Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., scoffed at the union endorsements that his Democratic presidential rival Hillary Clinton has gotten, alleging Thursday that the process had not been “democratic,” and that had union leaders listened strictly to their rank and file members, he might have won the nods instead.
“Other unions do what they do and that is up to them,” Sanders said at the D.C. headquarters of the Communications Workers of America, which backed the senator Thursday. “I don’t know what the prospects would have been had there been a democratic poll at those other unions. I think I would have had a good shot.”
Clinton has outpaced Sanders in terms of union endorsements so far in the race, gaining the backing of some of the largest powerful ones. They include the Service Employees International Union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the American Teachers Federation, the National Education Association, the Laborers International Union of North America and the International Association of Machinists.
CWA, which boasts 700,000 members, is the largest to endorse Sanders so far. He also has the backing of National Nurses United and the American Postal Workers Union.
Sanders’ union allies have publicly complained about the Clinton endorsements. After SEIU announced last month it was backing Clinton, the activist group Labor for Bernie slammed the SEIU executive board, pointing out that Clinton is backing a $12 an hour minimum wage while Sanders has called for $15 an hour. “@SEIU’s exec board endorses HRC – they think their members prefer $12/hr over @BernieSanders’s $15/hr + #singlepayer! #FeelTheBern,” the group tweeted.
Sanders fans point to incidents like an October speech ASFCME President Lee Saunders gave to rank and file members in Washington state. When Saunders mentioned the names of the Democratic candidates, only Sanders’ name brought loud, sustained applause. “Is that some kind of message? Is that some kind of message that I’m hearing?” he joked. Two weeks later, AFSMCE endorsed Clinton.
“What we are seeing is a lot of grassroots support in union after union in this country, but that support has not necessarily trickled up to the leadership,” Sanders said at the CWA event, according to Bloomberg.
CWA President Chris Shelton did not comment on the other unions’ endorsements Thursday but did emphasize that his union’s was based strictly on what a poll of its members found. “If a majority had told us that they wanted Donald Trump, we would have backed Trump,” he said.
Others at CWA briefly lead a chant of “This is what democracy looks like!”
Sanders has close ties to CWA. One of his top advisors, Larry Cohen, is the union’s former president. Shelton however said that Cohen was “absolutely not” involved in lobbying the union’s members for Sanders.
Clinton has had a rocky relationship with labor, which partly fueled Sanders’ rise as her top rival. Many union members still blame President Bill Clinton’s signing of the North American Freet Trade Agreement trade deal in 1993 with costing them jobs. Others note Hillary Clinton once sat on the board of Walmart, which has aggressively fought off efforts to unionize its workers.
During a June meeting with the executive council of the AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest labor federation, regarding its presidential endorsement, Clinton refused to declare a position on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a major proposed trade deal negotiated by the White House that labor leaders oppose. The AFL-CIO subsequently announced it was postponing any endorsement for the foreseeable future.
She has worked hard to mend fences with labor leaders since then, coming out against the trade deal in October.
Shelton argued that the full AFL-CIO, which CWA is a member of, was unlikely to back anybody until very late in the primary. “The AFL-CIO’s rules require that a candidate receive the support of two-thirds of it affiliates before it can receive an endorsement. I doubt that there is two-thirds support for any particular candidate,” he said.
