Some of the country's most powerful unions are reluctant to endorse Kamala Harris

Joe Biden gave up his presidential bid last Sunday, July 21, and endorsed Kamala Harris to head the Democratic ticket in November. Just hours later, dozens of legislators and governors lined up behind the current vice president, as well as some major unions. However, some unions are still not buying into the idea of the Californian's presidential campaign who in 2019 was the most progressive member of the Senate.

Electorally speaking, Democrats have benefited in recent years from the support of unions. This is true particularly in states such as Nevada, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and Ohio, important when it comes to doing the math to reach 270 electors in November. 

What are the benefits of receiving a union endorsement? Besides the electoral advantage in some parts of the country, the fundamental thing is the money and of the organizational power that the unions bring. 

"It is necessary to have the backing of the union in order to get money. So the first, the endorsement, is a condition for getting the second," Marick Masters, a professor of business administration at Wayne State University, explained in conversation with Scripp News. 

Kamala Harris fails to convince some of the nation's largest unions

Since some of the party leadership promoted her as a candidate, Harris has received endorsements from more than a half-dozen national labor organizations, the most prominent of these being: Service Employees International Union (1.9 million members), the American Federation of Teachers (1.7) and the Communications Workers of America (700,000). 

Perhaps the most important endorsement so far came from the AFL-CIO, which has 12 million members nationwide.  "With Kamala Harris in the White House, together we will continue to build on the powerful legacy of the Biden-Harris administration to create good union jobs, grow the labor movement and make our economy work for all of us," the union's president, Liz Shuler said in a statement. 

However, Harris is still failing to convince the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the United Auto Workers Union (UAW) and the National Education Association teachers union, some of the unions with the strongest presence in the aforementioned key states. 

As for the former, the president of the "Teamsters," Sean O'Brien, spoke at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, becoming the first leader of this union to do so in more than 100 years. 

While his speech did not receive the loudest applause from the Republican delegates, O'Brien did single out the Trump- Vance ticket during his speech.