In today’s news and commentary, major unions respond to Biden’s exit with mixed emotions, many backing Harris.

President Joe Biden’s historic decision to withdraw from the presidential race set off a cascade of reactions from labor leaders—a chorus of regret, relief, consternation, and gratitude. Even as Biden faced overwhelming pressure from key players in the Democratic Party coalition to step aside, America’s unions had remained staunchly in the President’s camp, with only a few recent defections. A substantial majority of unions had endorsed Biden, to whom labor leaders have often referred as the “most pro-labor president in history.” 

In the hours after the President’s announcement, labor leaders appeared to be closing ranks around Vice President Kamala Harris. As of early Monday morning, a handful of major unions had already issued formal endorsements. “The most important thing for working people right now is uniting behind Vice President Harris, the candidate who can beat Donald Trump and finish the job that we started under the Biden-Harris administration,” Service Employees International Union (SEIU) President April Verrett said in a statement, highlighting Harris’s support for home care workers, childcare funding, and reproductive rights. SEIU, which had pledged to spend $200 million this election cycle to reelect Biden and boost Democrats in battleground states, will now deploy its war chest on behalf of Harris’s campaign: “Our $200 million commitment has been to electing a pro-worker champion to defeat Donald Trump … And that’s going to be Vice President Harris,” Verrett told the Washington Post. Other major unions echoed the SEIU’s endorsement, including the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the country’s second-largest teacher’s union; the United Farm Workers (UFW), who represent thousands of farmworkers across Harris’s home state of California; and the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW), who praised Harris’s record on reproductive rights.

Several unions expressed support for Harris, teeing up a potential endorsement, without immediately making an official commitment to her campaign. The AFL-CIO, a federation whose sixty affiliate unions together represent 12.5 million workers, was careful to attribute the pro-worker policies of the last four years to the Biden-Harris Administration, lauding the Vice President as “a proven partner in the administration’s pro-worker agenda.” In a brief statement celebrating Biden’s legacy, the United Auto Workers (UAW) underscored Harris’s support for autoworkers, calling attention to her 2019 appearance on a UAW picket line. 

Other unions kept their cards closer to their chests. In its statement on Biden’s exit, the Communication Workers of America (CWA) eschewed any mention of Harris, saying “CWA members remain focused on electing a President and a pro-worker U.S. Senate and House of Representatives that will carry on Joe Biden’s work.” The American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) responded similarly, pledging to “do everything possible over the next three and a half months to ensure the next president shares our vision of an economy powered by working people and an America united around our common humanity,” without indicating who that president ought to be.