She cast the deciding vote to save union members’ pensions. She broke a Sen­ate tie to make historic job-creating investments in U.S. energy production and high-tech manufacturing. She’s visited IBEW training centers nationwide to promote union apprenticeships. She even headed an unprece­dented White House task force on organizing and worker empowerment..

"Again and again, Vice President Kamala Har­ris has proven to be a champion of working people and workers’ rights, embracing the lifelong mis­sion of her pro-union partner, President Joe Biden.

After being briefed by Phoenix Local 769 members about a new transmission line in 2023, Harris thanked “all the linemen of the IBEW” and said "It's extraordinary what you guys are doing. It's highly skilled work. It's transformational."

Harris has made JATCs a favorite stop over the past four years, telling crowds that it's her mission to "visit as many IBEW locals as I can." Here she tours Local 743 in October 2023 with apprentices Kevin Gonzalez and Julee Yeakley and, at back, Training Director Ed Bernitsky. Photo courtesy of The White House.

Ten days into Harris' run for president, Concord, N.H., Local 490 hosted a campaign stop led by Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff. Business Manager Eric Batchelor is second from left in the IBEW team selfie.

As top campaign staffers look on, Los Angeles Local 11 Business Manager Robert Corona speaks to fellow Democratic National Convention delegates after casting a virtual ballot for Harris in early August, saying: "She has a proven record of standing with working people. Now it's our turn to stand with her."

“Thank unions for the five-day workweek. And the eight-hour workday. Thank unions for paid leave and sick leave and vacation time,” Harris told the American Federation of Teachers conven­tion July 25. “Because the fact is, unions helped build America’s middle class. And when unions are strong, America is strong.”

She doubled down on those beliefs two weeks later by choosing an instantly popular running mate — Minnesota’s pro-union gover­nor, Tim Walz, who last year signed into law some of the most sweeping pro-worker legisla­tion of any U.S. state. (Read more about Tim Walz’s record here.)  

The IBEW was among the first in a landslide of unions to endorse Harris for president after Biden withdrew from the race and urged Demo­crats to nominate her.

“She is a true believer,” International Presi­dent Kenneth W. Cooper said. “President Biden, who’s had our backs like no one before him in the White House, wouldn’t have passed the torch to her if she wasn’t prepared to fight like hell for us and finish the job he started.”

The afternoon of Biden’s announcement Sunday, July 21, Cooper spoke by phone with him and then with Harris, who asked for the IBEW’s support.

“She made a personal commitment to con­tinue to focus not only on issues critical to unions and the building trades at large, but specifically on issues that affect the jobs and safety of our electri­cians and utility workers,” Cooper said.

“Monday morning, I met with all the officers by Zoom, and it was unanimous to endorse her for president, and the building trades and the AFL-CIO did the same. I’ve never seen the labor movement this united.”

ENTHUSIASM at the top is echoed by local leaders and members who’ve had the oppor­tunity to interact with Harris.

“I have no qualms or doubts that she will do a fantastic job and carry on President Biden’s lead­ership and what he has done for the IBEW and unions as a whole,” said Mark Pinkasavage, busi­ness manager at Reading, Pa., Local 743.

He presented Harris with an honorary IBEW dues card last September when she visited the local’s training center and held a roundtable with apprentices.

“I told her this is what we hold in our wallets, our ticket to the middle class,” Pinkasavage said. “She was very surprised and happy and said how much the IBEW means to her and President Biden — not only our support but the val­ues that we stand for.”

Jeff Sanders, business manager of Lake Charles, La., Local 861, met Harris in 2022 after hearing her speak about the lack of rural internet service. She’d announced that the Commerce Department was allocating $30 million to connect 22,000 Louisi­ana households, calling the sum a “down payment” on $65 billion in federal investments to expand and improve America’s broad­band infrastructure.

“She was very sensitive to the issues, and she had a real con­nection with the audience,” Sand­ers said. “She believes in orga­nized labor, and she’s going to be 100% on board with us, just like Joe’s been his entire career in Washington.”

Harris made a splash at Milwaukee Local 494 on Labor Day 2020, visiting its JATC wearing two hats — U.S. senator and Biden’s running mate.

“We had a bunch of rooms set up to demonstrate what we’re teaching, and she asked questions in every one of them,” said former Business Manager Dean Warsh, now a Sixth District international representative. “It was very interactive, very much her wanting to know more.”

He also appreciated her warmth and high spirits.

“One of the neatest things hap­pened when we were in one of the testing labs,” Warsh said. “The instructor was talking to her and he said, ‘You know, I’ve got a daughter going to school in Califor­nia, and she’s part of the same sorority that you were,’” referring to the histori­cally Black sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha.

“You could just see her light up. She said, ‘Call her now!’ He did, but his daughter didn’t answer, so the vice presi­dent took the phone out of his hands and left her a voicemail,” Warsh recalled with delight. “Talk about someone who’s down to earth.”

