Why 2020 Campaign Workers Are Suddenly Unionizing
A key part of the playbook for most successful Democratic presidential campaigns is courting the union vote. For candidates, that means touring union halls, trumpeting your solidarity with the labor movement, and making sure that the overpriced swag peddled by your campaign has an insignia certifying that it was made by American union workers.
But what goes unmentioned on the campaign trail is that most of the staffers ferrying their bosses to union events and writing speeches reaffirming the candidates’ support for labor aren’t members of a union themselves. Or rather, that used to be the case. Since the spring, campaign staffers for multiple 2020 hopefuls have made a push to unionize—the first time in history any presidential campaigns have ever done so.
Political work can be grueling. The pay is low or, in some cases, nonexistent. Caffeine-addled late nights and weekends are the norm. Unlike traditional union jobs—think of autoworkers on the assembly line or state-government bureaucrats—many campaign jobs are ill-defined, and by definition temporary. A staffer can spend years helping usher a candidate to victory only to be out of a job soon after the final votes are tallied. “We talked about the 2012 campaign being this unicorn, billion-dollar corporation that will fail in 18 months,” says Teal Baker, who was the deputy chief operating officer for former President Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign.
The notion that unionization doesn’t jibe with the boom-and-bust nature, his party has traditionally expressed hostility to labor.) The most prominent campaigns to organize so far are those of the two lefty heavyweights in the race: Senators of Vermont and of Massachusetts. But they’re not the only ones. So have staffers for former Housing Secretary and Senator of New Jersey. (’s team also unionized before the congressman grounded his long-shot 2020 bid in July.) When workers make a move to collectively bargain, it’s not uncommon for employers to try to thwart their efforts: Unionizing can mean heftier compensation for their employees and added bureaucracy within the workplace. But in this case, all of the campaigns have voluntarily recognized their staffers’ push to unionize.
