This Labor Day weekend, union members and our allies will gather all over Maine to celebrate our victories, share each other’s struggles and affirm our resolve to fight harder for fair wages, safe working conditions and a voice on the job. With a presidential election on the horizon, it is crucial that we elect a president who will stand up for workers and not just the wealthy and corporations. The Maine AFL-CIO, which represents 42,000 workers and retirees in Maine, strongly believes that Vice President Kamala Harris is by far the best candidate to improve the livelihoods, health and economic security of the millions of ordinary people who go to work every day to earn a wage. Her track record demonstrates it.

Over the past four years, the Biden-Harris administration has passed meaningful labor reforms that are already providing better opportunities for working class people in Maine. Vice President Kamala Harris cast the tie-breaking vote in the U.S. Senate to advance the American Rescue Plan Act that rescued troubled pensions for thousands of Maine workers and retirees in the paper, trucking and construction industries.

VP Harris also cast the deciding vote on the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which is putting approximately 800,000 people across the nation to work building out clean energy, power and water infrastructure and rebuilding the nation’s broadband and transportation infrastructures. The IRA includes funding to help Maine build the necessary clean energy infrastructure to transition to 80%renewable power by 2030 and 100% by 2050.

These projects, including offshore wind and a proposed multi-day energy storage facility project at the former paper mill site in Lincoln, will provide real economic benefits to our communities and thousands of career opportunities for local workers earning good wages with excellent health care and retirement benefits. In addition, the IRA lowers prices on prescription drugs, including capping the price on life-saving insulin under Medicare.

During the past four years, there has been a surge in union organizing and worksite actions resulting in major victories for hundreds of thousands of workers throughout the nation. Last year alone, the number of workers who went on strike doubled as 539,000 delivery drivers, warehouse employees, autoworkers and Hollywood actors and writers withheld their labor for a better deal with some of the nation’s most powerful corporations. These workers have won extraordinary gains like record-breaking raises, limits on forced overtime and stronger safety and job security protections.

It’s no wonder that public support for organized labor is at a high not seen since the 1960s, with 71% of Americans saying they approve of unions, according to Gallup. Because President Biden appointed the most pro-union National Labor Relations Board in history, for the first time in decades organizing was made easier for workers, not harder. The board has cracked down on illegal corporate union busting and more frequently ruled in favor of workers organizing new unions.

But we still have a lot of work to do. The portion of workers belonging to a union has dropped to just 10% from a high of over 30% in the 1960s due to the offshoring of union manufacturing jobs and anti-union laws and legal decisions. Vice President Harris strongly supports the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, which would dramatically improve the climate for union organizing by holding union busters accountable and giving more workers a fair chance to join a union without fear of coercion, intimidation or retribution.

Harris has walked a picket line with striking autoworkers and spent her career standing up for some of the most exploited and low-paid workers. As a U.S. senator, Harris introduced the Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights to guarantee domestic workers protections against harassment and discrimination, meal breaks, a guaranteed minimum wage and overtime pay. She also sponsored legislation to extend overtime rights and guarantee new minimum wage rights to agricultural workers. As workers continue to struggle with high costs of food and housing, Harris has pledged to crack down on corporate price gougers making exorbitant profits in the food and grocery industry. Her housing plan calls for building 3 million new homes over four years.

After many decades of increasing income and wealth inequality and declining rates of unionization, working people across America are ready to stand together and fight for our fair share of the astronomical wealth our labor produces. But we need a president who will lead on kitchen table issues and reject the trickle-down economic policies that have caused such a yawning gap between the rich and the working class. Harris has the record and the pro-worker policies to be that leader.