Union heads labor to sell Clinton plan
PHILADELPHIA — Labor leaders who gathered here to support Hillary Clinton for president acknowledged a tough reality — convincing their rank-and-file workers that the former secretary of state has a better plan to protect and create manufacturing jobs than Donald Trump does.
Trump’s campaign speeches on trade and jobs have resonated with many blue-collar workers, particularly in key battleground Rust Belt states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan, forcing union leaders into a hard sell of Clinton to their members.
“This circus barker comes along and says he’s going to do something about it,” Tom Conway, vice president of the United Steelworkers, said at an Alliance for American Manufacturing event.
Utilities Workers of America President Mike Langford said he has resorted to talking to his members one-on-one, hoping to convince them that Trump is all talk, no plan.
Joe Coccio of the Transport Workers Union of America’s Philadelphia local noted that Chinese railcar manufacturing company CRRC is trying to take over the U.S. market in transit car building — including the $566 million contract that it secured to produce new cars for the MBTA’s Red and Orange lines.
“The first place they were successful was Boston,” Coccio said. “Now everybody is going to have to compete with $6,000 in wages, which is what a Chinese railcar builder makes, vs. our guys who make maybe $34,000. So they are going to take over the market.”
Issues like that are resonating with blue-collar workers because Trump has created a clear contrast with the Obama administration on issues such as the TransPacific Partnership, according to Michael Bloomfield, a pro-Clinton pollster with the Mellman Group.
Despite Clinton’s break with the president to oppose the TPP, Trump has tapped into a strong protectionist streak among rankand-file union members that flies in the face of what their leaders are telling them.
“I do not believe for one minute anything Donald Trump has said about manufacturing,” said United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard.
“I do not believe anything he says about trade.”