Democratic Delegate-elect Michael Feggans thanked hospitality union workers in Virginia Beach the weekend before Election Day .

“We believe in unions in terms of how strong they are and how they protect jobs,” he told supporters.  “They’ve been fighting for weeks on the ground. I want to thank y’all so much. Every time I go into the community, I see them.”

Most Virginia Democrats didn’t embrace labor unions a few years ago. The party was sharply divided over Virginia’s Right to Work law. Progressive Democrats wanted to repeal it to make unions stronger in the state.

But this year, Democratic candidates running in some of the most competitive races in the state — including Hampton Roads—leaned on union members as part of their political ground game of knocking on doors and distributing literature.

Unite Here is a national union for restaurant, food service and other hospitality workers. In Virginia, there are about 500 workers who are part of Unite Here, including members at Colonial Williamsburg and Old Dominion University. They first started mobilizing around state politics in 2019 as lawmakers considered a minimum wage hike.

The union campaigned this election cycle specifically in districts essential to gaining control of the House of Delegates.

That included the seat Feggans flipped, as well as Virginia Beach Sen. Aaron Rouse and new Norfolk Delegate Phil Hernandez.

Volunteers visited more than 230,000 across Virginia this campaign cycle, the national organization said. 

It included Richmond, where the union was working to ensure workers had an in to discuss protections if the city approved a casino referendum. Voters there overwhelmingly rejected the referendum, but Unite Here is still present in the city, organizing dining services workers at Virginia Commonwealth University.

“Workers not only talked to thousands of voters about the connections between their economic conditions and politics, but they helped send a new generation of elected officials to the state Capitol who deeply understand how unions change lives,” Unite Here Local 23 President Marlene Patrick-Cooper said in a press release.

This election cycle, the union focused on supporting candidates who wanted to improve access to reproductive care and maintain the previously approved minimum wage hike. That meant the local segments largely supported Democrats.

“Virginia just elected the most pro-worker legislature in its history, which will build on the incredible progress we’ve made in the Commonwealth since 2019,” said Paul Schwalb, executive secretary-treasurer of Unite Here Local 25. That local segment includes Northern Virginia, D.C. and Colonial Williamsburg.

“Now we need to double down on our efforts to organize in Virginia, where working conditions for too many hospitality workers remain stuck in the past.” 

Sequoia Cox works in hospitality at Old Dominion University. She helped organize employees into a union earlier this year.

Through the union, she was able to take leave from her job to canvass full-time during election season.

“We're out here because it is very important  … to have a pension, so we have retirement,” she said. “We have to have [a] 401k, to have education so that [we] can go back to school.”

The ODU union negotiated a contract that included lowered health care costs and $4 raises. Cox said once the union’s preferred candidates are in office, she hopes to see some changes when it comes to health care, especially what state-subsidized insurance will cover.

• 
•