Look at the politics behind this endorsement. National Nurses United’s executive director, Puneet Maharaj, also sits on the AFL-CIO Executive Council. At a union convention, she declared that “we are in a war, a class war.”
The AFL-CIO’s own website describes NNU’s mission as building a “militant, class-conscious, national movement.” NNU’s announcement welcoming Maharaj explicitly pledged to “block the Trump administration’s agenda.” Those are their words.
A union endorsement does not mean every nurse—or even every member of that union—supports El-Sayed. Nurses have their own political views, and union leadership does not speak for all of them.
The endorsement of El-Sayed comes from union leadership with an explicit political agenda and a shared commitment to Medicare for All.
