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UAW President TORCHES Trump’s ‘Pathetic’ Record On Unions: ‘I See No Point In Meeting With Him’ [1]
['Mike Is A Mediaite Senior Editor Who Covers The News In Primetime.']
Date: 2023-09-26 22:42:11+00:00
United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain threw reservoirs of cold water on the idea that former President Donald Trump is a labor ally.
Trump is scheduled to visit a non-union factory in Michigan on Wednesday where he is expected to speak with “mostly retired UAW members in Macomb County.”
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden met with striking auto workers in Wayne, Michigan on Tuesday, becoming the first sitting president to join a picket line.
Fain appeared on Tuesday’s edition of The Situation Room on CNN, where Wolf Blitzer asked about Trump’s upcoming event, as well as claims by Trump and many other Republicans that the transition to electric vehicles is endangering auto workers’ jobs.
“Is the former president right?” Blitzer asked. “Does the push for electric vehicles here in the United States hurt your union?”
“It doesn’t if it’s a just transition, and that’s what we’re fighting for right now,” Fain replied. “It doesn’t if companies do the right thing and put this work under our agreements or to our standards. And again, it’s the companies driving this race to the bottom and they’re using our tax dollars to finance it.”
Fain then addressed the burgeoning talking point that Trump is somehow pro-union:
I find the pathetic irony that the former president is gonna hold a rally for union members at a non-union business. And you know, all you have to do is look at his track record. His track record speaks for itself. In 2008 during the Great Recession, he blamed UAW members. He blamed our contracts for everything that was wrong with these companies. That’s a complete lie. In 2015 when he was running for president, he talked about doing a rotation, taking all these good-paying jobs in the Midwest and moving them somewhere in the South where people work for less money, and then to make people beg for their jobs back at lower wages. And the ultimate show of his– how much he cares about our workers was in 2019 when he was the president of the United States. Where was he then? GM– our workers at GM were on strike for 60 days. For two months, they were out there on the picket lines. I didn’t see him hold a rally. I didn’t see him stand up at the picket line. And I sure as hell didn’t hear him comment about it. He’s missing in action.
Blitzer then asked whether Fain would meet with Trump, but the union president wasn’t having it:
FAIN: I see no point in meeting with him because I don’t think the man has– has any bit of care about what our workers stand for, what the working class stands for. He serves the billionaire class and that’s what’s wrong with this country. BLITZER: Well, that effectively sounds like an endorsement for Biden. Am I wrong? FAIN: It’s not an endorsement for anyone. It’s just flat-out how I view the former president.
United Auto Workers members at some plants at the three major American automakers went on strike earlier this month. They are demanding higher wages, cost-of-living adjustments, the elimination of a two-tier system of wages and benefits, and assurances that workers whose plants are shut down as part of the transition to electric vehicles will be properly compensated.
Watch above via CNN.
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[1] Url:
https://www.mediaite.com/news/uaw-president-torches-trumps-pathetic-record-on-unions-i-see-no-point-in-meeting-with-him/
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