Republican Party

By Chris Townsend, Union Jake, and Adam Keller - The Valley Labor Report, October 12, 2023

By Cody Lonning, Anthony Flaccavento, Alan Minsky, and Marilyn Wrenn - Rural Urban Bridge Initiative, October 5, 2023

By Union Jake and Adam Keller - Valley Labor Report, October 3, 2023

By Carolyn Fortuna - Clean Technica, September 30, 2023

Instead of joining a debate with 7 Republican candidates vying for the position of party presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump decided to visit a non-union auto parts plant in Michigan. During the stop, Trump excoriated the Biden administration for its push toward transportation electrification. The language Trump used during his Detroit stop was part of a broader goal to divide a self-identified pro-union advocate in President Joe Biden from an automotive workforce that is in turmoil.

The campaign rally was concurrent with the ongoing UAW strike, in which concerns over wage loss, diminishing benefits, and the length of workweek have led to an impasse between Detroit automakers and their workers. Moreover, the UAW feels the billions of dollars in tax incentives and loans sprinkled on automakers to retool their factories for EVs was flawed, as the incentive had not stipulated that automakers with a union-only workforce would benefit.

Trump sought to use the campaign stop to appeal to white working class voters in a critical swing state. The UAW malaise has been positioned by both parties as a gauge for potential votes, and the strike is having its effects on automakers — Ford halted production on its CATL project this week.

The language Trump used during his Detroit area stop is indicative of his powerful and quite scary persuasive capacity. Let’s zoom in on how he described EVs and his personal commitment to autoworkers. We’ll deconstruct facts, fantasy, and the ever-so-difficult gray areas that auto manufacturers are facing as they open a door to a new era of innovation – and the costs thereof.

By Chris Townsend, Union Jake, and Adam Keller - Valley Labor Report, September 29, 2023

By Kristoffer Tigue - Inside Climate News, September 29, 2023

The United Auto Workers union expanded its strike Friday, bringing the number of employees who walked off the job to demand higher wages and better benefits from Detroit’s Big Three carmakers to 25,000. Republicans vying for the White House next year are using the moment as an opportunity to rail against President Joe Biden’s climate policies.

“Yesterday, Joe Biden came to Michigan to pose for photos at the picket line. But it’s his policies that sent Michigan autoworkers to the unemployment line,” former President Donald Trump, the GOP frontrunner, told a crowd of non-unionized autoworkers in Michigan on Wednesday. “He’s selling you out to China, he’s selling you out to the environmental extremists and the radical left.” 

That message was parroted later that evening by his rivals at the second GOP presidential debate, which Trump skipped.

“It’s not climate change we need to worry about,” said North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum. “It’s the Biden climate policies.”

“One of the signature accomplishments of our administration was in just a few short years we achieved energy independence,” former Vice President Mike Pence added. “But on day one, Joe Biden declared a war on energy.”

As much of the world pivots at an unprecedented speed toward cleaner sources of transportation and energy to mitigate the worsening climate crisis, the United Auto Workers union strike has become the latest GOP culture war talking point and a new front line in the 2024 presidential race.

It’s unclear if the GOP’s message is resonating with the striking autoworkers. Some have publicly expressed support for Trump and disdain for EVs. Union leadership, however, has made it clear that they’re not buying it.

“I don’t think the man has any bit of care about what our workers stand for, what the working class stands for,” UAW President Shawn Fain said about Trump in an interview with CNN. “He serves the billionaire class and that’s what’s wrong with this country.”

By Luis Feliz Leon - Labor Notes, September 29, 2023

Seven thousand Auto Workers at two more assembly plants will walk off the job at noon ET today, UAW President Shawn Fain announced in a Facebook Live appearance this morning. Joining the strike are Ford’s Chicago Assembly Plant and General Motors’ Lansing Delta Township Assembly in Michigan.

Fain announced that Stellantis would be spared this time. The union had been expected to expand the strike today at all three companies, but, said Region 1 Director LaShawn English, three minutes before Fain was scheduled to go on Facebook Live, the UAW received frantic emails from company representatives.

According to Fain, Stellantis made “significant progress” on the cost-of-living adjustment, the right not to cross a picket line, and the right to strike over product commitments and plant closures. “We are excited about this momentum at Stellantis and hope it continues,” Fain said.

Fain made clear that negotiations with all three companies are ongoing. “I’m still very hopeful that we can reach a deal that reflects the incredible sacrifices and contributions our members have made over the last decade,” he said to 60,000 viewers on Facebook. “But I also know that what we win at the bargaining table depends on the power we build on the job. It’s time to use that power.”

By Union Jake and Adam Keller - Valley Labor Report, September 28, 2023

By Chris Walker - Truthout, September 28, 2023

At least a few people who attended former President Donald Trump’s speech to auto workers on Wednesday evening were not who they purported to be, according to a report on the event, with some admitting they were neither union members nor auto workers.

According to a report written by The Detroit News’s Craig Mauger, around 400 to 500 Trump supporters attended the speech, which was given at a Drake Enterprises auto parts facility. That company is not represented by any union, including the United Auto Workers (UAW), which is currently striking against the Big Three automakers in the U.S.

Drake Enterprises only employs around 150 workers, and it’s unclear who the other attendees at the Trump speech — which was intended to be directed specifically toward auto workers — actually were. It’s likely that those present were community members rather than people employed by the company, as Clinton Township, where the facility is located, was near-evenly split between Trump and President Joe Biden in the 2020 election.

Upon being approached by The Detroit News, some individuals who attended the event admitted that the signs they held weren’t representative of their identities.

“One individual in the crowd who held a sign that said ‘union members for Trump,’ acknowledged that she wasn’t a union member when approached by a Detroit News reporter after the event,” Mauger’s report stated. “Another person with a sign that read ‘auto workers for Trump’ said he wasn’t an auto worker when asked for an interview.”

By Union Jake and Adam Keller - Valley Labor Report, September 27, 2023