Democrats love unions. Just not for their own campaign workers.

A new union is trying to make Democrats practice what they preach by organizing labor unions on political campaigns. It's meeting resistance.

If you look closely at the bottom of virtually every yard sign, postcard or door-hanger distributed by any Democratic campaign, you'll find a symbolic commitment to organized labor — a small seal certifying that it was printed by union workers.

The campaign staffer handing out those yard signs, however, is almost certainly not part of a union.

"The Democratic Party is a champion of labor rights, except where its own laborers are concerned," reads the sign-on letter for the Campaign Workers Guild. "We sacrifice our health, financial security, and leisure time to support candidates and movements that we hope will make our society more prosperous, equitable, and inclusive. It's time for our employers to live up to the values they publicly espouse."

It's part of a larger effort to make political work more sustainable, which advocates say is not only good for workers, but good for parties by helping to retain talent, and good for democracy itself by making the political class more representative of the country as a whole.

"We consider unionizing our staff to be practicing what we preach," said Conor Casey, the executive director of the Vermont Democratic Party, which unionized late last year. "How could we fight for universal healthcare and a livable wage if we're denying our own employees the right to organize?"

When workers on one self-proclaimed progressive's congressional campaign decided to unionize, they ran into "classic union busting" tactics, according a former staffer, who asked that he and the campaign remain anonymous for fear of jeopardizing future job prospects.

A friend of mine operates a very large printing firm in Illinois. They are non-union. That being said, several years ago I was walking through the shop with him and picked up some literature that was on a cutting table, because I noticed it had the state of Illinois seal on. I don’t remember what the flyer was about, but I noticed the union label on the bottom.

I said “I thought you were non-union?” as we continued to walk to the offices. He confirmed they were non-union, but they regularly do “union-work” because it is sub-contracted to them by a union shop who got the job, but doesn’t have the capability to print it.

I didn’t understand. He explained the “Union” print shop only has like 3 employees and a very small press for printing forms, they could not possibly print 20 million flyers, but since they landed the job (and he said they ALWAYS land the jobs) they have to farm it out to non-union print shops.

He said he is not even allowed to bid on state work like that, but he gets it all the time through a middle-man.

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