BETWEEN Harris’ frequent visits to union halls and her crowded, far-flung itinerary of speeches, listening tours and other events, you’d think she was always on the road.

Her record as president of the U.S. Senate, the Constitutional role of all vice presidents, says otherwise. Harris has broken more tie votes than any of her 48 predecessors, with immeasurable bene­fits for workers and working families.

She cracked a 50-50 deadlock in August 2022 when Democrats alone backed the $800 billion Inflation Reduc­tion Act, now on its way to creating an estimated 1.5 million jobs in clean energy and advanced manufacturing.

A year earlier, her vote dramatically shifted power at the National Labor Rela­tions Board, confirming union-side law­yer Jennifer Abruzzo as general counsel.

Sweeping away all vestiges of the board’s virulent anti-union counsel during the Trump era, Abruzzo has issued forceful policy directives to regional NLRB staff and sent precedent-changing cases to the five-member board, now controlled by Biden appointees. Together, their efforts are restoring long-eroded work­ers’ rights, accelerating organizing drives and punishing union-busting employers.

Harris’ tiebreakers have also put worker-friendly judges on the federal bench, which hears appeals of NLRB decisions.

THE MAGNITUDE of Harris’ swing votes can’t be overstated. But Coo­per said none is more important to the financial security of union members than the one she cast to save their pensions.

As a newly elected U.S. senator from California in 2017, Harris co-sponsored the Butch Lewis Act — legislation crucial to shoring up multi-employer pension plans that were badly damaged by the 2008 recession, off-shoring and other economic blows.

The GOP repeatedly blocked the bill, proposing instead to slash the bene­fits of union retirees and force union pen­sion plans in good shape, like the IBEW’s, to bear the entire cost of a rescue, which would send even the healthy plans into a death spiral.

When the COVID-19 pandemic made matters worse for the troubled plans, the White House and Democratic lawmakers insisted on inserting Butch Lewis provisions into the $350 billion American Rescue Plan.

Not a single Republican senator crossed the aisle, leaving Harris to break the 50-50 tie in favor of workers.

This June, the White House announced that 83 endangered plans had received assistance so far, ensuring their solvency through at least 2051 and protecting robust funds, including the IBEW’s, against fallout from the GOP scheme.

“President Biden and Vice President Harris literally saved our pensions and, as I tell my members, that’s just one of the many things they’ve done for you,” said Todd Provost, business manager of Orlando, Fla., Local 606. “Just look at the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Inflation Reduction Act, the CHIPS Act and all the work that’s rolling out for us because of them.”

In late July, Orange County Democrats asked Provost if they could use the local’s hall for a media event to endorse Harris. “Go for it!” he told them, opening the space to a campaign phone bank a few days later.

“What our membership needs to understand is that, while we all have our beliefs, you need to vote for what’s best for you and your family’s livelihood,” Provost said. “That means voting for the candidates who support the IBEW, your jobs and your retirement. And that means Kamala Harris.”

THE AMERICAN Rescue Plan sent urgent aid to city, county and state governments, as well as small businesses, spurring the strongest job recovery in American history. By January 2023, the jobless rate had fallen to its lowest point in a half-century.

Credit also goes to the $1 trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Law of 2021. Thousands of massive projects are underway already on a near-bottomless list that includes highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, railways and water systems, as well as fortifying America’s power grid.

And two years after Harris pushed the Inflation Reduction Act into the win column, its federal ante is driving hundreds of billions of dollars more in private investments — signs of faith in the economy that are bolstering the U.S. supply chain for high-tech and clean energy manufacturing.

In Alaska, $200 million in IRA grants announced this summer will allow utilities to build battery storage on each end of the state’s transmission system, which Anchorage Local 1547 Business Manager Doug Tansy said “will take people’s concepts of renewables and actually make them possible.”

Energy projects and broadband buildout are two of the many ways that Biden-Harris legislation is creating jobs and easing life in America’s largest and least developed state.

“We just keep getting victory after victory out of this administration, which is going to benefit our membership and all of Alaska for generations,” Tansy said. “We are going to be overrun with opportunity.”

The IRA is such a game-changer that Harris, after breaking the tie, sounded dismayed that her vote was necessary.

“Unfortunately, not a single Republican in Congress voted for the package,” she said. “Not a single Republican voted to lower the cost of prescription drugs, reduce health insurance premiums, make investments to address the climate crisis, tackle inflation or require the wealthiest corporations to pay their fair share.”

In speeches touting the IRA’s fast-paced agenda for clean energy and advanced manufacturing, Harris connects the dots to good union jobs and building-trades apprenticeships.

Ryan Husse, business manager of Ann Arbor, Mich., Local 252, was struck by Harris’ grasp of the subject and excitement when she appeared at a 2023 forum with Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, formerly Michigan’s governor.

