MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Back here in the U.S., Labor Day - the holiday to celebrate American workers - is a moment when labor unions hold parades and picnics to celebrate their role in giving members a voice in the workplace. But in an election year, Labor Day is also about politics - and, as NPR's Don Gonyea reports, this year, labor is playing an especially visible role in the presidential race.
DON GONYEA, BYLINE: If you're looking for an example of how unions and the election are intertwined, look no further than the United Auto Workers' combative president, Shawn Fain.
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SHAWN FAIN: Kamala Harris is one of us.
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FAIN: She's a fighter for the working class. And Donald Trump is a scab.
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GONYEA: That was at the recent Democratic National Convention, where a parade of union leaders spoke. Other high-profile speakers also gave labor a shout out. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez embedded hers in this attack on Trump.
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ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ: And I, for one, am tired about - of hearing about how a two-bit union buster thinks of himself as more of a patriot than the woman who fights every single day to lift working people out from under the boots of greed trampling on our way of life.
GONYEA: Democrats need labor to turn out. Liz Shuler is the president of the AFL-CIO, the nation's largest labor organization. She says, in key battleground states, union members make up 20% of the vote. Plus, it's also significant that public support for unions is the highest it's been since the 1960s.
LIZ SHULER: We've had historic highs. The last several years, young people under the age of 30 are the most pro-union, so what does that speak to? It speaks to the fact that the economy has been broken for young people for way too long.
GONYEA: Meanwhile, Donald Trump also sees union support as key, but he doesn't need a majority of voters there. He just needs to shrink the Democrats' traditional lead with labor. That's what helped him carry Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and the presidency in 2016. But four years later, Joe Biden won each of those states, in part by restoring Democrats' level of support with unions, which brings us to this year. Here's Trump at the Republican National Convention.
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DONALD TRUMP: And the leader of the United Auto Workers should be fired immediately. And every single autoworker - union and nonunion - should be voting for Donald Trump because...
GONYEA: Mike Hinton (ph) is a General Motors retiree who talked to NPR as he headed to a Trump rally this summer in Saginaw, Mich. Personally, he says, he ignores his union's candidate endorsements. Here's why this former Democrat backs Trump.
MIKE HINTON: We're a mess overseas. They don't respect us over there. I says, our economy is just out of hand, for the elderly folks, especially. And we need a change, and we need to get him back in there, to get things under control again.
GONYEA: Still, more common are union members like Raquel Harvey, who was cheering on the Harris-Walz ticket when they held a rally at a UAW local outside Detroit. Harvey says she does want to hear what her union thinks about candidates.
RAQUEL HARVEY: Anybody the UAW endorses - you know, they support the working class, so it has a big effect on, you know, my decisions that I would make when I'm voting.
GONYEA: Unions are also stepping up their social media presence, like this UAW TikTok, with audio of Trump joking with Elon Musk about firing workers who strike.
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TRUMP: I won't mention the name of the company, but they go on strike, and you say, that's OK. You're all gone.
GONYEA: But even with all the increased social media, AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler says, the most important way to reach union voters is still union members talking at work, in the break room or after hours.
SHULER: Union members will be the ones who will be at the center of their communities, educating voters, bringing their friends and family and their neighbors and coworkers to the polls. That old-fashioned person-to-person getting people to the polls is what the labor movement's bread and butter is.
GONYEA: The election is nine weeks from tomorrow. Shuler sees it as a sprint, with union activists trying to reach a critical group of voters.
Don Gonyea, NPR News, Detroit. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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