Election 2024: The union difference

Your union, your family, your vote: What the facts say about your choice for the White House

Vice President Kamala Harris and Governor Tim Walz have had our backs their whole careers. Now it’s our turn to have theirs.

During her term as vice president, Kamala Harris:

• Cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate to guarantee pension security for over 1 million union members nationwide, including 1,600 retired sheet metal workers in Ohio that got back-pay and ended 40% cuts.
• Worked across the aisle to pass the largest investment in our infrastructure in 70 years, with strong labor standards and prevailing wages that are creating good union jobs for thousands of SMART members.
• Worked across the aisle to pass the CHIPS and Science Act, which is bringing billions of dollars in investment to microchip manufacturers back from overseas and putting SMART members to work from Vermont to Idaho.

• Led the White House Task Force on Worker Organizing, a whole-of-government approach to empowering workers, promoting worker organizing and collective bargaining for workers employed by public and private-sector employers, and creating pathways to good union jobs.
• Championed the expanded Child Tax Credit, included in the American Rescue Plan, which cut child poverty in half in just one year before it was killed by House Republicans.
• Met with SMART members in Boston, Philadelphia and beyond, discussing directly with workers how pro-labor policy can benefit our union.  

During his terms as Governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz:

• Expanded prevailing wages on state-supported clean energy projects and all projects funded by state bond issues, including funding for strong enforcement of prevailing wage laws.
• Partnered with SMART Local 10 to pass a landmark indoor air quality bill with requirements that skilled, trained workers are hired and paid prevailing wage.
• Passed the nation’s strongest Paid Family and Medical Leave law, providing paid sick and safe time if members or their families need it, at no cost to workers.

• Banned union-busting captive audience meetings and passed the largest middle-class tax cut in state history.
• Strengthened protections against wage theft in the construction industry.
• Signed into law the largest increase to the Minnesota work compensation system’s permanent partial disability fund in state history.
• Passed a universal free school breakfast and lunch program to feed the kids of working families.

If Donald Trump is returned to the White House, we know what he and JD Vance plan to do. Their allies wrote Project 2025, a plan to hurt the building trades by:

• Banning the use of project labor agreements on federally funded construction projects
• Allowing nonunion contractors to run apprenticeship programs that provide inadequate training, no guarantee of employment, and strip parts of the trade while receiving the same tax status as union apprenticeships, but without any federal oversight.
• Allowing nonunion contractors and subcontractors to misclassify workers with no penalty or requirement that they pay unemployment insurance or workers’ compensation, undercutting bids from union contractors.

• Amending child labor laws to allow minors to work in construction and other dangerous fields. Many states have already loosened child labor protections, leading to a huge jump in cases of child exploitation.
• Legalizing company unions for the first time in 90 years, giving employers another way to avoid collective bargaining, stop organizing drives and ignore real worker voices.
• Rescinding the labor standards in the Inflation Reduction Act, CHIPS and Science Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that ensure work with public money creates good union jobs with safe worksites.
• Make it easier for employers to get rid of unions in the middle of contracts.
• Enable small businesses to violate OSHA worker safety laws.

A vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz will keep our union growing and keep them fighting for you. With four years in office, they plan to:

• Build on the progress and investments we’ve made together, ensuring that the next phases of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, IRA, and CHIPS and Science act keep creating union jobs.
• Make the Child Tax Credit permanent, saving you thousands in taxes to use on childcare and the everyday costs of raising a family, and restore the tax deduction for union dues and tools.   

• Lower prescription drug costs by empowering Medicare and Medicaid to negotiate the prices they pay on the medicine Americans need.
• End unfair rent increases by capping yearly hikes at 5% for corporate landlords and give working families $25,000 toward buying their first home.  
• Solve our housing crisis by building 3 million new homes in the next 4 years.
• Crack down on price gouging at the grocery store and the gas pump, and ban junk fees on credit cards, flights and tickets. 

The facts are clear. Vote for your family, your job and your union. Vote Harris-Walz on November 5th.