Kamala Harris’ insistence that the Democrats are pro-labor and support the working class has been one of the campaign’s loudest messages, especially at the recent Democratic National Convention. The party convention saw endorsement speeches from United Automobile Workers (UAW) president Shawn Fain as well as other major union presidents, including from the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), and several more. Fain led chants across the arena of “Trump is a scab” and he said that this 2024 Harris campaign is the first time in his lifetime that he has “heard a presidential candidate talk about corporate greed”.
Fain is right that corporate greed must be fought, but will Kamala Harris do more than just talk about it? All the evidence says she won’t. The next night after Fain’s speech, the Democrats showed how much they prioritized workers when they invited venture capitalist and former CEO of American Express Kenneth Chenault to address the crowd. Also taking the stage was Harris’ close ally and advisor Senator Laphonza Butler, former lawyer for Uber who led the company in its fight against union organizing. Uber’s corporate team is well represented in the Democratic Party’s inner circle: Harris’ own brother-in-law and close campaign advisor Tony West is also an executive at the company.
During Harris’ term as Vice President, the Biden administration also showed that the Democratic Party’s true allegiance is to big business and corporate interest. For instance, when railroad workers organized to threaten what could have been one of the most impactful industry-wide labor struggles in decades, Biden intervened on behalf of the corporations to prohibit a strike. It’s true that Biden appointed some bureaucrats who may have been more willing to enforce regulations on businesses than Trump’s appointees, but Kamala Harris is facing major pressure from her powerful billionaire donors to fire them if she is elected. Shawn Fain of the UAW can cheer Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for joining striking workers on picket lines, but these symbolic actions ignore their very real actions to stifle worker struggles.
Fain is eager to point out that the candidates opposing Harris, Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, are “lapdogs for the billionaire class who only serve themselves.” This is obviously true. However, the Democratic Party’s actions for over a hundred years of preserving and upholding capitalism make it clear that they serve the wealthy and powerful just the same as the Republicans. There is no hope in looking to Kamala Harris as an alternative to Trump to prioritize the working class. We can look only to ourselves as we organize and fight for alternatives in our workplaces, in our neighborhoods, and across the world.
