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Acting U.S. Secretary of Labor Julie Su slammed former President Donald Trump for “faux populism” and hypocrisy on labor issues ahead of the 2024 presidential election at a Harvard Institute of Politics forum on Monday.
Though Su declined to address the former president by name, she argued that “hypothetically,” opposition to overtime pay, sexual harassment, and support for Elon Musk are incompatible with a “pro-worker” position.
“I don’t care how many McDonald’s drive-throughs you pretend to work at,” Su said, referencing Trump’s Sunday visit to a Philadelphia McDonald’s where he served fries and answered questions through the drive-through window.
Su was joined by Sara Nelson, the president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO to discuss the future of the American Labor Movement. Brett Story and Stephen Maing, directors of “UNION”— a documentary film that followed the unionization of Amazon workers in Staten Island, New York — were also on the panel.
The event was moderated by Harvard Kennedy School lecturer Marshall Ganz ’64, a former Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee member and United Farm Workers organizer alongside Cesar Chavez.
Nelson praised U.S. President Joe Biden and Su for their active approach to high-profile contract negotiations, including Su’s intervention in recent mechanics union negotiations with Boeing.
Nelson also celebrated an Oct. 3 deal Su helped broker between the International Longshoremen’s Association and the United States Maritime Alliance to end the three-day strike of 45,000 U.S. dockworkers.
Should the strike have continued, it would have forced 36 U.S. ports to pause their operations, disrupting supply chains and potentially damaging Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign.
“She got it done in three days and with incredible results,” Nelson said, referring to Su.
Though Su has aggressively pursued new labor regulations including higher wages for federal construction workers, expanded overtime pay eligibility, and introduced changes to independent contractor classifications as the head of the U.S. Department of Labor, she remains unconfirmed by the Senate.
Without the support of swing Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and unanimous Republican opposition, a confirmation vote is unlikely to pass and Senate Democrats are not willing to bring the question to the floor. Instead, Su, a Harvard Law School alumnus, can serve indefinitely in the acting capacity due to her previous role as deputy secretary.
At the forum, Su criticized Congress for not passing the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, which would expand protections for workplace organizing.
“We need legislative change,” Su said. “Even after the most pro-worker, pro-union president that they’ve ever seen, Congress would not pass legislation that would have stopped workers from being so easily retaliated against.”
While union petitions have increased substantially over the last two years, Su said she is still concerned the momentum will not last.
“I think the odds are against the kind of vision that we’re talking about here,” she said.
Nelson also acknowledged Harvard’s own network of unions, commending the Harvard Graduate Student Union-United Auto Workers, one of the country’s most powerful graduate student unions.
Nelson said graduate student organizing at Harvard and across Boston has introduced people to union organizing for the first time.
“You have all these people who are now getting this experience of what it’s like to be in a union,” Nelson said.
Su added that successful union efforts in new industries give her hope.
“We have seen a real, powerful uprising of working people, including industries that many thought were too difficult to organize,” she said.
“These are young people from Starbucks to graduate student workers saying, ‘you know, I get a voice in my future,’” Su said. “These things are happening, and many of them are winning.”
—Staff writer Cam E. Kettles can be reached at cam.kettles@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @cam_kettles.
