The United Automobile Workers endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday, giving her the support of one of the nation’s most influential unions after it delayed to assess her approach to key issues.
The U.A.W.’s endorsement throws the union’s powerful organizing muscle behind Ms. Harris, who faces a tight race against former President Donald J. Trump. The union has about 370,000 members, with large presences in key battleground states like Michigan and Wisconsin.
“We stand at a crossroads in this country,” the U.A.W.’s president, Shawn Fain, said in a statement, adding, “We can put a billionaire back in office who stands against everything our union stands for, or we can elect Kamala Harris who will stand shoulder to shoulder with us in our war on corporate greed.”
The statement noted that Ms. Harris would attend a rally in Detroit next week with U.A.W. members and other Michigan voters.
While many unions were quick to endorse Ms. Harris after President Biden dropped out and gave her his backing, the U.A.W. held off, despite its long history of support for Democrats.
The group is one of Mr. Biden’s closest allies — having endorsed him in January — but it had questioned his policies toward Israel during the war in Gaza. In July, it joined a coalition of several unions that sent a letter to Mr. Biden urging him to “immediately halt all military aid to Israel as part of the work to secure an immediate and permanent cease-fire in the war in Gaza.”
A person familiar with the U.A.W. board’s discussions about endorsing Ms. Harris said the group wanted indications that she understood the importance to the union of two key issues: continuing Mr. Biden’s agenda of investing in U.S. manufacturing jobs, and being more outspoken on the need to end the war in Gaza and attach strings to U.S. aid to Israel.
Both Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris have ties to organized labor. Mr. Biden became the first sitting president to join a picket line when he visited striking autoworkers in Michigan last year, and Ms. Harris also joined workers during a strike against General Motors when she served in the Senate.
The U.A.W. is especially influential in Michigan, where there is a sizable Arab American presence and pro-Palestinian sentiment. A protest movement against Mr. Biden in Michigan’s Democratic primary earned significant support — a worrying sign for Democratic hopes of winning the state in November. The union also represents tens of thousands of graduate students and other academic workers, many of whom have been outspoken in their opposition to the war in Gaza. It formally called for a cease-fire in Gaza in December.
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