Bernie Sanders kicked off Labor Day weekend in a true union style: by picking up a sign and joining a picket line outside Penford Products in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
“I want you to know being out on a picket line and standing with workers is something I have been doing for my entire life,” the senator from Vermont told the crowd.
The Penford Products workers in question are on strike over a new contract which they say would cut wages and holidays such as Veterans Day.
“I did when I was mayor of the city of Burlington,” Sanders added. “I did [it] in Congress, did it in the Senate.”
He was now doing it as a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, with one poll would putting him nine points up on Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire.
“This is what I do,” he said. “This is what I believe in.”
But despite such pro-labor language, the Vermont independent – a self-described democratic socialist – has picked up just one national union endorsement so far.
To some union leaders, Sanders remains unelectable. They want a candidate who can take on a Republican and win. To some, only one candidate can do that: former secretary of state Hillary Clinton.
Joining about 100 unionised workers in Iowa, Sanders urged the leadership at Ingredion – the parent company of Penford Products – to negotiate “in a serious way”.
“You are not serious when you tell a union that you want lower wages, when you want longer hours, when you want cuts in vacation time, when you want to tell workers they can’t celebrate the Veterans Day,” Sanders said.
“That’s not serious. You are not going to cut overtime pay. You are not going to cut pensions.”
Clinton also had unions on her mind on Friday. During a visit to debt-ridden Puerto Rico, she said she would be pursuing their endorsements.
“Labor Day is kind of a pivot for all kinds of political actions during a campaign year,” she said. “I think there will be a number of … unions that will be endorsing, but they have to make those decisions. Whatever timetable they pursue.”
Clinton has two noteworthy endorsements already – from the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT).
“[W]hat we need is to win … not just fight,” the AFT president, Randi Weingarten, told the Guardian. “Our union believes Hillary Clinton is going to be the one to do that.”
So far, Sanders has one national union endorsement – from National Nurses United.
According to one pro-Sanders labor group, this is not a problem - as long as there are no or few endorsements for all candidates. Labor for Bernie is hoping that by remaining neutral for now, unions will give Sanders time to prove himself.
Sanders does not deny that when he got into the race, he was a relative unknown. That has changed, he said on Saturday in Altoona, Iowa, claiming the Clinton campaign was “getting nervous about the energy and enthusiasm our campaign is bringing forth”.
“I think what they know is that four months ago, when I entered this race, if you look at the polls I was in 3% to 4%,” he told CNN. “[The] vast majority of the American people didn’t know who Bernie Sanders was, they didn’t know what my ideas were, and in last few months, we have amassed huge amounts of enthusiasm and huge amounts of energy.”
According to an NBC News/Marist Poll released on Sunday, were the election to be held today, with Vice-President Joe Biden in the race, Sanders would get 41% of the vote to 32% for Clinton. Biden would get 16%.
Union endorsements can give candidates a powerful network of volunteers. That is one of the reasons the Sanders campaign has been courting them.
“It’s not just a question of endorsements, it’s a question of energy and enthusiasm,” Sanders told the Guardian in July.
Some strategists believe that for many unions the delay in announcing an endorsement is a strategic decision rather than a sign they have yet to determine who to back.
The Democratic strategist Brad Bannon told the Hill unions were playing hard to get in order to “squeeze out every bit of pro-labor policy they can from Hillary before they make an endorsement”.
“Say you’re in love with a girl and want to marry her,” Bannon said. “She’s playing it cool. So you figure the best way to make her jealous is to flirt with someone else.
“[AFL-CIO president Richard] Trumka wants to marry Hillary, but until she’s willing to make stronger commitments to labor he’s going to flirt with Bernie and Biden. That will get Hillary’s attention.”
The AFL-CIO is the largest federation of unions in the US. Its president has said it may not endorse any candidate before the New Hampshire and Iowa primaries, early next year.
Earlier this year, Trumka told the Guardian the AFL-CIO would look for candidates to do more than just talk about ending income inequality, raising wages and feeling workers’ pain.
“We are going to hold them to a standard that says: ‘OK, what are you going to do about it?’” he said. “And Democrats, independents and Republicans are going to have to answer that question for the American workers.”
On Friday, before joining the picket line in Cedar Rapids, Sanders said decent wages or decent benefits should not be too much to ask.
“Who with a straight face can tell me that it is reasonable that a CEO of this particular company has a guaranteed severance package, that if she is terminated she will get $28m, when they want to cut vacation time and wages and healthcare for American workers?” he said, prompting boos and yells of “Bullshit!”
“Nobody thinks that is right. Everybody knows that is greed and everybody knows that that greed is destroying the United States of America.”
On Saturday, asked by a CNN reporter if he would join picket lines after he was elected to the White House, Sanders said: “Yeah, I might.
“Why not? I’ve done it as a senator, I’ve done it as a congressman, I’ve done it as a mayor. Why not as a president?”
