Donald Trump Vs the Working Class
Yet again, I will make what I fear will be a vain attempt to speak truth to ignorance. Note that I didn’t say “stupidity”, because ignorance conveys a sense of being unaware of facts, vice being unable to understand them. I do this because I know people who are definitely not stupid who continue supporting Donald Trump, and the benefit of the doubt should be applied, justified or not.
I also do so because I fervently hope that if we point out the obvious factual and multiply detailed flaws in the Trump presidency’s claims, such as the Tariff disaster, loss of decent relations with the entire world except Russia, repeal of necessary environmental protections and the rapidly increasing level of pollution in streams fouled with coal residues, record deficits in what he claims is a “booming” economy, planned reductions to both Medicare and Social Security which he vowed to protect while a candidate, etc., etc., then all that is left is for the Trump supporter to ask/ponder, “If these are all true (ed. and they are!), why do I still support him”? Sadly, the probable answers to that question are far darker and revolve around race, national origins and religious extremism.
Today’s effort is an attempt to disabuse any working person of the fact that Donald Trump gives a damn about them, their lives and their financial needs or ever has. In yet another diatribe, Trump blames another Union, this time the United Auto workers, for the projected closing of a GM plant in the Midwest. The real reason he is on the stump about this is because, while campaigning, he promised the residents, many of whom who work for GM, that this plant would stay open. The reason for the plant closure isn’t, as Trump shouts from his bully pulpit (and seldom have the dual meanings of “bully” been so appropriate) that the United Auto Workers are the problem. In fact, GM CEO, Mary Barra, has made it clear that the significant decrease in demand for the Chevrolet Cruze makes the plant extraneous and that, in fact, GM wants to ship all small car manufacturing off-shore.
It is important to understand what is in play here. Trump made a promise regarding a situation over which he (rightly) had no control. GM has made a business decision which they are not only entitled to do but, in the interest of maximizing shareholder profit, are obligated to do. Since this is incongruent with the Trump rhetoric, someone must be blamed. The UAW had already made concessions to GM agreeing to a 1/3 cut in new hire wages, a huge Union “give-back” in any industry. Of course, Trump’s message can be boiled down to, “Reopen the plant!” Facts should never override a Trump demand, should they? As one who, for 12 years engaged in actual face to face labor relations, I realize how little the man actually knows, since he’s generally limited labor relations within the Trump Organization to having his toady subordinates screw the workforce for him.
A major concern is the astronomical cost of health care insurance for retirees and employees, while some employees, doing the same job as new hires, earn 45% more hourly. On the other hand, these employees have gone 10 years without a raise. It’s a mess, but Trump didn’t create it, US auto makers, in the immediate post WWII command of the world auto market gave the union (UAW) lavish benefit concessions, the best health care around, for one, rather than deal with quality of work life concessions. They regretted this, and still do, in light of competition from foreign manufacturers. Every US Ford hourly employee costs the company about $15,000 every year solely for health care. Taking that benefit back is a sticking point for obvious reasons. Sometimes Unions are at fault, but not here. However, it’s easier for Trump to play the blame game against unions than against changes in market conditions and the astronomical increases in health care costs, led as I have pointed out, ad nauseum, by Big Pharma’s extortionate drug pricing.
Overall, US automaker spending on health care for hourly workers and their families likely will top $2 billion this year. In just the past four years, it's grown 45 percent for Ford Motor Co. and 77 percent for Fiat Chrysler! Of course, a national single payer universal health care system would set this right overnight, but don’t hold your breath, waiting for Trump to acknowledge this. If US automakers were able to just halve their healthcare spending it would not only solve the largest sticking point in Union bargaining but would significantly, if not dramatically, reduce prices to consumers for new cars.
The links below detail and analyze just a few of Donald Trump’s anti-labor activities, before and after becoming POTUS. His history of being truly anti-labor is long and storied, and even extends to refusing to pay a caterer for one of his weddings, claiming instead that their pay was the publicity they got for performing the labor.
So, if you work for a living and support Donald Trump, you need to take a little “me time” and, looking in the mirror, ask yourself, “What was I thinking?” If you like the answer, feel ashamed.
The story: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/03/18/trump-blames-union-leader-gm-job-cuts-ohio-jobs-president-once-vowed-hed-save/?utm_term=.ee7855e36a66
The rest of the stories. Note these are not, for the most part from “liberal” sources, in fact, USA Today is dead center, and the Chicago Tribune is a historically right-of-center source
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-tns-bc-trump-auto-plant-20190317-story.html
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/08/25/donald-trump-labor-unions-court-strikes-down-three-executive-orders/1098451002/
https://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/trump-unions-war-232382
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-not-champion-workers-1100483
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/06/09/donald-trump-unpaid-bills-republican-president-laswuits/85297274/
https://www.thenation.com/article/donald-trump-has-betrayed-american-workers-again-and-again-and-again/
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/27/nyregion/trump-tower-illegal-immigrant-workers-union-settlement.html
https://thinkprogress.org/trump-violates-federal-labor-law-refuses-to-negotiate-with-his-vegas-workers-union-44de410198e2/
https://theweek.com/articles/783976/brief-history-trumps-smalltime-swindles
https://www.cnn.com/2016/09/13/politics/trump-small-business-owners/index.html https://www.newsweek.com/2016/08/12/donald-trumps-business-failures-election-2016-486091.html
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