The deck was shuffled this weekend after President Joe Biden said he would not seek a second term and Vice President Kamala Harris announced her campaign. Labor unions and trade organizations that pundits consider to be a “critical bloc” scrambled to announce their preferred candidates quickly after the news broke.
Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC), a trade organization with 23,000 members across the U.S. and 67 chapters, backed Donald Trump for president today in the form of a letter by ABC CEO Michael Bellman and chair Buddy Henley.
ABC’s Trump endorsement arrived just hours after the AFL-CIO—a much larger union that represents 12.5 million active and retired workers—affirmed its support for Kamala Harris in a statement, although it hasn’t officially endorsed her.
United Auto Workers (UAW)—a union with almost 1 million active and retired members led by firebrand Shawn Fain—also threw its weight behind Harris, albeit without formally endorsing her either. In UAW’s letter, it thanked both Biden and Harris for walking with them on picket lines across the U.S.
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters—a union with 1.2 million members led by Sean O’Brien—is courting both Democrats and Republicans. On July 15, O’Brien spoke at the Republican National Convention (RNC) in Milwaukee on behalf of his members, and thanked Trump for the invitation.
O’Brien’s appearance came as a surprise to many: The Teamsters have endorsed Democratic presidential candidates since Bill Clinton ran in 1992, although it did support Nixon, Reagan, and George H. W. Bush. After Biden announced his decision to step down, O’Brien invited Harris to join him and rank-and-file Teamsters for a round table discussion.
Today, ABC represents about 1 percent of the construction industry, but it’s one of the biggest campaign contributors in the country. The group has a history of devoting “considerable resources to far-right ideological advocacy” according to Thomas Kriger, a professor of labor studies at the National Labor College in Maryland, an AFL-CIO affiliate.
ABC’s decision stems from the Biden/Harris administration’s “anticompetitive, inflationary and divisive policies undermining taxpayer investments in America’s infrastructure,” as written in the letter. ABC also cited the Biden administration’s pro-union stance as another reason for its decision.
ABC was founded in 1950 and has fought against unions ever since. The two laws ABC fights hardest against are the Davis-Beacon Act and Project Labor Agreements. These measures ensure that tax-payer funded public works projects use union labor; acts that AFL-CIO, the Teamsters, and UAW fight equally hard to protect.
AFL-CIO believes Harris will be better for workers. AFL-CIO pointed to Harris’s recent victory where she saved the “pensions of more than 1 million union members and retirees.” The union also touted her expansion to child tax credits and fight against Big Pharma companies to lower the price of insulin.
AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler and secretary-treasurer Fred Redmon unambiguously stated their “commitment to defeating Donald Trump and J. D. Vance is as strong as ever.” In its statement, AFL-CIO shared that it “will convene soon to discuss our next steps.”
