Which ticket will champion workers? Here’s what my research shows.

As a kid who grew up on a farm in rural Wisconsin and was fortunate to study industrial relations at UW-Madison, I watched in dismay over the years as the state lost so many good manufacturing jobs and abandoned its longstanding reputation as a champion for worker rights when the governor and legislature gutted collective bargaining for teachers and other public sector workers and undermined unions by enacting a so-called right-to-work bill.  
So I understand and respect workers and families who felt abandoned by both Democratic and Republican politicians and why some turned to Donald Trump, given his blustery rhetoric and claims he would be workers’ voice and salvation.
Throughout my career, I have used my Wisconsin education to study and promote worker rights to earn a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work and union-management relations that deliver real gains for workers and follow responsible business practices.
The good news is that after suffering through decades of wage stagnation and growing income inequality, the nation is now experiencing a major upsurge in worker activism. Workers are once again demanding and getting a stronger voice and a better deal at work.  My own research shows that interest in joining a union is at an all-time high, led in particular by younger workers.  Moreover, in the last two years, workers and their unions have used collective bargaining to achieve the biggest improvements in wages and benefits in decades across industries from autos to parcel delivery, airlines, health care, education, hotels, and others.  We need to keep this momentum going if American workers and their families are to reverse the losses they have suffered for the past four decades.
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The upsurge in worker activism has caught the attention of both the Trump-Vance and the Harris-Waltz campaigns as they vie for the support of working-class voters. So let’s look at the actions, not the rhetoric, of the candidates for President and Vice President to see who will best support workers and their families to sustain the momentum.
 The Biden-Harris Administration has been the strongest advocate for workers’ right to form unions and advance their interests through collective bargaining of any Administration since Franklin Roosevelt’s. They appointed professionals to key positions at the National Labor Relations Board and the Department of Labor who have strengthened the enforcement of workers’ rights to form a union, cracked down against employers employing teenagers in hazardous jobs, and ensured workers exposed to excessive heat get needed rest breaks.  With the bi-partisan support of Congress, they are making  large investments in infrastructure, clean energy, and high technology that are rebuilding our manufacturing base and producing thousands of new, high-quality jobs.  
Both President Biden and Vice President Harris have stood shoulder to shoulder with workers and their unions on picket lines and urged labor and management leaders to negotiate contracts that help workers gain their fair share in the profits they helped their employers generate  And Kamala Harris has put the principle that every worker should be able to have a union at the center of her economic policy agenda. 
Under Tim Walz’s leadership, Minnesota has enacted more worker and family-friendly practices than any state in the country, including providing paid family and sick leave for all workers and fair workplace standards for nursing home workers.
Donald Trump has a long history of fighting unions in his businesses, breaking contracts with workers and suppliers, and calling on non-union auto workers to trust him rather than the union that is fighting for them. When he was President he cut the budget of the Labor Department and the National Labor Relations Board, issued Executive Orders that seriously weakened collective bargaining for federal government employees, and rolled back overtime pay for low-wage salaried workers. 
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 Now JD Vance is endorsing a host of anti-worker and anti-union proposals written into an agenda for the next administration called Project 2025 by former Trump appointees.  This includes ending collective bargaining rights for all public sector workers, eliminating workers’ ability to collect overtime after working forty hours in one week, and weakening enforcement of race and gender discrimination statutes that have been the law of the land since the 1960s.
Wisconsin voters will play a pivotal role in this election. Helping put Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in office will ensure the nation has leaders in charge who will do what’s needed to sustain the momentum workers have started to rebuild their family incomes and the voice they need to achieve a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. 
Thomas A. Kochan is a professor emeritus at the MIT Sloan School of Management and the Institute for Work and Employment Research and the co-author of Shaping the Future of Work:  A Handbook for Action and a New Social Contract.