Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’s choice of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate is being welcomed by labor unions.
Walz boasts a pro-labor record; in October 2023, he walked the picket line with United Auto Workers at the Stellantis plant in Plymouth, Minnesota. But he also rings bells with union members by advancing legislation that overlaps with their interests, like signing a voting rights bill that allows 16- and 17-year-olds to pre-register to vote, automatically registers voters when they interact with state agencies, and restores the right to vote to formerly incarcerated people.
Walz enacted a law in Minnesota that guarantees free school breakfasts and lunches for children, established protections around reproductive rights, banned the use of non-compete provisions in employment contracts, pushed through marijuana legalization, and invested more than $1 billion in state funds into affordable housing.
In the week before Harris selected Walz, some 26 Minnesota union leaders wrote a letter to the Harris team, urging them to look at his portfolio and consider him as a potential running mate.
“Walz has been effective because he has been able to cross lines of race and place,” they wrote.
“Born in a small town in rural Nebraska, he won six races for the U.S. House from 2007 to 2019 in a deep red district in southern Minnesota. He has shown he can connect to voters at a county fair about kitchen table economic issues or in the heart of the multiracial Twin Cities. In 2022, he won re-election as governor by nearly 8 percentage points and helped the Democrat-Farmer-Labor Party take the House and Senate. He knows education, agriculture, immigration, the culture of the Midwest and military affairs.”
ABC News reported that “Walz ha[d] signed into law a series of measures viewed as pro-worker. Last year, Minnesota established paid sick and medical leave, banned non-compete agreements and expanded protections for Amazon warehouse workers. In May, Minnesota enacted a measure providing a raise for Uber and Lyft drivers while averting a threat made by those companies to stop doing business in the state.”
The Harris-Walz team
With the Minnesota governor now the official candidate to become the next vice president, the Harris-Walz team is being heralded by national union leaders.
“As governor,” American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) President Lee Saunders said, “he took on billion-dollar corporations to ban private prisons in Minnesota, keeping profit motives out of the justice system while protecting the jobs of AFSCME corrections officers. He went on to pass legislation guaranteeing free breakfast and lunch for young students statewide, giving AFSCME school employees the tools they need to keep kids energized and ready to learn. Walz did all this for Minnesota’s communities while getting state workers a historic contract with across-the-board raises.”
United Steelworkers International President David McCall stated, “Gov. Walz has given more workers access to paid sick and family leave; he has made major strides in protecting workers’ health and safety on the job; he has improved standards for patients and workers at Minnesota’s nursing homes; he has strengthened union organizing and collective bargaining rights; he has expanded unemployment benefits and taken steps to protect workers from wage theft and other abuses.”
McCall continued: “In addition, Gov. Walz understands the importance of mining and manufacturing to the economy of Minnesota and to the future of this country, and he will never stop fighting for workers across all industries.”
AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler deemed Walz a “principled fighter and labor champion” and American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten called Walz “a proud educator who drew on his experience in the classroom to show Minnesotans what a pro-education, pro-labor administration can look like. He is from a small town, served in the military, and has consistently given back to his community. He believes the essence of America is to be kind to your neighbor and to help those around you thrive. And he is a former AFT member.
“Gov. Walz expanded collective bargaining rights, fought wage theft, enacted paid family and medical leave, and took on mandatory captive audience meetings. And he unreservedly supports a woman’s right to make her own reproductive health decisions. The Harris-Walz team will build on the Biden administration’s legacy as the most labor-friendly administration in history and will continue to grow our economy from the bottom up and the middle out.”
According to Service Employees International Union (SEIU) International President April Verrett, “Governor Walz has been a steadfast partner to Minnesota’s working families.” She added that he’s also “walked a day in the shoes of home care workers and made record investments in public education, including unemployment benefits for bus drivers, food service workers, paraeducators, and others who do essential work supporting students. He paved the way for record contracts between his administration and health care workers, raising wages to as much as $22.50 an hour. Governor Walz has championed guaranteed family and medical leave for workers and middle-class tax breaks for Minnesotans. He supported janitors and nursing home workers when they were on strike in March, and we were proud to see him join UAW workers on the picket line during last year’s strikes.
“In contrast to the Trump-Vance ticket, who continue to spew hate and try to divide us, Governor Walz has actually championed not-yet-union workers, racial and immigrant justice and climate action.”