Nevada unions rallying to amplify Harris’ campaign

Every day, more and more people are signing up to help knock on doors and make phone calls for Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign, a Las Vegas union official said.

“We were trained by (the Harry Reid) machine,” said Susie Martinez, executive secretary for the Nevada AFL-CIO, referring to the late U.S. senator’s work organizing Democrats in Nevada. “You’ve got to get out there. You’ve got to pitch your story.”

While the Culinary Union’s ground game for Democrats dominates headlines, other labor organizations have kicked off their own — sometimes joint — efforts.

For the public sector and health care organizations, it’s all hands on deck two months out from Election Day.

Since Aug. 1, the local chapter of the Service Employees International Union has been reaching out to voters over the phone and door to door. SEIU Local 1107 represents 20,000 workers, and Vice President Debbie Springer said their efforts were only going to ramp up.

“We’re going to put a lot of people on the street,” said Springer, whose union endorsed Harris the same day President Joe Biden dropped out of the race.

Including the Culinary Union, the state’s AFL-CIO represents more than 150,000 workers across 60 unions, ranging from transport workers to state and local government employees. In July, the national union endorsed Democrat Kamala Harris for president.

This month, about 50 people attended a canvass launch event in Las Vegas with the American Federation of Labor, while an additional 60 members did the same upstate.

While it depends on the neighborhood and weather, Martinez said, canvassers can knock on 30 to 50 doors a day.

Las Vegas’ hot weather can be especially difficult for the union’s more senior members, so the AFL has offered the option of phone-banking at retiree meetings.

“We try to tap into every little corner that we can,” Martinez said.

Last weekend, the AFL got some additional help from 40 nurses in solid-blue California and across the country.

“As nurses, we work weekends, we work nights, we work 24/7,” said Sandy Reding, president of the California Nurses Association. “We want to be with our families, but we feel that this election is so important to put the right president in place.”

Union representatives consistently said Republican nominee former President Donald Trump’s labor record motivated them and their members to work for the Harris campaign.

During his first term, Trump significantly weakened workers’ ability to organize and, during his presidency, the National Labor Review Board made a series of antiunion decisions.

Trump has also more recently praised Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk, suggesting Musk might be tasked to head a commission on government efficiency.

The national AFL-CIO said in a statement that Project 2025, a conservative blueprint for reshaping the federal government, would also remove child labor protections, result in the firing of civil service workers and ban public service worker unions. Trump has sought to distance himself from the initiative proposed by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. But at least 140 members of Trump’s first administration had a hand in producing the 920-page document, according to media reports.

This year’s presidential election is the first in which Rosina Barrientos — a local member of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees — can canvas for the union. Local 4041 ratified its first contract with the state in 2021.

“If Project 2025 … passed,” Barrientos said, “that would be basically dissolving everything that we have fought for.”

Union representatives, meanwhile, said they felt good about what a Harris presidency might look like. Biden has referred to himself as the “most pro-union president in American history,” joining the United Auto Workers on the picket line and supporting the Protecting the Right to Organize Act.

Martinez said she expected more of the same from a Harris-Walz administration.

Reding, of the California Nurses Association, said there were “a lot of things engaging people — working people, union people, nurses — because Kamala’s values are our values.”