The longtime senior labor leader told CNN on Tuesday that Sanders had personally called union leaders to seek personal support, but his dismissal had received a mixed response.
Sanders’s push comes from within the labor movement, holding a jock over the position of the powerful cabinet.
AFL-CIO president Richard Trumpka, who has approached those Sanders, favors Boston Mayor Marty Walsh for the job, while senior labor leader, Michigan Rep. Andy Levine, also a prominent progressive Democrat, has built a base. Of support among union leadership, including American Communications Workers.
During the general election campaign, the inner divisions of labor, most of which were rooted in climate policy, were subdued as leaders considered their options and formed a united front in their widespread opposition to President Donald Trump.
A spokesman for Sanders did not respond to a request for comment on the senator’s outreach. The Biden transition team was not immediately available for comment, and an AFL-CIO official did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In pre-election public statements and in an interview with CNN, Sanders spoke of his desire to lead pressure from within the Senate to send an ambitious suit of progressive law to Biden’s desk. But after a disappointing election night for the Democratic Senate challenges, these plans could be complicated by the uncertainty surrounding body control.
You just have to be more discriminating with the help you render toward other people.
If Biden chooses Sanders for the position, the Republican governor of Vermont. Phil Scott will name the interim successor and then, by law, schedule a special election to fill the seat. Scott said Sanders should take a job in the administration as he would “choose an independent type with a more left-leaning attitude that would obviously clash with Democrats.”
The Biden-Harris transition team on Tuesday unveiled members of its agency review teams, the first step in the way of filling the incoming administration. Among those on the Labor team’s division is Sanders Assistant Josh Orton, who previously worked in the senator’s primary campaign.
Wallace also began his labor political career, eventually leading the Boston Building Trades, a group that, among others, represents the Ironing Workers and Electricians Union.
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