Every Thursday afternoon, a cadre of state AFL-CIO leaders meets on Zoom to advance a shared project: the “Contract with Working Americans,” a populist economic platform they devised independently of the national AFL-CIO.
asserted
they → meet → CIO
These calls are a new organizing tactic for labor, which historically leads top down from Washington, and the goal is new, too: to mobilize not only workers who belong to unions, but the many more American workers who do not.
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who → lead → unions
“We’re trying to connect two segments of a group that, quite frankly, should be naturally aligned, but just haven’t,” said Derrick Osobase, vice president of Communications Workers of America District 6, which covers Texas.
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which → try → Texas
“We are actively talking to working-class people who are not affiliated with the union, and wrapping them into an agenda that they have said will make their lives different.”
The idea for the “contract” was born of a paradox: Union membership has declined from 20% of all workers in 1983 to 10% last year, even as union popularity hovers at 90-year highs.
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popularity → talk → highs
Seventy-one percent of US adults approve of unions, according to Gallup, including 52% of Republicans.
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percent → approve → Republicans
The widening gap between those figures is where organizers see an opportunity.
“For years the labor movement, for understandable reasons, has fought for a narrower set of issues,” said Francis Eanes, executive director of the Maine Labor Climate Council.
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Eanes → widen → Council
“But I think it’s made it easy for some folks to say we’re just another special interest out there fighting for our own.”
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we → think → own
Skeptics of labor, he said, say a union is “a private welfare state that provides benefits to its members and no one else.
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that → say → members
I think it’s an unfair characterization, but it’s not entirely unfair.”
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it → think → ?
The Gallup numbers suggest Americans of different political shades seem to be concluding that private welfare states aren’t such a bad idea.
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states → suggest → shades
In a moment of declining trust in Congress, political parties, the media and many other institutions, labor activists believe a union-led movement whose stated aim is to agitate for the benefit of all workers could have real juice in setting a new national agenda as audacious as Newt Gingrich’s 1994 “Contract with America,” which helped produce a sweeping congressional majority for Republicans that year.
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which → decline → Republicans
Unions are more popular than ever,” said Matt Schlobohm, executive director of the Maine AFL-CIO.
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Schlobohm → say → CIO
“It is really important that we — working people, the labor movement — define and put out an agenda and demand it.
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we → work → it
Or somebody else will define it for us, and it’ll be culture wars, or it’ll be some mealy-mouth opportunity agenda.”
The main tenets of the “Contract with Working Americans” were born out of a series of canvassing surveys led by state AFL-CIOs and affiliates.
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tenets → define → CIOs
But there is no single document; iterations of it vary somewhat from state to state, to account for local trades and industries.
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iterations → be → trades
(The national AFL-CIO did not respond to a request for comment.)
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CIO → respond → comment
The “contract” framework was inspired by negotiated union contracts and is meant to establish policy commitments from candidates in exchange for the movement’s support.
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framework → inspire → support
All versions include a set of economic priorities: Signatories must support lowering prescription drug costs by expanding the government’s power to negotiate directly with companies, expanding healthcare coverage, capping childcare costs, bringing down the price of gas, and raising the minimum wage.
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Signatories → include → wage
The contracts adopt a populist tone throughout.
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contracts → adopt → tone
They include shared language demanding a congressional stock trading ban and a ban on lobbying by elected officials after leaving office; a tax on billionaires; and, in a time of rising AI anxiety, a ban on AI surveillance, to prevent “robots deciding your paycheck, hiring and firing you, or monitoring your work.”
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They → include → work
The language does not include identity- or criminal justice-specific provisions, and largely steers clear of climate topics.
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language → include → topics
Several candidates with national profiles have signed on to versions of the contract so far this cycle, including in Texas, where Democrats hope that Senate nominee James Talarico and gubernatorial nominee Gina Hinojosa could make the state ground zero for a Blue Wave next month.
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state → sign → Wave
Troy Jackson, the Democratic Senate nominee in Maine, delivered a public “Pledge to Working Mainers” adopting the demands in Maine’s contract.
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Jackson → deliver → contract
Independent Alaska candidate Bill Hill, a commercial fisherman and teacher challenging Republican Rep. Nick Begich, told Semafor he supports the ideas in the contract, though there isn’t an Alaska-specific version of the contract to sign.
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he → challenge → contract
“This is about an agenda that delivers for the hardworking people of this country, by lowering costs, making sure hardworking people get the value of their hard work, and building a system where billionaires and big corporations play by the same rules we do,” Hill said in a statement.
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Hill → deliver → statement
Another state AFL-CIO, and its endorsed candidate for statewide office, have agreed to sign on as soon as this week, and more are circling.
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more → endorse → week
No Republicans have backed one of these contracts.
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Republicans → back → contracts
Organizers in North Carolina and Maine said that the campaigns for Republican Michael Whatley and Sen. Susan Collins had not responded to their outreach.
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campaigns → say → outreach
Still, organizers said they see progress.
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they → say → progress
In interviews, most said they believe labor has long been too aligned with the Democratic Party, leading to a kind of “mutual malaise,” in the words of North Carolina AFL-CIO President Braxton Winston.
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labor → say → Winston
Eanes touted the contract’s potential to inject what he saw a bit of virtuous transactionalism back into the democratic process by energizing votes around specific policy demands, building back a kind of feedback loop that unions have down to a science.
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unions → tout → science
“They have committed.
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They → commit → ?
We’re going to hold them to the fact that this contract has to be an essential part of how they govern,” said Osobase of Hinojosa and Talarico, though he declined to say whether that could entail supporting primary challengers in the future if either candidate gets elected and fails to deliver.
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candidate → go → future
State AFL-CIOs and affiliates conducted thousands of surveys of union members and non-union workers over 2024 and 2025, gleaning insights that were then distilled down to the bullet points that appear in the contracts.
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that → conduct → contracts
The Maine, North Carolina, and Texas AFL-CIOs and their affiliates have knocked hundreds of thousands of doors already this cycle, presenting voters with the contract and where the candidates stand.
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candidates → knock → contract
“This project for us is about reviving the best of the labor movement,” Eanes said.
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Eanes → revive → movement
“If you go over the arc of the last 200 years, we win more when we’re fighting for everyone: When the demands are broader, when the demands speak to the needs of all working people, that’s where we have the most power and resonance, and frankly, at a moment when most people don’t trust any institution, they still see organized labor as something that can be trusted.
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that → go → something
The contract’s most striking divergence from progressive ideological currents is on AI: No version of the contract reviewed by Semafor demands a data center moratorium.
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version → review → moratorium
The buildout has been an “enormous boon” to the building trades, Eanes said.
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Eanes → say → trades
“At its best, [a moratorium] is something that buys you time to actually come up with what the terms of engagement for this entire new industry and enterprise ought to be,” Eanes said.
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Eanes → buy → industry
…and 16 more, not listed.
The Aporia
