Shawn Fain: myth-buster
By BERRY CRAIG
Alliance for Retired Americans
Legends abound, from Bigfoot and the Easter Bunny to the Loch Ness Monster and Unicorns.
United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain just nuked the myth that's in a class by itself: Donald Trump is pro-union.
"Rarely, as a union, do you get so clear of a choice between two candidates," said Fain in his Washington speech announcing that the UAW was backing Joe Biden for reelection. The president, he added, had earned the UAW endorsement.
Fain and Biden both spoke on Wednesday to several hundred delegates at the annual UAW Community Action Program conference. The group included a Kentucky contingent.
UAW members loudly cheered and applauded Fain and Biden. They chanted, "Joe! Joe! Joe!" and "U-A-W! U-A-W! U-A-W!" They booed Trump.
Biden, who sported a black UAW baseball cap, followed Fain to the mic and thanked the union.
The UAW president had demolished Trump's claim that he's a working class champion. Trump "doesn't care about the American worker" said Fain who flayed him as "a scab," adding "Donald Trump is a billionaire and that’s who he represents."
Fain poured it on:
"If Donald Trump ever worked in an auto plant, he wouldn’t be a UAW member, He’d be a company man trying to squeeze the American worker. Donald Trump stands against everything we stand for as a union, as a society. When you go back to our core issues: wages, retirement, health care and our time, that’s what this election’s about."
Fain drew a sharp distinction between how Biden and Trump reacted to the UAW's Stand Up Strike against General Motors, Ford and Stellantis that ultimately netted the union one of its best contracts in decades. Fain said Biden "heard the call, and he stood up and he showed up. He joined us in solidarity on the picket line" while Trump "went to a non-union plant invited by the boss and trashed our union."
Fain recalled that Biden, evidently the first president to ever join a picket line, "said on live national TV that the Big Three and I quote, 'Should go further to ensure that record corporate profits mean record contracts for the UAW and the workers.'"
Fain said Biden v. Trump "is not about who you like. It's not about your party. It's not this bullshit about age. It's not about anything but our best shot at taking back power for the working class."
The choice "for the united working class" was clear, according to the union president: "Joe Biden bet on the American worker while Donald Trump blamed the American worker."
Thus far, Trump hasn't responded to Fain's remarks.
Anyway, there's long been a mountain of evidence that Trump was one of the most anti-union presidents ever. Trump’s own words are a good place to start: “Gotta have 'right to work." Gotta have 'right to work.' I mean my position on ‘right to work’ is 100 percent,” he said on the 2016 campaign trail in South Carolina, which has been a RTW state since 1954. It's no coincidence that RTW states are the poorest states.
Biden dropped by a Michigan UAW picket line on last Sept. 26 and Trump visited the Michigan non-union plant for a purported workers' rally the next day. Also on Sept. 27, the national AFL-CIO called his hand by posting on its website, "Donald Trump told us in 2016 he would stand with workers. He lied. The difference now is that he has a record he can’t hide from. And that record was catastrophic for workers. Former President Trump spent four years in office weakening unions and working people while pushing tax giveaways to the wealthiest among us. He stacked the courts with judges who want to roll back our rights on the job. He made us less safe at work. He gave big corporations free rein to lower wages and make it harder for workers to stand together in a union."
Headlined "Donald Trump’s Catastrophic and Devastating Anti-Labor Track Record," the post said "Trump’s rhetoric doesn’t match reality. Workers [UAW strikers] in Michigan and around the country know when we’re being sold a bill of goods. We can’t afford another four years of Trump’s corporate agenda to take away our hard-fought gains and destroy our unions."
The post provided readers a long list of Trump's anti-worker actions:
ASSAULTS ON OUR UNION RIGHTS
Waged an assault on the economic rights of federal workers, repeatedly undermining their voice on the job:
Undermined our merit-based civil service system, granting managers a license to freely discriminate and retaliate against workers.
Restricted union representatives’ ability to advocate for their members on the job.
Targeted workers’ freedom to negotiate on workplace issues, including reasonable accommodations for those with disabilities, employee training, overtime, telework and flexible work schedules.
Revoked the Department of Education’s previously negotiated union contract and illegally imposed an anti-union directive, stripping 3,900 workers of all previously negotiated rights and protections.
Stripped away protections for rank-and-file workers at the Department of Veterans Affairs, prompting a 60% rise in firings in the second half of 2017 alone.
Repeatedly turned a blind eye to misclassifying up to 30% of workers as independent contractors.
Stacked the National Labor Relations Board with union-busting corporate lawyers, denying working people our right to organize through a fair process.
Defended “right to work” in a brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Janus v. AFSCME Council 31.
Rescinded the Department of Labor’s “persuader rule,” which required companies to disclose anti-union legal activities.
