At The Pennsylvania Capital-Star, Kalena Thomhave interviews Steve Rosenthal, former political director of the AFL-CIO and current president of the Organizing Group, a political consulting firm that helps labor unions get out the vote and win campaigns. An Excerpt:

On the union vote, there was a lot of media discussion about how union members are migrating to Trump despite the Biden administration doing so much for unions. 

First off, union members voted for Harris in pretty strong numbers. Across the three blue wall states, [there was a] significant performance by union members.

In Pennsylvania, union members made up 18% of the electorate. So, almost one out of five votes cast came from union households, and they voted 52 to 47 for Harris, which is better than the Biden vote was in 2020, [when] Biden lost union households to Trump 49 to 50 in Pennsylvania. So, she actually did better.

In Wisconsin, Kamala Harris won union voters 53 to 46 — better than Clinton did in 2016 and not quite as good as Biden did in 2020, but still a nine-point margin among union voters in the state. In Michigan, Harris won [union voters] 55 to 44 — not quite as good as Biden did in 2020, but much better than Clinton in 2016.

Trump has eroded the union vote a little bit, but not in substantial numbers. The media rush to judgment before the election based on some polls suggesting that union members had abandoned the Democrats, it’s just wrong.

What are your thoughts on unions like the Teamsters not endorsing Harris?

The Teamsters, as was well reported, stayed neutral. So did the firefighters. But there were 50 unions that supported Kamala Harris.

The Teamsters released a poll that said that [nearly] 60% of their members were supporting Trump, and [indicated] that’s why they decided to stay neutral. I’ve seen a lot of union member polls over the more than 40 years I’ve been doing this work. Unions might start off with their members behind 10, 15, or 20 points.

But then you put your program into gear and communicate with your members — in this case, for example, point out that Trump supports right-to-work and that Trump ran one of the most vehemently anti-union administrations in the history of the country. And then contrast that with Harris’ record and the fact that Harris cast the deciding vote on the legislation that saved the pensions for hundreds of thousands of union members, including Teamsters.

It was inexcusable that the union didn’t take the opportunity to communicate to their members and explain to them what was at stake in this election. Because if they had done that, they would have moved those numbers. No union leader could look at these two candidates and with any degree of honesty suggest that one of them wouldn’t be better for working people.

You said that Democrats need to be doing the work in the trenches with workers. What does that look like? 

I think it is walking picket lines. I think it’s showing up at union halls. I think it’s gathering groups of working people together and sitting with them and listening to them — doing town hall meetings around your district or state and hearing what people have to say. It means standing united with working people and letting them see who’s really on their side.

Over the next couple of years, it’s going to be standing strong against what’s going to be a vicious assault on a range of worker’s rights. There are going to be attacks on [the Occupational Safety and Health Administration], overtime pay, the National Labor Relations Board, funding the Fair Labor Standards Act, and federal workers’ unions.

What has been your approach to mobilizing union and working-class voters? 

With our voter engagement program, In Union, we provide voters with a year of information — we don’t just start talking to them around the election. We give them tips on their families saving money, we provide them with information about unions on the front lines, we give them ways to hold politicians accountable and to fight back. And then we gradually get into communicating about the election itself. We never make endorsements, but we provide people with good, sound information and well-documented citations.

Read the rest of the interview right here.