Trump says he always had autoworkers’ backs
Union leaders say former president’s record was far from worker-friendly
LANSING, Mich. — When former President Donald Trump visits Detroit next week, he will be looking to blunt criticisms from a United Auto Workers union leadership that has said a second term for him would be a “disaster” for workers.
Mr. Trump will bypass the second Republican presidential debate on Sept. 27 to instead visit striking autoworkers in Michigan, where he has looked to position himself as an ally of blue- collar workers by promising to raise wages and protect jobs if elected to a second term.
But union leaders say Mr. Trump’s record in the White House speaks for itself. Union leaders have said his first term was far from worker-friendly, citing unfavorable rulings from the nation’s top labor board and the U. S. Supreme Court, as well as unfulfilled promises of automotive jobs. While the United Auto Workers union has withheld an endorsement in the 2024 presidential race, its leadership has repeatedly rebuffed Mr. Trump.
Nevertheless, Mr. Trump plans to speak directly to a room of former and current union members. A Trump campaign radio ad released Tuesday in Detroit and Toledo, Ohio, praised auto workers and said the former president has “always had their back.”
Not everyone thinks so. Despite Mr. Trump’s history of success in courting blue-collar workers in previous elections, union leaders say their members would do well to believe their own eyes.
“Just look who Trump put in the courts,” said Dave Green, the UAW regional director for Ohio and Indiana. “Look at his record with the labor relations board. He did nothing to support organized labor except lip service.”
The National Labor Relations Board, which enforces the country’s labor laws and oversees union elections, came under Republican control during the Trump administration for the first time since 2007. The board reversed several key Obama-era rulings that made it easier for small unions to organize, strengthened the bargaining rights of franchise workers and provided protection against anti-union measures for employees.
In 2017, the Trump-era board reversed a decision holding employers responsible for labor violations by subcontractors or franchisees. In 2019, the board gave a boost to companies that use contract labor, such as Lyft and Uber, by emphasizing “entrepreneurial opportunity” in determining a worker’s employment status, making organizing harder.
Mark McManus, president of the plumbers and pipefitters union, said in a statement Tuesday that Mr. Trump “tried to gut” the labor relations board under his administration “to undo the safeguards that protect working families.” Michigan AFL-CIO President Ron Bieber told The Associated Press in an emailed statement that the board was stacked with “anti-worker appointees who trampled on collective bargaining rights.”
The union leaders also point to unfavorable U.S. Supreme Court rulings under a conservative majority that grew during Mr. Trump’s term. The nation’s high court has dealt a number of blows to unions, most recently ruling against unionized drivers who walked off the job with their trucks full of wet cement, allowing a civil suit against them to go forward.
In 2018, the court’s conservative majority overturned a decades-old prounion decision involving fees paid by government workers. The justices in 2021 rejected a California regulation giving unions access to farm property so they could organize workers.