At the time, I had been doing what union orga­niz­ers do when they’re not knock­ing on doors, going to shift change or run­ning meet­ings: I was call­ing work­ers. In this case, the work­ers were from a local nurs­ing home, Berlin Health & Reha­bil­i­ta­tion, and I was remind­ing them to show up at the action they’d planned for the next morn­ing. The care providers had orga­nized a ​“march on the boss,” where a group of work­ers would go unan­nounced to meet with their admin­is­tra­tor to present her with union autho­riza­tion cards signed by a vast major­i­ty of their colleagues.

Under the Nation­al Labor Rela­tions Act, the New Deal-era bill that gov­erns how work­ers can form a union in this coun­try, this action alone should have been suf­fi­cient for the 120 work­ers to have their union rec­og­nized. In the real world of tooth­less U.S. labor law, how­ev­er, in which the NLRA has been watered down and rein­ter­pret­ed so as to dra­mat­i­cal­ly favor boss­es, the employ­er, a Cana­di­an multi­na­tion­al real estate firm, informed the work­ers via the local admin­is­tra­tor that ​“they couldn’t meet and would need to talk to their attor­neys” — in this case, a noto­ri­ous $600 per hour union-bust­ing law firm. The work­ers were pre­pared for this like­li­hood and were nat­u­ral­ly fear­ful, but were deter­mined to go ahead.

This group of large­ly work­ing-class women from rur­al Ver­mont was right­ly wor­ried they’d be fired. While such a move would have tech­ni­cal­ly been ille­gal, it was nev­er­the­less a dis­tinct pos­si­bil­i­ty, with the employ­er know­ing full well that they would be unlike­ly to face pun­ish­ment. And even if they did, it would be a small price to pay for hav­ing crushed the work­ers’ orga­niz­ing dri­ve. Fir­ing work­ers who dared orga­nize a union was — and is — stan­dard prac­tice in the Unit­ed States.

The work­ers had asked then-Rep. Bernie Sanders (I‑Vt.) to attend their action the next day. I was new to Ver­mont but had orga­nized unions all over the coun­try for much of the pre­vi­ous decade, and I scoffed at the idea that any politi­cian would even con­sid­er tak­ing the work­ers’ side in this way. Three old­er lead­ers named Don­na, Dot and Pat had insist­ed that we call ​“our Bernie” and invite him. I, like every union orga­niz­er of the time, was well accus­tomed to Clin­ton-era Democ­rats all over the coun­try, even in blue Ver­mont, pre­fer­ring to ​“remain neu­tral” (while glad­ly accept­ing dona­tions from the boss­es) in these strug­gles between local work­ing peo­ple and mas­sive multi­na­tion­al corporations.

So I was more than a bit shocked when Bernie actu­al­ly called back. That he was call­ing to say he was ​“unfor­tu­nate­ly stuck in Wash­ing­ton” for an impor­tant vote and would not be able to come back to Ver­mont for the action astound­ed me. Of course he was clas­sic Bernie, a bit brusque and prick­ly, but here was a mem­ber of the U.S. Con­gress actu­al­ly call­ing to apol­o­gize to the work­ers that he could not be with them in this crit­i­cal moment.

Twen­ty years ago was the height of the Clin­ton ​“Third Way” era, when Democ­rats cozied up to boss­es and gov­erned in oppo­si­tion to the inter­ests of work­ers, unions and the mid­dle class. This peri­od saw the rise of such poli­cies as NAF­TA, Wall Street dereg­u­la­tion, wide­spread pri­va­ti­za­tion and mass incar­cer­a­tion. So-called ​“free trade” agree­ments had encour­aged and sped the move­ment of hun­dreds of thou­sands of qual­i­ty union jobs from the Unit­ed States to the Glob­al South where wages and labor pro­tec­tions were even low­er than ours. When throngs of work­ers, envi­ron­men­tal­ists and activists took to the streets to protest these poli­cies in anti-World Trade Orga­ni­za­tion demon­stra­tions in Seat­tle, Que­bec City and oth­er loca­tions in the late 1990s and ear­ly 2000s, many Demo­c­ra­t­ic lead­ers scold­ed us and crossed our pick­et lines to make com­mon cause with cor­po­rate elites. Bernie, on the oth­er hand, stood with us.

While Democ­rats adopt­ed the age-old Repub­li­can ​“bal­anced bud­get” red her­ring to force though ​“wel­fare reform,” slash­ing pub­lic spend­ing on pro­grams that ben­e­fit­ed the work­ing class, Bernie was a lone voice call­ing for increas­ing tax­es on the wealthy, cor­po­ra­tions and Wall Street. As Democ­rats passed finan­cial dereg­u­la­tion that allowed Wall Street to prey upon the work­ing and mid­dle class, result­ing most spec­tac­u­lar­ly in the 2008 mort­gage cri­sis that saw count­less Amer­i­cans lose their homes and their life sav­ings, Bernie demand­ed that home­own­ers — not banks — be bailed out. And when the U.S. labor move­ment issued its protes­ta­tions against these Demo­c­rat-led anti-work­er poli­cies, again Bernie was a strong voice defend­ing the inter­ests of work­ing people.

So Don­na, Dot and Pat were of course right — what was unimag­in­able from cor­po­rate Democ­rats was stan­dard oper­at­ing pro­ce­dure for ​“our Bernie,” as they always called him. Over the com­ing months and years, while these women, with Sanders’ help, went on to suc­cess­ful­ly form their union and fight tooth and nail for a con­tract, Bernie, in stark oppo­si­tion to every oth­er high-rank­ing elect­ed offi­cial, was there. Sanders didn’t just pledge sup­port to the work­ers, he was con­sis­tent­ly attend­ing or call­ing in to orga­niz­ing meet­ings and con­tract nego­ti­a­tions to encour­age work­ers to vote for the union and stay strong at the bar­gain­ing table, walk­ing pick­et lines, host­ing com­mu­ni­ty forums and fundrais­ers for fired work­ers, and call­ing and vis­it­ing employ­ers to demand they set­tle and rein­state work­ers fired for union activity.

Through­out his career, Bernie has urged work­ers to ​“vote for the union” and thanked them for going on strike or fight­ing for pen­sions, afford­able health­care, and safe staffing — time after time mak­ing it clear that when orga­nized work­ers fight for their fun­da­men­tal rights, they’re actu­al­ly fight­ing for all workers.

That Bernie is now cam­paign­ing on the most pro-work­er and pro-union plat­form in the 2020 field should be no sur­prise. His plan would dou­ble union mem­ber­ship in Amer­i­ca and give work­ing peo­ple more rights — and democ­ra­cy — in the work­place. Barack Oba­ma, like many Democ­rats before him, talked a good game on pass­ing ​“card check” leg­is­la­tion when address­ing union audi­ences in 2008, only to squan­der his man­date and two years of con­gres­sion­al majori­ties with­out so much as a peep on labor law reform. Bernie’s decades-long record makes clear that he will fight fierce­ly and tire­less­ly to build the labor movement

It’s time for nation­al union lead­ers to break out of their cocoon and work for Bernie as hard as he’s worked for us. Mobi­lize mem­ber­ship to elect the most pro-work­er and pro-union pres­i­den­tial can­di­date we’ve seen in our lifetimes.

Views expressed are those of the writer. As a 501©3 non­prof­it, In These Times does not sup­port or oppose any can­di­date for pub­lic office.