Harris makes union pitch at UAW in Michigan: ‘Good to be in the house of labor’

Vice President Kamala Harris sharpened her pitch to labor unions in a Thursday speech at the United Auto Workers headquarters.

“It’s good to be in the house of labor!” Harris said before a backdrop of the UAW logo superimposed on a cinderblock wall.

Unions are traditionally strong financial and organizing backers of Democrats, and most labor groups have switched from endorsing President Joe Biden in this year’s election to supporting Harris. While Biden often called himself the most pro-union president in history, Harris laid out her own labor bonafides Thursday.

“It’s about the collective. It’s about understanding no one should ever be made to fight alone,” Harris said. “I’ve fought my entire career for unions and labor because I understand the noble concept behind collective bargaining.”

That concept, she continued, is fairness.

“When you’re talking about the individual and a big company, and you require that one individual to negotiate against the big company, how is that outcome going to be fair?” she asked rhetorically. “So collective bargaining is about saying, ‘let the collective come together around a common experience.’”

UAW president Shawn Fain introduced Harris, describing the candidate and her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), as “working class people” and thus “one of us.” Walz, in his remarks, said the UAW headquarters is holy ground for unions and implored union members to work hard over the next 89 days to get Harris elected. He warned that GOP presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump, doesn’t like the middle class.

Trump and his vice presidential pick, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), have been trying to create a problem of the fact that Harris has not done a major interview or press conference since Biden dropped out on July 20. Trump finished an hourlong press conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate shortly before Harris took the stage in Michigan. He taunted that she wouldn’t be able to do the same.

Harris did not take questions from media members in the room but, like Walz, implored her supporters to work hard for the next 89 days to elect her.

“The thing that we love about hard work is we have fun doing hard work because we know what we stand for,” she said. “That’s a big part of this campaign. When you know what you stand for, you know what to fight for. We know what we stand for — we stand for the people.”

However, Harris’s campaign has yet to release detailed policy proposals laying out her plans for a full term in the White House. She laid out what drives her campaign, but only in broad generalities.

“We stand for the dignity of work,” Harris said. “And we stand for freedom. We stand for justice. We stand for equality. And so we will fight for all of it.”