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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Prospect Of A Donald Trump Nomination Has Labor Leaders Scrambling
Lauren Gambino and Jana Kasperkevic in New York
Tuesday 26 April 2016 07.00 EDT Last modified on Tuesday 26 April 2016 16.41 EDT
The prospect of a Donald Trump nomination has labor leaders scrambling to hold the line as the Republican frontrunner’s appeal to disaffected working-class voters threatens to upset the traditional political calculus.
The majority of America’s almost 15 million unionized workers can be usually be relied upon to back the Democratic candidate in a presidential year, but leaders are concerned by Trump’s populist message on trade and jobs – and his insistence that union workers are just one of many groups on a long list of those he claims “love” him.
“We can’t be fooled,” Richard Trumka, president of AFL-CIO, America’s largest federation of labor unions, implored his 12.5 million members at the organization’s annual convention in Philadelphia this month. “Trump isn’t interested in solving the problems he yells and swears about. He delivers punch lines, but there’s nothing funny about them.”
As Hillary Clinton looks to push away the threat from Bernie Sanders with further wins in a slate of Democratic primaries across the north-east on Tuesday, organized labor is planning a multi-pronged assault on Trump in an effort to undercut his appeal and derail his presidential bid to the White House.
“Trump has some appeal at this point, there’s no question about that,” said Steve Rosenthal, former political director for AFL-CIO. “But when you cut through it and begin to focus on his record – from his talk about trade agreements, to manufacturing abroad to offshoring jobs – Donald Trump is not going to appeal to union members.”
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http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/apr/26/us-unions-donald-trump-us-election-2016
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silvershadow
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pampango
(24,692 posts)but there’s nothing funny about them.”
In the coming months, the AFL-CIO, which has not endorsed a candidate in the primary but has encouraged members to support the Democratic nominee, will launch digital attack ads against Trump and will ramp up its door-knocking campaign. The Service Employees International Union, which has endorsed Clinton, has organized phone banks for her nationwide, including most recently in Pennsylvania in the hope of getting out the vote on behalf of Democrats.
Yet Trump is resonating with voters who are struggling to make ends meet and who are seeing their friends’ jobs shipped abroad, says John Cakmakci, president of United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 951 in Michigan. And some of those voters are union members. Trump’s populist positions on trade and his rejection of Washington politics have earned him votes across the Rust Belt, where several battleground states are key to winning the election in November.
While unions still tend to lean Democratic, their rank-and-file members are increasingly split between the parties. In 2008, about 39% of households with union members cast their vote for Republican John McCain and in 2012 40% voted for Mitt Romney.
Right wing populists like Trump offer scapegoats not solutions but they are dangerous campaigners and should not be underestimated.
