Rep. Chris Deluzio says Democrats need to earn union members’ trust back

The Democratic congressman believes his party needs a better approach to win over union members.

Democrats in Pennsylvania have a long way to go to rebuild their support with unions following the results of the three most recent presidential elections. 

Union members accounted for 30% of Pennsylvania’s electorate in 2000, with 65% of the vote going to Al Gore, but those numbers have dropped by the 2024 election. Union voters represented just 18% of the state’s electorate and voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris 52% to President Donald Trump’s 47%.

Harris fared better than her predecessor, former President Joe Biden, who lost to President Donald Trump in 2020 by one point. 

According to US Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Allegheny), Democrats need to put the economic issues front and center and call out the “villains” holding working class Pennsylvanians down in order to regain those voters.  

“You got to have the economic fight front and center,” Deluzio said in an interview with The Keystone. “You got to name villains. You can’t be one of these Democrats who’s always chasing a win-win. You know when someone’s got their heel on the neck of a lot of us and a lot of the American people.”

This advice isn’t anything new for the Congressman. 

Deluzio has been spreading this message while visiting different corners of the commonwealth since Trump started his second term in office earlier this year.

He was one of the only Democrats from Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation to volunteer in State Sen. James Malone’s (D-Lancaster) upset special election victory and traveled the state on US Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) Fighting Oligarchy tour. 

Prior to joining Congress, Deluzio was part of an organizing effort at the University of Pittsburgh where he worked with Pitt Cyber and focused on voting rights, election security and where technology and civil rights collided with each other. 

“What you saw at [the University of Pittsburgh] is not unique to Pitt or not unique to people who might work at a university, and this was people who wanted better pay, better benefits, more say on the job,” Deluzio explained. 

Deluzio, while working as an adjunct professor at Pitt, realized many of the staff in similar positions were asked to do more work for fewer benefits.

“I thought it was important to go out and talk to my colleagues and ultimately those conversations that I and so many others had, they were part of a successful organizing campaign,” he added

Since his election to Congress in 2022, Deluzio introduced a pair of bills that protect workers from artificial intelligence encroaching on warehouses and workplaces across the country. These bills would prevent bosses and management from using AI to survey worker productivity and apply those tools during the hiring process. 

Instead of having these tools spy on workers, Deluzio pointed to Gov. Josh Shapiro’s success in bringing AI to the commonwealth and allowing state workers to have a say in how it’s used.

“ That’s how we should be approaching some of these powerful tools,” Deluzio said. “Have workers not just as an afterthought, but as part of this because the last thing I want to see is workers iced out and us being reliant on these tools that aren’t just gonna threaten jobs that make life worse for so many in the economy.”