traveling speaking with my members all over the Rust Belt. We spoke to thousands of IUPAT members and emphasized the importance of this election. And it worked: In this election, Vice President Harris won a higher percentage of union voters than President Biden in 2020. But she still lost!”
why? Williams says this is “because the Democratic Party continues to fail to prioritize a strong working-class message that addresses the issues that really matter to workers. The party has made no positive case for why workers should vote for them, only that they are not Donald Trump. It’s not enough!”
Williams was scathing in his criticism of the messaging failures.
“Instead of offering a positive agenda about what immigrant workers bring to our country, they have bought into the punitive, ‘tough,’ anti-worker messages that Trump is championing, even though we know the bosses are to blame.” And he added: “They have failed to deal with inflation by saying that it is not a big problem or that the pain that working people are feeling right now is not real. So while we were able to get many of our members to vote for VP Harris, many other employees went with Trump. Trump was able to create a stronger coalition of voters and may well get the Republican trifecta (controlling not only the White House, but also the US Senate and the House of Representatives). It will be disastrous for my members.”
The essence is clear, according to the leader of the 145,000-strong trade union. “Working people deserve a party that understands this, one that puts them first and puts their issues at the forefront.”
We cannot retreat
We now face a second Trump presidency.
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The day is dark, the forces are building tenaciously, but it’s too late Nation editorial board member Toni Morrison wrote “No! This is just the time when artists go to work. No time for despair, no room for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we make language. This is how civilizations heal.”
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Katrina Vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, Nation
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