Steven Greenhouse in an October 23, 2024 Guardian article (a week before the presidential election) listed 10 things Donald Trump said about American workers:
1. The wages of US workers are too high
2. Automakers in the Midwest should
move some of their factories to the south to take advantage of lower wages
there, forcing wages down in the Midwest too.
3. Trump praised Elon Musk for firing
workers that went on strike
4. He pretended to be sympathetic to workers
by donning an apron and posing for a photo op at a McDonald’s, but he has never
in his life been a worker, only a business owner.
5. Trump insulted factory workers
saying that children could do their jobs
6. He admitted that he hates to pay
overtime and always avoided it.
7. In 2017, his first year in office,
he told unemployed factory workers not to sell their house and move, that he
would bring all their jobs back. He did not.
8. Shawn Fain, president of UAW, is a
successful and highly respected union leader who led a 2023 strike that won 25%
raises across the auto industry. Donald Trump said at the Republican convention
that Fain should be fired immediately.
9. During his years in real estate
development Trump was notorious for paying his contractors late, less than was contracted
for, or not at all. In his campaign he insulted workers’ intelligence by
bragging that he always paid contractors on time and the full amount they were
owed.
10. Trump told union members that they
shouldn’t pay their union dues. His objective here of course is to weaken the
unions and their ability to get fair compensation and working conditions.
Evidently
not enough workers read the article (or believed it) and here we are.
Just in
case they still need convincing, during the chaos and confusion created by the OMB
memo “pausing” all federal grants and loans, Trump hamstrung (beheaded might be
more accurate) the National Labor Relations Board.
Robert
Reich in today’s Substack post (January 29, 2025) writes:
Trump yesterday fired National Labor Relations Board acting chair Gwynne Wilcox — despite her congressional appointment not being up until 2028.
Wilcox’s firing closes down the NLRB, because it’s left with just two members, and the Supreme Court has ruled that the board needs at least three to issue any rulings.
Trump also fired NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, leaving board attorneys who investigate employee and employer complaints without any guidance.
Presto — American workers are no longer protected from illegal firings or unfair labor practices by their employers. The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 is effectively gone. Employers can now wreak havoc on their workers.
Robert
Reich ends with this question:
How much more proof does the American working class need that Trump is not on their side but on the side of the oligarchs, who are siphoning more and more of the nation’s wealth to themselves from everyone else?
Sources
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/23/trump-anti-worker-union-statements
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/if-anyone-needed-more-proof-that
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