Granderson: Is Harris or Trump backing workers? Union crowd in Detroit says it all (2024)

I grew up in a union family in Detroit. Health insurance, food on the table, roof over our heads — as kids we took these for granted, but history tells us they were not easily earned, and work stoppages are perennial reminders that they are also hard to keep. As children we were unaware of the constant tension between labor and capital. All we knew was sometimes we ate at Red Lobster on Sundays, and sometimes we were lucky if we ate at all.

That is what greeted Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz when they landed at the Detroit airport on Wednesday for a rally with the United Auto Workers: the hopes and struggles of the Midwest’s working class. The campaign believes there are an estimated 2.7 million union members in the battleground states.

Harris and Walz will be here often.

“Michigan just flipped back to middle-class workers,” said Jonathan Smith, a member of the United Food and Commercial Workers union, at the event. “We’re not going back.”

In 2013, the Republican governor, Rick Snyder, made Michigan a “right to work” state, allowing people to work in union-represented roles without paying into the union. He promised this would bring more jobs, but the move faced huge protests — and over the next decade, we learned who was right.

Michigan workers saw a decline in their way of life, but not the rise in jobs that was promised. In 2023, the Democrat governor, Gretchen Whitmer, corrected her predecessor’s error. She, like many of the speakers who took the stage at the Detroit rally, made sure to thank union leaders for organizing the huge crowd. Led by members of the United Auto Workers, who wore red, the thousands corralled in and around an airport hangar included a number of brightly colored union T-shirts.

With fewer than 90 days to go before the election, what better way for Harris to kick off the first full day with her new running mate than with voters she knows are used to fighting? And she isn’t new to this bloc or their causes.

In 2018, as a senator, Harris showed her support for the striking University of California employees by withdrawing as Berkeley’s commencement speaker. In 2019 she joined a UAW picket line in Nevada. The Biden administration transition team included Teresa Romero from the United Farm Workers and Lonnie Stephenson from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. Harris is not just comfortable in this setting. The faces in the crowd shape her policy proposals and inform her messaging. Her selection of Walz reiterates her commitment to labor and the working class.

As for her opponent, former President Trump purports to be pro-labor, but his businesses have left a trail of aggrieved and unpaid workers over the decades, including union members. We’re talking carpenters, electricians, plumbers. In fact, his enterprises racked up more than 20 violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act for not paying overtime or minimum wage. As president, he flooded the National Labor Relations Board with known union-busters. In 2004, he crossed a picket line to appear on “The Apprentice.” His current campaign chose not to hire union stagehands … and ended up with a poorly hung sign that appeared to be endorsing Harris for president.

Last fall Trump held a rally in Michigan at a nonunion plant while the UAW was fighting for a living wage. At that event Trump bashed the Biden administration for pushing automakers toward electric cars, claiming the shift would decimate the Detroit economy. Then Elon Musk endorsed him. Now Trump says he has no choice but to like electric cars because of it. So much for EVs destroying the city, right?

When union families in the Great Lakes region were fighting to put food on the table, they got support from Biden and Harris. Trump just came looking for votes.

“I was satisfied with Biden at the top of the ticket, but with Kamala Harris there is a real excitement,” Detroit native Shana Norfolk told me on Wednesday. “She understands what it’s like to live paycheck to paycheck because she’s been there with us. I believe she is going to fight for civil rights, women’s rights, worker rights, equity and inclusion … because she gets it.”

That’s how Harris has been able to build so much momentum organically. She is relatable to many different kinds of Americans because she speaks to values needed for the coalition. And it starts with compassion.

At one point, Walmart workers who relied on public assistance cost taxpayers more than $6 billion a year. At the same time, the company and its shareholders enjoyed nearly $8 billion in tax breaks and subsidies. Now even though Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said after the Jan. 6 attack that Trump’s big lie was to blame for the division in the country, Walmart continues to donate to Republicans who were election deniers. Presumably for the tax breaks.

Earlier this year the NLRB accused Walmart of illegal tactics to prevent employees from unionizing in Eureka, Calif. Clearly the tax breaks are not enough. Project 2025, the playbook conservatives want to employ on Day 1 in a possible second Trump term, includes initiatives to erode organized labor.

Health insurance, a roof over their children’s heads, food on the table — under Trump, all the staples of the middle class would be left to the whims of the 1%. No wonder there was such a passionate crowd filling the hangar at the Detroit airport for Harris and Walz: The 99% hope that this new Democratic presidential ticket can stop that from happening.

@LZGranderson