In Michigan, Harris doesn't get hoped-for firefighters endorsement amid shifting labor loyalties

[October 05, 2024]  By CHRIS MEGERIAN and WILL WEISSERT

REDFORD TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — It was the perfect place to welcome the endorsement of the firefighters union — a gleaming new firehouse in a blue-collar town just outside of Detroit in the key battleground state of Michigan.

But by the time Kamala Harris showed up in Redford Township on Friday, there was no endorsement waiting for her.

By a slim margin, the International Association of Firefighters declined to back any candidate, a reminder of the Democratic nominee’s struggle to lock down the same support from organized labor that President Joe Biden won four years ago. The Teamsters also balked at an endorsement last month.

Harris is still gaining more endorsements than she’s losing. National teachers unions, building trade unions, the AFL-CIO and the United Auto Workers backed the vice president shortly after Biden ended his run for a second term. And the leader of the Michigan firefighters union, Matthew Sahr, showed up for Harris in Redford Township — although not to bestow the endorsement.

"We could have chosen to stay away. But what kind of message would that send?” Sahr said.

A spokesman for the union declined Friday to comment beyond a previously released statement that said there would be no endorsement for Harris or her opponent, former President Donald Trump.

“The vice president is proud to have the support of organized labor, including firefighters across key battlegrounds like those who joined her in Michigan Friday,” said Harris campaign spokesman Brian Fallon. “She is the only candidate in this race who always stands with workers and has fought to protect overtime pay, worker pensions, and the right to organize.”

What unfolded nonetheless reflects the shifting loyalties in American politics as Harris vies with Trump for support among working-class voters who for years could be more solidly counted on to support Democrats.

Still, Harris didn't mince words when she spoke at the firehouse, saying Trump "has been a union-buster his entire career” and would launch a “full-on attack” against organized labor.

Harris said Trump supports “right-to-work” laws that often make it more difficult to unionize, and said he had weakened federal employees’ unions. While he was president, Trump used a series of 2018 executive orders designed to reduce those unions’ powers to collectively bargain.

He has expressed support for right-to-work since his initial run for president in 2016 — while also making comments more generally supportive of labor rights when speaking to union audiences since then.

Harris also accused the former president of “making the same empty promises to the people of Michigan that he did before, hoping you will forget how he let you down.”

Her remarks followed U.S. dockworkers suspending their strike in hopes of reaching a new contract, sparing the country a damaging episode of labor unrest that could have rattled the economy. A tentative agreement that has been hailed by Harris was reached to raise salaries, although other issues still need to be resolved.

The vice president later addressed an evening rally in Flint. She spoke after basketball legend Magic Johnson, who said “nobody is going to outwork her,” and UAW President Shawn Fain, who described Trump as “a scab.”

Harris said that, unlike what Trump says about the Biden administration’s rules on electric vehicles, “I will never tell you what kind of car you have to drive.”

“But here’s what I will do, I will invest in communities like Flint,” she said.

Harris also criticized Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, after Vance, while campaigning in Michigan on Wednesday, refused to commit to continue federal support going to a GM plant in Lansing, Michigan's state capital.

“Donald Trump's running mate suggested that if Trump wins, he might let the Grand River Assembly Plant in Lansing close down,” Harris said as the crowd booed.

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during an event at the Redford Township Fire Department North Station in Redford Township, Mich., Friday, Oct. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

She said that, by contrast, the Biden administration had fought to keep the plant open, adding, “Michigan, we, together, fought hard for those jobs and you deserve a president who won't put them at risk.”

Questions remain, though, about whether Harris can cement backing from most rank-and-file union members.

Justin Pomerville, the business manager at UA Local 85 in Michigan, said 70% of his members’ work hours are tied to the CHIPS and Science Act, which the Biden administration championed and pumped billions of dollars into semiconductor manufacturing.

The workers lay complex networks of pipes that carry exhaust, water and chemicals through high-tech facilities. However, Pomerville said some members aren’t aware of the connection between their jobs and the legislation.

“Unless someone tells them they’re working because of that, they don’t know,” he said.

The Democrats, meanwhile, have increased their support among white-collar professionals while Republicans try to make inroads among voters who didn’t attend college.

During a rally in Saginaw, Michigan, on Thursday, Trump said Republicans are now “the party of the American worker,” glossing over his anti-union record as president.

The former president also made a trip to Flint last month in an event billed as focusing on the auto industry, a pillar of the battleground state. The two candidates have been in the same cities — and in some cases the exact same venues — within days or weeks of each other.

Trump spent Friday in Georgia with Gov. Brian Kemp, the latest sign that he's patched up his rocky relationship with the top Republican in a key battleground state. The former president and the governor appeared in Evans, Georgia, standing before pallets of goods including bottled water, diapers and paper towels.

“I have no doubt that whatever can be done is going to be done," Trump said. "It’s a lot of effort. It’s a very heartbreaking situation.”

Later Friday, he held a town hall in Fayetteville in another storm-ravaged state, North Carolina. Speaking to an audience comprised largely of people with military connections, he pledged to change the name of nearby Fort Liberty back to its prior name, Fort Bragg. The base, one of the U.S. military's largest, was rechristened in 2022 in a push to rename military installations named for Confederate service members.

Trump repeated his promise to fire “woke generals," blasted the Biden administration's chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and said he'd make it easier for veterans to seek medical care outside the Veterans Administration health care system.

One man, introduced as a Vietnam War veteran named Dwight, gave Trump the Purple Heart he was awarded for injuries sustained while serving. He referenced the bullet that grazed Trump's ear during a rally in Pennsylvania and Trump's response.

“I couldn’t think of anybody more deserving to have a Purple Heart," Dwight said to Trump. "You took it, you laid down there, you got back up and the first words out of your mouth were ‘fight, fight, fight.’ You didn’t even have anything to shoot back at him.”

Trump got a series of deferments to avoid the draft during the Vietnam War, including one obtained with a physician’s letter saying he had bone spurs in his feet. In the 1990s, he said trying to avoid sexually transmitted infections was “my personal Vietnam.”

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Weissert reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Meg Kinnard in Fayetteville, North Carolina and Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix contributed.

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