Democratic presidential candidate Eric Swalwell said his campaign staff will be joining a union, he announced Wednesday.
Swalwell’s two-day-old presidential campaign is the second in the sprawling field to unionize. Last month, Sen. Bernie Sanders’ campaign did the same.
The announcement was made during a speech at the North America’s Building Trades Unions’s annual conference Wednesday in Washington, D.C. His staff will be joining Teamsters Local 238, which is based in Iowa.
Swalwell’s profile within labor has risen steadily since he was first elected to Congress in 2012. A survey by the AFL-CIO in 2017, found Swalwell voted with labor 98 percent of the time.
His support among labor unions in the East Bay today is also strong, but it didn’t start out that way. His defeat of Pete Stark in 2012, sidelined one of labor’s most stalwart supporters. Swalwell’s overtures to moderate-to-conservative voters and groups in the Tri-Valley was also met with suspicion by many local unions.
ebcitizen.com 