On election eve, anti-labor Trump tries to sucker union members one more time
By BERRY CRAIG
AFT Local 1360
Don’t be fooled by the small group of Steelworkers in hardhats and Donald Trump duds on stage behind him at his Pittsburgh rally Monday night.
They represent nobody but themselves, said Kentucky State AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Jeff Wiggins of Reidland, a veteran Steelworker.
“Our union supports Kamala Harris,” said Wiggins, a past president of USW Local 9447 in Calvert City. “So you better see which side your bread’s buttered on before you go to a rally.”
Trump is not the first anti-union presidential candidate to publicly show off a handful of union members to “prove” he has broad union support, when he clearly doesn't. The AFL-CIO and nearly every union in the country endorsed Harris.
The AFL-CIO opposed George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan. Yet Bush trotted out Steelworkers, Wiggins remembered. The Reagan campaign paid a Steelworker to appear in a TV commercial in 1980. Two years later, the same guy showed up for free in a Democratic campaign commercial. He apologized for backing Reagan, who busted the Professional Air Traffic Controllers union in 1981.
Reagan’s pro-big business policies triggered the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression and he proved to be worst president for organized labor since Herbert Hoover. As bad as Bush was for unions, Trump has been worse, though he ceaselessly tries to portray himself as the working class champion.
Even a conservative, Trump-allied economist conceded that under Biden, the U.S. enjoys the world's strongest economy. Trump would wreck it, according to 16 Nobel Prize-winning economists.
"We the undersigned are deeply concerned about the risks of a second Trump administration for the U.S. economy," they warned in a joint letter last June. "....In his first four years as President, Joe Biden signed into law major investments in the U.S. economy, including in infrastructure, domestic manufacturing, and climate. Together, these investments are likely to increase productivity and economic growth while lowering long-term inflationary pressures and facilitating the clean energy transition.
"During Joe Biden’s presidency we have also seen a remarkably strong and equitable labor market recovery—enabled by his pandemic stimulus. An additional four years of Joe Biden’s presidency would allow him to continue supporting an inclusive U.S. economic recovery. Many Americans are concerned about inflation, which has come down remarkably fast.
"There is rightly a worry that Donald Trump will reignite this inflation, with his fiscally irresponsible budgets. Nonpartisan researchers, including at Evercore, Allianz, Oxford Economics, and the Peterson Institute, predict that if Donald Trump successfully enacts his agenda, it will increase inflation. The outcome of this election will have economic repercussions for years, and possibly decades, to come. We believe that a second Trump term would have a negative impact on the U.S.’s economic standing in the world and a destabilizing effect on the U.S.’s domestic economy."
Wiggins said the pro-Trump Steelworkers don’t by a long shot reflect majority opinion in his 850,000-strong union. The USW switched its endorsement from President Joe Biden to Vice President Kamala Harris in July, soon after he chose not to seek a second term and endorsed her.
“When our union endorses a candidate, we first and foremost consider their values, and even more importantly, how they put those values into action,” said USW International President David McCall in a press release. “And Vice President Harris is a crucial part of the most pro-labor administration of our lifetimes, backing innumerable initiatives to help advance the interests of working families.”
He added, “Vice President Harris cast the critical, tie-breaking vote when it came to securing more than a million workers’ pensions, including those of 120,000 USW members.
“She also was essential in the administration’s efforts to return the National Labor Relations Board to its mission of empowering working people, rather than serving the interests of wealthy corporations. And her efforts chairing the White House Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment are proving to be an essential part of the administration’s goal of helping more workers realize the benefits of union membership.
“Kamala Harris listens to working people, she understands their concerns, and she works hard to address those issues head-on, with real results We need to look no further than the fact that she has been instrumental in the administration developing this nation’s first real industrial policy in decades.
“Vice President Harris has been a true partner. We look forward to continuing to work with her, and we are proud to give her our endorsement.”