The Political Department helps working people build power through the ballot box.
We campaign for pro-worker officials at all levels of government to ultimately enact laws that support families, bolster labor rights and drive retirement security.
The mission, enshrined by delegates to the USW’s first constitutional convention in 1942, paved the way over the years to better jobs, smarter industrial policy, fairer trade, real pension safeguards and safer workplaces.
Organizing, bargaining and workplace safety efforts hinge on electing officials dedicated to labor rights.
Leveraging Your Union, Your Voice
The USW’s Your Union, Your Voice initiative guides these efforts.
In 2024 alone, more than 5,000 members and retirees—more than ever before—completed the program’s online survey. Hands down, workers told us they prioritized affordable health care, retirement security, workers’ rights, infrastructure investments, fair trade, and workplace health and safety.
Thousands more attended Your Union, Your Voice townhall meetings across the country, taking advantage of this additional opportunity to explain what they cared about and why.
These sessions also enabled members and retirees to learn about the questionnaire we use to vet federal candidates and to discuss how elections have a cascading effect, helping or hindering all we do.
“I think it’s important to be able to have a back and forth discussion about political issues that not only help the labor movement, but give union members a chance to ask questions,” explained Earkiel Eaton Jr., president of Local 593 in Buffalo, N.Y. “Your Union, Your Voice is how we speak to all of our siblings and share insight into what we fight for every day, regardless of political party.”
Organizing, bargaining and workplace safety efforts hinge on electing officials dedicated to labor rights. To win grievances and other disputes, the union relies on leaders committed to making responsible appointments to the Labor Department, National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and federal courts.
And to grow and maintain good-paying, middle-class jobs, we need officeholders who embrace our passion for fair trade and investments in USW members’ facilities.
We support any pro-worker candidate, regardless of party, who stands with us on these issues.
Putting Boots on the Ground
Once union members set the agenda, the Political Department acts on it.
Among other steps, we recruit volunteers from across the union every year to write postcards, make phone calls, send emails, circulate petitions, attend rallies and knock on doors to support the candidates aligned with us.
Many of these union members visit International Headquarters in Pittsburgh to learn the fundamentals of political activism before returning to their home states—and sometimes adjoining states—for months of campaigning.
One of our activists, Brad Schneider, a 20-year USW member from Local 1557 in Clairton, Pa., helped to deliver victories in a handful of 2023 special legislative races that shored up a labor-friendly majority in the Pennsylvania House.
Schneider relished the opportunity to build solidarity with other USW members while working to forge a more worker-centered government.
He recalled that “conversations with union voters on their doors and in the community are what made the difference in these elections. This experience really opened my eyes to the impact we can have as workers.”
Reaping Rewards for Workers
Over the past three years, we helped numerous candidates embracing our values win federal, state and local offices.
That included helping to elect pro-union governors in Kentucky, Massachusetts, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, among other states, and bolstering the ranks of pro-worker legislators in many states as well.
We helped to deliver victories for pro-worker U.S. senators in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan and Nevada. Our support also proved crucial in electing two labor friendly members of Congress from Harris County, Texas, an area where we’ve been on the ground working for several election cycles.
However, we measure success not just in the number of races won but in the gains USW-backed officials ultimately help to deliver for our members.
Our member-driven game plan and strategic candidate endorsements, along with activism and financial backing, helped lead to historic victories and stunning successes over the past three years.
We benefited from huge federal investments in union manufacturing and NLRB rulings favoring union members while also leveraging our allies’ support to break organizing barriers, achieve groundbreaking safety improvements and win battles for free trade.
Safeguarding Labor Rights
Some of our biggest victories occurred at the state level.
In 2022, we joined with the Illinois AFL-CIO to educate union voters and pass the Workers’ Rights Amendment, which enshrined organizing and collective bargaining rights in the state constitution.
Receiving 58 percent of the overall vote—a higher level of support than any statewide candidate that cycle—the ballot question passed with overwhelming bipartisan support from voters.
The Workers’ Rights Amendment will complicate any future efforts by anti-union lawmakers to advance so-called “right-to-work” (RTW) legislation, which has been shown in other parts of the country to significantly hinder the ability of workers to win union protections.
“It is up to us as union activists to remind the people at the top about the people in the shop,” observed Chris Frydenger, a member of Local 07-00838 who helped with the campaign. “Victories like this one only happen when workers are leading the fight!”
Ending “Right-to-Work” in Michigan
RTW forces unions to represent workers in a bargaining unit regardless of whether they become members or pay for representation.
In Michigan, corporate friendly lawmakers rammed through this legislation in a lame-duck session about 13 years ago in the hope of gutting union membership and diluting worker power.
But the opposite occurred.
USW members and other workers ceaselessly advocated for the law’s repeal. We took the final steps in the 2022 midterm elections, flipping both chambers of the Legislature and reelecting our ally, Gretchen Whitmer, as governor.
Then, in March 2023, workers celebrated as Whitmer and our legislative allies enacted the first repeal of RTW anywhere in the country in 60 years.
One of our political activists, Isabel Anzures-Barth of Local 690L in Auburn Hills, Mich., recalled that the fight over RTW left her with “a greater appreciation for how important state legislatures are” for workers.
Boosting Worker Protections
USW activists in Minnesota also delivered transformative results in the 2022 midterms, helping to elect numerous candidates who either vowed to embrace the USW’s agenda or had already waged battle with us.
These victories enabled us to maintain control of the state House, flip the Senate and re-elect Gov. Tim Walz, a former union schoolteacher and longtime friend of USW members who mine taconite on the Iron Range.
These officials quickly passed and enacted the most significant worker protection bill in state history.
Among other improvements, it barred non-compete agreements, established first-in-the-nation ergonomics requirements and guaranteed workers paid sick and safe days. No longer do workers across the state have to take vacation just to tend to an ill family member or pick up a child at school on a snow day.
Growing the USW PAC
Throughout the last three years, the USW has continued its focus on growing the United Steelworkers Political Action Committee (USW PAC), which is a fund that USW members contribute to voluntarily each month to support our union’s efforts to elect pro-worker, pro-union lawmakers.
Those contributions to the USW PAC are the foundation of campaigns that fight for our members and families when no one else will. USW PAC uses the contributions it receives for political purposes, such as addressing issues of public importance and making contributions and expenditures in connection with federal, state and local elections.
Moving forward, we will continue to explore ways to strengthen the USW PAC while supporting locals and districts in their electoral efforts.
Digging in for Future Fights
USW members need to remain vigilant because victories years in the making just might evaporate overnight.
The defeat of the USW-endorsed presidential candidate, Kamala Harris, and the loss of two close Senate allies, Bob Casey and Sherrod Brown, imperil past wins and threaten future progress.
The same is true in some states. Voters last year rolled back the legislative majorities in Michigan and Minnesota that were already paying huge dividends for workers.
The USW does not tell members how to cast their votes.
But we will continue to ask members about their priorities through Your Union, Your Voice, among other initiatives, and use that information to set our political program. We will vet candidates to determine whether they have workers’ best interests at heart.
And we will keep members apprised of who stands with us—and who doesn’t.