Union organizers donate overwhelmingly to Sanders

The Iowa caucuses are days away, and the race to pick a Democratic nominee to go up against Donald Trump is reaching an all-out sprint. Trump is widely viewed as leading the most anti-worker administration in decades. Yet, unlike in the 2015–16 primary, most of organized labor has stayed on the sidelines. Few major national unions have endorsed a candidate.

Bernie Sanders has received the most official support so far. In recent weeks, the Vermont senator and democratic socialist has won endorsements from NNU, NUHW, and UE. Some smaller, important affiliates like UTLA in California, SEIU Local 1984 in New Hampshire, and CCEA in Nevada have also given Sanders the nod. However, this is a far cry from the last presidential cycle, when labor leadership weighed in decisively and early on to back Hillary Clinton.

Time is running out for unions to make an impact. So, we can expect to see more big endorsements rolling in soon.

How might labor be leaning? There are no public surveys that assess union members’ preferences for presidential candidates. Union leaders are playing their cards close to the chest, too. Fortunately, we do have one reliable indicator. Between the rank-and-file and international union presidents, there is a middle stratum of thousands of organizers employed by labor unions as staff. The nature of their work means they are deeply invested in politics. They often donate as individuals to presidential campaigns, which are then required by law to report these contributions to the Federal Election Commission (FEC). Searching the FEC’s database by employer, we can see which candidates they believe in strongly enough to donate their own money.

The results are unambiguous: labor is betting on Bernie. Union organizers donate overwhelmingly to Sanders. He is not just the head of the pack; he is leaving the rest of the Democrats in the dust. At nearly every major union in the country, at least half of all donations from staff go to Bernie Sanders.

Data was pulled for individual contributions to Democrats still in the presidential race from the staff of twelve major U.S. unions. The percentages do not reflect donations to candidates who have since dropped out or those made to Trump. The data was downloaded on January 5, which catches most but not all contributions made in Q4. This consists of donations made directly to campaigns and those earmarked to campaigns through ActBlue. Searches included both acronyms and full names in the employer field but not the names of local or industrial affiliates (e.g., NewsGuild in addition to CWA). LIUNA and UBC contributions were also looked at, but there were not enough donations to draw any conclusions.

For eleven of the biggest unions in America, Bernie is the clear favorite in all three categories the FEC tracks. He receives the most individual donations and raises the most money from the most unique donors. The only exception is NEA, where the top candidates are Warren, Buttigieg, and Sanders, respectively.

In the case of UNITE HERE, the hospitality workers’ union, no one else comes remotely close. 87 percent of donations from UNITE HERE organizers to all Democratic candidates go to Bernie Sanders. He gets twelve times the number of individual contributions, ten times the total amount of money, and seven times the number of unique donors as the closest runner-up, Elizabeth Warren. Two other Democrats polling in the top tier of candidates in Iowa, Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg, enjoy virtually no support among the union’s staff, as measured here.

It is no surprise that union organizers see Sanders as the strongest candidate. Unlike most Democrats, he centers the working class in his politics. He has been on every picket line in the last forty years as an elected official. He uses his massive list to turn out supporters to union solidarity actions. Bernie’s Workplace Democracy Act promises to double union membership in the United States in just four years by instituting card check, repealing right-to-work laws and the ban on secondary boycotts, and more. He is the most viable candidate in the race, with more money, more dedicated volunteers, and the best polling in key swing states Clinton lost to Trump in 2016.

More than anything, Bernie Sanders is promising to be an “organizer-in-chief.” Union organizers know that change never comes from the top down but only from the bottom up. As president, Bernie would stand shoulder-to-shoulder with millions of working people and lead a political revolution against the billionaire class. He is our best chance to win a country that works for all of us.