Democrats at summit embrace unions

Organized labor continues to play an outsize role at this week’s Democratic National Convention with larger implications for the presidential election, Hawaii and the rest of the country to rebuild the middle class.

Hawaii’s 31 delegates and their guests have been surrounded all week by others from across America wearing union shirts, buttons and waving signs, including a sea of “Union Yes!” signs on Monday’s first night of the convention.

The Democratic Party’s embrace of unions and their members in Chicago also represents a wider pitch designed to attract disenchanted and financially struggling Republicans, Independents and, especially, younger voters who could be pivotal in electing Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, in key states such as Nevada, Pennsylvania and Michigan.

“Labor is very much front and center here in this convention,” said Hawaii delegate and Honolulu Council member Tyler Dos Santos-­Tam. “It sends a signal that the American economy needs to work for everyone.”

Dos Santos-­Tam chaired the Hawaii Democratic Party from 2020 to 2022 and previously served as executive director of the Hawaii Construction Alliance.

He spoke to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Wednesday from the convention floor while a woman on one side wore an “Educators for Kamala and Tim” T-shirt and a man on his other side wore a “Union Women” T-shirt.

“Too many people have been left behind,” Dos Santos-­Tam said. “Not everybody is enjoying the fruits of the American economy. Labor is going to decide this election, driven by young people who realize their salaries need to keep up with the cost of living that only unions can offer.”

Unlike former President Donald Trump, union leaders in Hawaii expect Harris to continue President Joe Biden’s support for organized labor across the country and, particularly, in Hawaii, where they expect more federal projects to rebuild aging infrastructure and lead to new jobs developing alternative energy and responding to climate change.

They expect Harris to continue to help “younger people afford to stay in Hawaii on one job and be able to afford to stay in Hawaii after retiring,” said Kalani Werner, Hawaii state director of the United Public Workers union.

The UPW represents a wide swath of county and state blue-collar employees in Hawaii that include school custodians, health care workers and “the ones that fix highways, clean the streets and take care of the parks — all the jobs that get down and dirty,” Werner said. “We’re the ones that earn our day’s pay.”

Werner’s father was an organizer for the International Longshore and Warehouse Union who stressed the importance of voting so much that Werner had to show proof that he had voted, starting at age 18, “in order to come back into the house.”

Osa Tui Jr., president of the Hawaii State Teachers Association, has been in Chicago this week as a Democratic delegate to the convention from Hawaii, not on behalf of the HSTA.

But an estimated 400 delegates representing teachers’ unions alone make up about 10% of all the delegates, Tui said.

“The Democratic Party did not create the labor movement,” Tui said. “The labor movement created the Democratic Party.”

Democrats know that unions can mobilize their members to turn out to vote for Harris and Walz “and make sure that it’s overwhelming, with the expectation that Trump’s going to play some shenanigans in places like Georgia,” Tui said. “Our younger folks are keenly aware that unions are for the working people and unions are there fighting for the people that are not in the 1%.”

So in Chicago, convention organizers have focused attention on labor unions “in a way I haven’t seen in the past,” said Colin Moore, who teaches public policy at the University of Hawaii and serves as an associate professor at the University of Hawaii Economic Resource Organization.

“This is a tremendous amount of visibility for them,” Moore said. “The Democratic Party has returned to its roots in a way that puts organized labor front and center.”

Unionized workers make up more than 24% of Hawaii’s workforce, “the highest in the country and double the national average,” Gov. Josh Green told the Star-Advertiser from the convention in a text Wednesday. “These are your teachers, nurses, firemen, police officers and state and county workers.”

Green, who announced the Hawaii delegation’s support for Harris on Tuesday, said that her administration “will mean more economic opportunity, more affordable housing, safer and diverse working places and a cleaner environment.”

Green signed the Hawaii Project Labor Agreement modeled after an executive order issued by Biden that Green said helps “contractors with the recruiting, hiring and training of local workers and prohibits labor disruptions to ensure that construction projects are efficiently completed on deadline” mandates local hiring and will “help rebuild Lahaina quicker and meet the state’s growing affordable housing pipeline.”

State Rep. Adrian Tam, (D, Waikiki), former chair of the Democratic Party of Hawaii, serves as a Hawaii delegate in Chicago and said that unions are backing Harris because “she’s going to create jobs and good-paying jobs.”

Tam, 31, said that some workers his age might mistakenly believe joining a union will hurt them financially “partly from the rhetoric of Donald Trump and his friends. That’s not true. Many people who are union members are able to buy a home, have a family and live the American dream.”

Under Harris, Tam said, “we’ll see more people with high-paying jobs that are able to own homes. And under a Harris-Walz administration, we can expect a lot more federal funding to make sure those jobs are here to keep young people here.”

Bronson Silva — a “credentialed guest” to the convention — serves as an international union representative for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees in Hawaii, which represents over 50,000 unionized workers across the islands.

He called union support for both Harris and Walz palpable in Chicago because of what they’ve already done for workers while Harris was in the Senate and during Walz’ time as governor of Minnesota — and for what they will do if elected for workers in Hawaii and across the country.

“When we have more friends in the White House it turns out well for working families and their communities as a whole,” Silva said. “The mood overall at this DNC convention is joyful. It’s electric.”