Just hours after Vice President Kamala Harris named Tim Walz as her running mate Aug. 6, AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler celebrated the pick in a press statement, calling Walz a “principled fighter and labor champion” who’s not just an ally but a union brother. Walz is a former public high school teacher and football coach who has been Minnesota’s governor since 2019. As governor, he signed lots of pro-worker legislation, including:
- Paid family and medical leave and mandated paid sick days;
- A ban on noncompete clauses;
- A ban on employers from holding mandatory anti-union meetings;
- Letting teachers unions bargain over class size; and
- $2.6 billion in infrastructure investments.
“He thinks all the time about working people,” AFL-CIO president Bernie Burnham told Slate.com. “We’re very excited to share him with everybody else.”
“When unions are strong, America’s strong,” Walz said in his first solo campaign appearance — an address to delegates to AFSCME’s national union convention in Los Angeles.
