Bernie Sanders Endorsements From NY Transit Workers Union Follows First Support From A US Senator

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is having a good day. The Vermont senator on Wednesday picked up the endorsement of the New York transit workers’ union, received his first Senate endorsement and joined a picket line with communications union workers striking against Verizon.

Sanders visited the Transport Workers Union Local 100 union hall Wednesday morning to pick up his endorsement from the group. The senator thanked the union members for their support and said he planned to continue his winning streak in the New York primary on Tuesday.

“We all know in this room that you don't have a great and growing middle class unless you have a great and growing trade union,” Sanders said. He added that unions represent the “last lines of defense against a vicious corporate agenda that is working hard to destroy the middle class.”

Winning support from TWU Local 100, which represents 42,000 workers in the New York region, according to the New York Daily News, is a big deal for Sanders. Not only does the endorsement come just days before the state’s crucial primary, but it also continues a trend of local unions siding with the fiery outsider while many of the country’s largest national unions have given his rival Hillary Clinton their official endorsements.

“It is too late for the same old same old establishment politics,” Sanders said Wednesday at the union hall. “We’ve got to stand together, take on the money and trusts, and make it clear that our government works for all of us, not just the 1 percent.”

Sanders and Clinton have been campaigning to show New York voters that they understand their issues and their culture ahead of the state’s primary next week. Both have made stumbles (Sanders when he mistakenly said the subway still uses tokens and Clinton when she had to swipe her MetroCard multiple times before entering the subway), but each has ties to New York and is hoping to pull out an important win.

The New York Daily News endorsed Clinton earlier this week, and U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., wrote an op-ed in the New York Times Wednesday morning endorsing Sanders. He is the first Senate colleague of Sanders to do so. (The Oregon primary is May 17.) Clinton’s campaign also announced Wednesday that she received the endorsement of Local 3 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.