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We in labor, we may not have the billions of dollars, but we still have a lot of people, said New Jersey State Senate President Stephen M. Sweeney, a Democrat and the general vice president of the International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental and Reinforcing Iron Workers.. And theres a lot of seats that belong to working class people. Its up to us to claim them.

The Democratic Party leadership recently released its Better Deal platform, a progressive policy agenda designed to address issues central to the working class.

Along with Representative Debbie Dingell of Michigan, who could not make the final leg of the trip, the four Democratic House members are planning to release their report, The Future of Work, Wages and Labor, in the coming months. Though they view their work as a complement to the partys progressive platform, they also acknowledge that fellow Democrats may disagree with some of their proposals.

Some of them that might even sound, well, Trumpian.

Those trade agreements, were still paying a price on NAFTA, Mr. Norcross said in an interview, referring to the North American Free Trade Agreement, a frequent target for Mr. Trump on the campaign trail last year.

Mr. Norcross argued that some of the demands within his party for uncompromising legislative positions has left Democrats on the wrong side of the jobs argument.

Its not yes to everything environmental, no to everything with jobs, he said. Its a matter of working those together to try to move them forward.

The idea for the initiative began a year ago when Mr. DeSaulnier, a freshman congressman from the Bay Area, saw the booming so-called gig economy spawned largely by Uber and other tech start-ups in his district, and wondered how lower paying, part-time jobs might be affecting working families. So he asked the two tradesmen he knew in the House, Mr. Pocan, a painter, and Mr. Norcross, an electrician.

That conversation inspired a yearlong tour by the four members of Congress, which culminated this month in a labor town hall meeting inside a crowded Teamsters building in this struggling city in southern New Jersey.

Ending the tour here, after stopping in California, Michigan and Wisconsin (which have right-to-work laws that prevent organized labor from forcing all workers to pay union dues or fees), offered a bit of a throwback case study: Though working class families in New Jersey face similar problems as the working class elsewhere, the state still maintains strong ties between organized labor and the Democratic Party.

The Democratic candidate for governor, Philip D. Murphy, heavily courted the major state unions and relied on union-organizing efforts to help him to his overwhelming primary win. The New Jersey Education Association, which endorsed Mr. Murphy, is considered one of the most powerful teachers unions in the country, while Mr. Sweeney holds a powerful position in an international union.

Unions may be weaker than they once were, given the dynamics of the American political landscape, said Ben Dworkin, director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University. But New Jersey remains a place where unions are very politically active and are relied upon by politicians to help deliver in politics.

After the town hall meeting, Mr. Paylor expressed both comfort and frustration. He did not know that Mr. Norcross had been working to introduce bills aimed at his interests, including one that would direct the Department of Energy to provide training for energy industry jobs and another that would allow people paying for apprenticeships to receive the same tax benefits as those paying for traditional college.

Most working class people dont even understand that thats going on in Washington, so theyre willing to vote against their own personal interest in many cases, Mr. Paylor said. The Democratic Party and its elected officials, he added, need to do a better job of communicating, and to identify themselves that they are representative of the working class.

And, if Mr. Norcross has his way, maybe a few more working class candidates will appear on the ballot.

Mr. Norcross told the crowd in the Teamsters hall that there were more than 200 attorneys in the House of Representatives. Theres one electrician, one painter, and one iron worker and one carpenter. We need some more help folks. We need some more.

Read more here:
On Four-State Tour, Democratic Leaders Try to Reconnect With Workers - New York Times