Bernie Sanders picks up union endorsement during stop in Pittsburgh

JULIAN ROUTH

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Vermont Sen. and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders picked up the endorsement of the Pittsburgh-based United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America on Monday, moments after calling for the working class to rise up and “tell the corporate elite that this country belongs to all of us” at the union’s annual convention Downtown.

Mr. Sanders, speaking to a few hundred union members at the Wyndham Grand Hotel, compared the union’s message to that of his own presidential campaign, saying that the U.S. cannot continue to be a nation in which there’s a “huge gap between the very rich and everybody else.”

“If there is going to be class struggle in the United States, it’s time that the working class got on the offensive and won that struggle,” Mr. Sanders said in an animated speech.

The UE, which represents about 35,000 workers in a variety of manufacturing and service-sector jobs, said they endorsed Mr. Sanders because of his consistent involvement in the union’s strikes and workplace actions.

Chelsea Gunn, a PhD candidate in library and information science in the University of Pittsburgh School of Computing and Information,  on Tuesday in Hillman Library.

“Bernie was an outspoken supporter of UE Locals 506 and 618 in their first contract struggle with their new employer, Wabtec in early 2019,” read a resolution adopted by the convention on Monday. “Bernie reached out to UE to offer whatever assistance that members needed and he could provide.”

With the endorsement, the UE became one of the first international unions to step into the 2020 arena officially. The International Association of Fire Fighters endorsed Vice President Joe Biden in Pittsburgh earlier this summer.