MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
To Wisconsin now, where the Democratic and Republican presidential campaigns are busy competing for the votes of union workers. About 8% of Wisconsin's workforce - that's just over 230,000 people - has union representation. And that is an important number in a state that has flipped by slim margins in recent elections. Chuck Quirmbach of member station WUWM reports.
CHUCK QUIRMBACH, BYLINE: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, running mate to Vice President Harris, spoke at an annual Labor Day festival in Milwaukee on Monday. He praised a set of bills he signed into state law. He says they make it easier to form a union and protect workers. Walz responded to Republicans, who he says have told him he was in the pocket of organized labor.
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TIM WALZ: I said that's a d*** lie. I am the pocket. I am the pocket.
(CHEERING)
WALZ: And I told them if you want to attack me for standing up for collective bargaining, for fair wages, for safe working conditions, for health care and retirement, you roll the d*** dice. I'll take my chances on that. I'll take my chances.
QUIRMBACH: The leaders of several major unions have endorsed the Harris-Walz ticket. But last week in La Crosse, in western Wisconsin, Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump, maintained many rank-and-file union members will support him, falsely claiming that illegal immigrants are taking many U.S. jobs from existing residents.
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DONALD TRUMP: Unions are going to be very badly affected because - and I was talking to some of the union heads who I actually do get along with - but they're very concerned about it because the jobs that are - the people that are coming in are just taking.
QUIRMBACH: While union support is important to Trump, he just needs to cut into labor's traditional backing of Democrats in Wisconsin. But he boasts that, nationally, he'll win a majority of the vote of United Auto Workers members. That would be news to UAW president, Shawn Fain, who called Trump a scab at the Democratic National Convention last month - a reference to those who refuse to join a union or cross a picket line during a strike.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Chanting) Trump's a scab. Trump's a scab. Trump's a scab.
QUIRMBACH: Trump, for his part, has said that the leader of the UAW should be fired, blaming him for foreign production of cars.
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TRUMP: And every single autoworker, union and nonunion, should be voting for Donald Trump because we're going to bring back car manufacturing, and we're going to bring it back fast.
QUIRMBACH: Another union leader, Teamsters President Sean O'Brien, recently said he's still waiting for a meeting with Harris before deciding on an endorsement this year. Some Teamster members are already voicing their views. Truck driver Jeff Hurley says Harris and Walz not only support unions but also back what, to him, is another key issue, reproductive rights.
JEFF HURLEY: I have a young daughter, and I'm worried about women's rights. There's no reason that my daughter has less rights than my mom does.
QUIRMBACH: But retired Teamster truck driver Bernie Anderson says he hasn't made a pick for president, saying independent voters are having a tough time.
BERNIE ANDERSON: We feel both sides are just kind of off the wall right now. And right now, we have one of the most liberal senators in the country as the presidential nominee. And we have one of the unrestricted people, and nobody really knows what you're going to get every other day out of the former President Trump.
QUIRMBACH: Anderson says over the next two months, he'll be following what the candidates have to say about issues important to him, including gun owner rights and the U.S. border. Trump is the next candidate due back in Wisconsin, scheduled to talk about jobs and the economy this coming Saturday in Mosinee. For NPR News, I'm Chuck Quirmbach in Milwaukee.
(SOUNDBITE OF GEORGIA SONG, "IT'S EUPHORIC") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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