He and some of his brothers in the trades met privately with Harris beforehand, discussing such things as the challenge of recruiting and training enough apprentices for the snowballing amount of work coming their way.

“It was a really good meeting,” Husse said. “She was very interested in how things were going for us and wanted to know how the administration could help. She could have taken the time out to meet with anybody before the event, but she chose to meet with us. That says a lot.”

During the forum, Harris lauded the surging production of electric school buses and other U.S.-based industries on the rise with the help of IRA grants and loans — and unionized workers.

“Can we give a shout-out to the absolute significance of the leadership of union labor on this point?” Harris boomed, drawing cheers.

“We are building a clean energy economy. It’s new. It’s new jobs,” she said. “It’s about saying: ‘Who’s going to do the training? See the IBEW. See what’s happening here.’ It’s going to be electricians, and it’s going to be pipefitters, and it’s going to be all of that.”

HARRIS name-dropped the IBEW twice in Ann Arbor, telling the crowd she’s “on a one-woman mission to visit as many IBEW locals as I can around our country.”

She’s put a dent in the list, winning rave reviews along the way.

“She asked good questions about apprenticeships and how they change lives — she wasn’t just there to express an opinion,” said Concord, N.H. Local 490 Business Manager Eric Batchelor, who was training director when Harris toured the facilities in 2021.

“She was genuinely interested to learn, and she’s been digging her teeth in even deeper for the last 3½ years,” he said. “She’s ready. I think she’s exactly what we want in a leader.”

The year before in Milwaukee, instructor Michele Robinson was stationed in the lighting lab as Harris popped into the rooms Local 494 set up.

“I explained to her about how our work is changing, how complicated things like lighting have gotten,” Robinson said. “When I told her we train for five years, she slapped her leg and was like ‘Five years?’ She was shocked.”

Robinson understood why: “If you don’t know about union apprenticeships, it’s an eye-opener to find out that they’re nothing like the private industry model of ‘You go learn something, you come to me knowing everything you know, maybe I give you a shot.’”

Lessons like that informed Harris’ answers last November at a forum in Boston, where Local 103 member Erick Pires thanked her for being “an avid supporter” of apprenticeships and asked why she considers them so important.

“So much of the agenda that the president and I have is about strengthening the working people of America, building the middle class, building up our infrastructure,” Harris said.

“But it’s also about our ability and need to be able to compete around the world. Well, one of the best pipelines are the apprenticeship programs. Those are hard programs. Those are difficult programs. Those are long days and often some nights working to build up extraordinary skills.”

Local 743 member Julee Yeakley, a fourth-year apprentice when Harris visited the Reading JATC in 2023, will never forget the thrill of showing her around. “I was starstruck almost,” she said. “No matter your political party, when you get to meet the vice president, it’s an overwhelming feeling.”

She demonstrated motor controls, cautioning Harris, “The disconnect when we flip the lever, it’s going to be very loud.”

“I didn’t want the Secret Service or her to have any surprises,” she said with a laugh.

Eight months pregnant at the time, Yeakley said Harris was “very friendly, very personable” and eagerly inquired about her due date.

She and other apprentices went on to chat with Harris about affordable child care, housing costs and other challenges for working families.

“She was very concerned about real-world problems — how we make it through in the world as we’re starting in our careers, or as we’re finishing them,” Yeakley said.

“I could tell that she really cares. And that makes me confident that with her as president I’ll continue to have a good job with good benefits and a good pension when I retire.”

ONE OF Harris’ early assignments as vice president was leading Biden’s White House Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment, which instilled a union ethic across the federal government.

Harris co-chaired the panel with then-Labor Secretary Marty Walsh, the first card-carrying union member in 40 years to head the department. They crossed the country for meetings with workers and organizers, hearing gut-wrenching stories about illegal firings and other employer abuses, but also inspiring accounts of how unions change lives.

The roundtables and research led to a strategy-filled report that instructs federal departments and agencies to serve as model employers and do their part to ensure that American workers have a free and fair chance to join unions.

“There’s never been a task force like it, let alone at the Cabinet level,” Cooper said. “Vice President Harris took everything she learned to heart, and it made her an even stronger ally than she was already. And by asking Gov. Walz to be her vice president, we can’t imagine a stronger team for America’s workers.”

TWO WEEKS before the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, delegate and Los Angeles Local 11 Business Manager Robert Corona attended a virtual roll call and cast his ballot for Harris.

Afterward, he was the featured speaker on a video stream hosted by top staffers at her campaign headquarters in Delaware.

“I’m voting for Kamala Harris because of her unwavering support for worker organizing and training, creating pathways to good union jobs,” Corona said, ticking off an exhaustive list of working-class supporters.

“She has a proven record of standing with working people,” he said. “Now it’s our turn to stand with her.”