HURTING OUR POCKETBOOKS
Trying to rip off tipped workers by implementing a proposal that would probably result in servers doing more nontipped work and at a lower pay rate than previously required.
Opposed any increase in the federal minimum wage, denying a desperately needed raise to nearly 40 million workers.
Derailed the Department of Labor’s overtime rule, blocking millions of workers from receiving a full paycheck.
Undermined the fiduciary rule, potentially costing working people more than one-quarter of our retirement savings.
Oversaw a rise in outsourcing, including the highest rate of outsourcing by federal contractors in a decade.
Threatened the future of Social Security, chipping away at working people’s retirement security through $26 billion in proposed funding cuts.
BROKEN PROMISES
Promised to protect jobs in the steel industry, but failed to follow through on cracking down on China’s dumping of steel into the U.S. In 2019 alone, more than 16,000 manufacturing workers in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan lost their jobs.
Promised to “bring back manufacturing jobs and invest $1 trillion to rebuild U.S. infrastructure in Rust Belt states like Wisconsin.” But in his four years in office, Trump failed to advance any infrastructure legislation.
CORPORATE GIVEAWAYS
Jammed through a massive tax giveaway for the rich, robbing working people of $1.5 trillion while encouraging corporations to outsource our jobs.
Overturned the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s ban on forced arbitration clauses, which had prohibited unfair contracts that force consumers to give up our right to sue.
Destroyed key Dodd-Frank protections, placing the financial system at greater risk, exposing homebuyers and students to predatory lending and weakening protections against racial discrimination in credit.
Pushed to weaken the rights of shareholders, which would prevent working people and our pension plans from holding corporations and CEOs accountable.
ANTI-WORKER TRADE DEALS
Struck an anti-worker trade deal with South Korea, failing to secure key labor and human rights protections.
Proposed a 78% cut to the International Labor Affairs Bureau, the federal agency tasked with promoting a fair global playing field for workers.
Proposed $400 million budget cuts that would slash the Trade Adjustment Assistance program for those who lose their jobs to imports over the next decade.
THREATS TO OUR SAFETY AND HEALTH
Targeted Medicare and Medicaid, proposing more than $1 trillion in funding cuts.
Championed “Trumpcare,” threatening to rip health coverage away from 24 million Americans.
Actively undermined the Affordable Care Act, increasing the number of uninsured Americans by 7 million.
Made workplaces more dangerous by rolling back critical federal safety regulations:
Cut federal workplace safety inspectors to their lowest level in the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA’s) history.
Repealed record-keeping rules requiring employers to keep and report accurate injury records.
Refused to publicly disclose fatality and injury data reported to OSHA.
Loosened requirements for federal contractors, overturning a rule requiring companies to disclose labor violations before being awarded a federal contract.
Undermined workers’ voice on the job, withdrawing a policy allowing nonunion workers to participate in safety inspections.
Proposed eliminating the U.S. Chemical Safety Board and cutting workplace safety research and training programs.
Proposed revoking key child labor protections for teenagers working in the health care industry.
Weakened the Mine Safety and Health Administration’s mine safety enforcement, forcing miners to work in hazardous conditions.
Halted new rules on styrene, combustible dust, construction noise, infectious diseases, silica and mine safety.
Delayed and proposed rolling back the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s chemical risk management rule, leaving workers, the public and first responders in danger.
FAILURE TO GOVERN
Shut down the federal government for 35 days, forcing about 800,000 federal workers and more than 1 million contract workers to go more than a month without pay.
Proposed merging the Education and Labor departments, further attempting to increase privatization and enrich corporations at the expense of working people.
Pushed a 21% cut to the Department of Labor’s budget, including a 40% cut in job training and cuts to OSHA’s funding.
Made numerous anti-worker appointments to key offices, including Eugene Scalia as secretary of labor, a union-busting corporate lawyer, and nominating Andrew Puzder as secretary of labor, despite his career-long record of disregarding the welfare of working people.
William Emanuel and Marvin Kaplan to the National Labor Relations Board, allowing two professional union-busters to make critical rulings on the rights of working people, and many more.
"Which Side Are You On?" is a classic union song with a Kentucky connection. Florence Reece, the wife of United Mine Workers of America organizer Sam Reece, wrote it in 1931 literally "in a rain of bullets." Southeastern Kentucky coal mine owners and operators hired gunmen to help them fight the the union in what became known as the Harlan County War. (UMWA President Cecil Roberts also spoke at the 2023 state AFL-CIO convention.)
The song's last two verses go:
Don't scab for the bosses
Don't listen to their lies
Poor folks ain't got a chance
Unless they organize
Which side are you on, boys?
Which side are you on?
In Fain's address to the CAP conference, Fain also said "we need to know who's going to stand up with us." He made it abundantly clear it's not the "scab" and "company man" who's is the presumptive GOP nominee.