Rep. Seth Magaziner talks labor unions and how Democrats can win them back

In his race for Congress two years ago, Seth Magaziner was locked in a close election battle with Republican Allan Fung – one that he looked likely to lose.

But when the votes were tallied on election night, it quickly became apparent that the Democrat had prevailed.

“The thing that made the difference,” Magaziner told members of IBEW Local 99 on Monday evening, “was that we had a really strong get-out-the-vote effort powered by organized labor, knocking on doors and making phone calls and sending text messages. The other side didn’t have that.”

Magaziner clearly hasn’t forgotten who sent him to Washington: During his first term in Congress, he introduced legislation aimed at cracking down on wage theft and mandating paid leave for workers, both major union priorities.

After meeting with workers at IBEW’s union hall in Cranston on Monday, Magaziner sat down with The Providence Journal to discuss how rank-and-file union members drifted away from Democrats to Donald Trump, why he thinks labor organizing is witnessing a resurgence, and how the presidential election could affect workers’ rights.

Magaziner represents Rhode Island’s 2nd Congressional District. His remarks were lightly edited for length and clarity.

Q: Should Democrats be concerned that unions’ rank-and-file members are increasingly turning to Trump?

A: I think that we always have to earn every vote. Nothing is automatic, nothing can be taken for granted, and I’ve been very vocal from the beginning that if we want Democrats to win the White House and win Congress back, we need to operate like we are six points behind.

Part of our challenge as Democrats is that we were always the party of working people. That’s why my grandparents were Democrats, right? Because if you were a working person in a trade union, like my grandfather was, you were a Democrat.

And I’ve talked with the leaders – not just Rhode Island leaders, but national leaders at the Teamsters and at the firefighters’ (union) – and part of the feedback from them has been, ‘Yeah, that was true. But then in the ’90s and the early 2000s, Democrats became too cozy with big business, and that distinction between the two parties became muted.'”

It used to be that the Republicans were the party of the country club and the Democrats were the party of the union. And in the ’90s, those distinctions started to become blurred. Democrats were very friendly with big tech and even with Wall Street.

With the Biden-Harris administration and the 117th Congress, the Democratic Party has moved decisively back into the pro-worker camp. Right now, we are the only party talking about antitrust and breaking up monopolies. We are the only party that’s talking about price gouging, which is a very real thing.

I think we have to regain some of the trust that was lost in the last generation, and that’s why it’s so important that we lean in and we engage and we have conversations with people who are skeptical. But I really do believe that voters will recognize that Mar-A-Lago is not on their side, and that today’s Democratic Party has regained our status as the party that stands up for workers.

Q: If Kamala Harris wins the presidency, what does your plan for a labor agenda look like?

A: So my top two bills are the PTO Act to guarantee all workers 10 days off, and the Don’t STEAL Act to crack down on bad employers who purposefully steal money from their employees, which is a huge problem. It’s estimated that $50 billion a year is stolen from workers by their employers.

And then more broadly, I’m a co-sponsor of the PRO Act, which is the bill to make it easier to form and join unions. I’m a co-sponsor of bills to expand the earned income tax credit and the child tax credit, both of which would make a huge difference in rebuilding the middle class. So those are some of the things that I’m going to be pushing for, and that I’m hopeful that we can get through.

Q: What happens if the alternate scenario occurs and Donald Trump wins the election?

A: Well, unfortunately, if Donald Trump’s first term is the guide, then we know that under a second Trump administration, he will try to gut protections for workers, and we will be playing defense.

Right now, I’m very concerned that he will gut OSHA, the agency that enforces workplace safety standards; that they’ll enact the Project 2025 plan for the Department of Labor, which would make it much harder for workers to organize. They’ll prioritize tax cuts for the rich, again, over real investments and things like infrastructure.

So we can’t let that happen. If Democrats win the House, which I think we will, we will be the only check on a President Trump who would otherwise have unlimited power to enact a very extreme agenda. We know that the Supreme Court is not going to check him. We know that he learned his lesson from the first term, and he’s going to surround himself with a Cabinet that won’t put any checks on him.

Q: There’s been a resurgence in union organizing, and lots of new unions are popping up. What do you think is driving that?

A: We’ve had a very tight labor market for the last couple of years, so that has created conditions that have made it easier for people to organize in industries that historically have been very difficult. You see that at Starbucks, you see that in some of the Amazon locations.

The other thing is that you’ve had a pro-labor administration in the Biden-Harris administration with a (National Labor Relations Board) that does not feel that it is their mission to crack down on organizing in the way that the NLRB did under Trump.

When you have a fair referee calling the game, then workers are going to win more often.

Q: Here in Rhode Island, we’re about to see new leaders at the AFL-CIORhode Island Federation of Teachers, Providence firefighter’s union, and others. How are you feeling about the local labor movement?

A: It’s really exciting, first of all, to see a younger generation of leadership coming up in union organizing, and to see the energy and the creativity that comes from young leadership.

It’s also exciting to see a lot of these union halls becoming more diverse. You know, I’ve been doing this for 10 years now, since I ran for state treasurer the first time. The rooms look very different today than they did 10 years ago – more racially diverse, more gender diversity. And I think that’s because of organizations like Building Futures that have been very purposeful in trying to recruit people into organized labor who maybe in the past didn’t know how to access those pathways.