Amid the hype about the GOP becoming the real “party of the working class,” it’s useful to remember that unions are still a vital part of the Democratic coalition. In 2016, Donald Trump won more union votes than expected, thanks to his protectionist rhetoric and feelings among some union members that their concerns were being ignored by Democrats. But Joe Biden was able to claw back some of that support, winning union households 56-41 in Michigan, according to one exit poll. (More and better data about how the union vote split will be forthcoming.) And union money has never been in doubt—it’s the most reliable source of Democratic funding that there is. According to OpenSecrets data, labor unions donated more than $67 million to candidates and parties, 86 percent of which went to Democrats, the most one-sided partisan split of any industry tracked by the watchdog group.
A closer look at the biggest union contributors to Democrats provides a rough roadmap to the most powerful unions in America. Here they are, ranked by donations in the 2020 cycle:
Service Employees International Union
The SEIU has become increasingly prominent in politics thanks to efforts to organize fast-food workers and its Fight for $15 minimum wage campaign. The labor behemoth doubled down in 2020, pledging in February to spend $150 million on the election to mobilize infrequent or unlikely voters, in particular targeting immigrant communities and people of color. It’s not easy to track whether it hit that mark, but OpenSecrets data shows that SEIU was easily the biggest labor spender of outside money (as opposed to direct donations) in the 2020 cycle. As of October, it had spent more than $20 million supporting or opposing candidates in 2020. The majority of that was spent through SEIU’s namesake PAC, which bought more than $11 million in web ads. That focus on the presidential race—nearly to the exclusion of all else—reflects the high stakes of 2020. That Republicans control the Senate is a bad sign for labor-related legislation, but another four years of Trump control of the Labor Department (and judicial appointments) would have been an existential crisis for the SEIU.
The union was also a major funder of Democratic Super PACs beyond its own. It sent over $6 million to United We Can (which mainly supported Biden) and gave millions to For Our Future, the Strategic Victory Fund, and the Senate Majority PAC.
AFL-CIO
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka frequently acts as a spokesperson for the labor movement as a whole, and he wasted no time attributing Biden’s victory to strong union support. But the labor federation Trumka heads is no longer as powerful as it was before the Teamsters and SEIU split with it in 2005. That’s reflected in its relatively low outside spending numbers: The AFL-CIO spent just over $5 million, a quarter of the SEIU’s spending. That metric isn’t everything (merely the easiest data point to track), but it does show that the labor giant is waning somewhat in on-the-ground influence. As with SEIU, the AFL-CIO’s spending was largely pro-Biden, as opposed to supporting down-ballot Democrats.
It also lagged behind SEIU when it came to contributions to PACs: Its only $1 million-plus gift was a donation to For Our Future, which is not a lot compared to the size of these major PACs.
The National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers
The two big teachers’ unions usually get lumped together because their priorities are largely the same; both want to raise teachers’ wages, boost education budgets, and protect the public school system from privatization. A lot of these battles are conducted at the state and local levels—where teachers’ unions are heavily involved with school board and ballot initiative fights—but winning federal elections is also important, as more Democrats in office open the door to greater public school funding (and pro-union policies that all labor groups fight for).
Together, NEA and AFT gave $43 million to advocacy groups in 2018 and 2019, with a large chunk going to Democratic-aligned organizations. In 2020, they largely influenced federal elections through the NEA Advocacy Fund and the AFT Solidarity Fund, which spent $5.7 million and $1.5 million, respectively, on outside expenditures as of October. Unlike the SEIU and AFL-CIO, teachers unions targeted a bevy of Senate and House races and didn’t focus overmuch on the presidential contest. They did follow the other labor groups in donating to the usual left-of-center PACs, though the bulk of their spending was aimed at their own operations.
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
AFSCME’s priorities dovetail with the Democratic Party’s even more so than most unions—public employees want to avoid cuts to state and local budgets that will almost assuredly happen with Republicans in charge.
The union’s PAC, AFSCME PEOPLE, does not have a large footprint in federal elections spending. (Like other large unions, its individual shops are deeply invested in state and local elections.) But it has contributed over $15 million—more than the other unions on this list—to Democratic PACs and organizations. That includes $5 million to For Our Future and $1.5 million to the Senate Majority PAC.
***
These numbers aren’t all that big, is the problem. Some wealthy individuals contribute more in donations than the largest unions. The real power unions have is that unlike rich people, they represent a true constituency—the SEIU, unlike a mega-donor, can ask its members to phone bank or door-knock.
In 2020, unions pulled out all the stops to elect Biden, hoping that a Democratic administration could slow down or stop the decline in union membership that has plagued labor organizers for decades. It had better do so, or else these numbers are going to get smaller in the future.
