Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders received the endorsement of a major union Monday.
National Nurses United, the nation’s largest organization of nurses, picked the Vermont senator over Hillary Clinton as its preferred presidential candidate. The union cited Sanders’ “proven track record of uncompromised activism and advocacy for working people, and a message that resonates with nurses, and, as we have all seen, tens of thousands of people across the country.”
The union announced its choice at a conference in Oakland, Calif., where the independent senator was speaking.
“We are going to make healthcare a right of all of our people!” Sanders said at the event. “We are going to make it easier, not harder, for nurses and millions of Americans to join unions and collectively bargain for better wages and benefits!”
The nearly 185,000 member-strong union held an internal poll, by which its members expressed “overwhelming support” for Sanders.
The announcement is a blow to presumptive Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, who received the endorsement of the American Federation of Teachers, the nation’s third-largest labor group, in July.
