Jamie L. LaReau, Detroit Free Press
Updated Wed, September 27, 2023
The UAW's lead negotiator in contract talks with General Motors on Wednesday issued a scathing assessment of former President Donald Trump hours before Trump was due to speak in Detroit.
UAW Vice President for General Motors Mike Booth sent the Detroit Free Press a profanity-laden email about his thoughts on Trump's trip to Michigan.
"Let me be blunt. Donald Trump is coming off as a pompous (expletive)," Booth said in an email. "Coming to Michigan to speak at a nonunion employer and pretending it has anything to do with our fight at the Big Three is just more verbal diarrhea from the former president."
Trump was expected to deliver prime-time remarks at Drake Enterprises in Clinton Township. The auto parts supplier is nonunionized. According to an AP report, Trump will speak to a crowd of "several hundred current and former UAW members, as well as members of plumbers and pipefitters unions."
Booth's remarks came as he and GM negotiators were due back at the main bargaining table with GM leadership Wednesday afternoon, two sources familiar with the talks told the Detroit Free Press.
Booth said Trump's visit to Detroit is disingenuous given his past. In a video about plant closings that the union released Wednesday morning, 2017 footage shows Trump promising autoworkers in Ohio he would save their jobs. But in 2019 GM closed its Lordstown Assembly plant in northeast Ohio, displacing thousands of workers there and helping lead to the union's 2019 strike against GM.
"Where were his rallies for striking workers when we were on the picket line in 2019? Where are the jobs he promised to return to the U.S. while on the campaign trail in 2015?" Booth said. "The proof is in the pudding. His actions in office went to enrich the very elite few while the working class of America stagnated. This stunt is another ploy to pull the wool over the eyes of the working class. Again!”
As for GM's reaction to Trump's visit, it remained the same as the statement the company provided for President Joe Biden's visit on Tuesday, which is that its focus is not on politics but on bargaining to reach an agreement as quickly as possible.
"We have presented five, record economic proposals that address the areas our team members have said matter most, including wage increases and job security," GM's statement read. "We value our workforce and understand the impact a strike has on our employees, communities and the economy — nobody wins."
The union's support is crucial for both presidential candidates: Trump and Biden. In 2016, UAW members in Michigan helped Trump win the White House. In 2020, UAW members in Michigan helped Biden take the White House from Trump. That's why both men are courting union support in Michigan
Trump hasn't voiced support for the union's demands, unlike Biden, who said the workers deserved a good contract. But Trump has said that UAW workers should reject the automakers' transition to making more electric vehicles. The Biden administration and Democrats have a green agenda and are in favor of EVs.
The union has supported Trump's "new NAFTA" or United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. It was designed to create more U.S. manufacturing jobs because it mandated that 70% of the steel and aluminum in a car be sourced from North America, and that seven core vehicle parts also meet North American content requirements.
UAW President Shawn Fain has not endorsed either man for president, saying whoever gets the endorsement must earn it.
In a historic first Tuesday, Biden walked the picket line with striking UAW workers at GM's Willow Run Redistribution Center in Van Buren Township, where the automaker stores and distributes parts. Fain joined Biden, and when asked later on CNN whether Fain would meet Trump on Wednesday, Fain replied: "I see no point in meeting with him," because Trump doesn't care what "the working class stands for."
"In 2019, when he was the president of the United States, where was he then?” Fain said. “Our workers at GM were on strike for two months. … I didn’t see him hold a rally, I didn’t see him on the picket line and I sure as hell didn’t see him comment on it. He was missing in action.”
Contact Jamie L. LaReau: jlareau@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @jlareauan. Read more on General Motors and sign up for our autos newsletter. Become a subscriber.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Trump’s Michigan visit: UAW VP for GM Mike Booth has strong words
UAW negotiator lays into Trump: ‘Where are the jobs he promised?’
Miranda Nazzaro
Wed, September 27, 2023
The Union Auto Workers’s (UAW) lead negotiator in contract talks with General Motors dug into former President Trump, just hours ahead of the former president’s talk with union workers in Michigan, calling his expected rally “verbal diarrhea.”
In a letter first sent to the Detroit Free Press, UAW Vice President for General Motors Mike Booth wrote, “Let me be blunt. Donald Trump is coming off as a pompous a–hole. Coming to Michigan to speak at a nonunion employer and pretending it has anything to do with our fight at the Big Three is just more verbal diarrhea from the former president.”
The letter, later shared by the UAW with The Hill, comes just hours before Trump is expected to hold a rally at a nonunion plant with current and former union workers amid their ongoing strikes against the “Big Three” automakers – Ford, General Motors and Stellantis.
“Where were his rallies for striking workers when we were on the picket line in 2019? Where are the jobs he promised to return to the U.S. while on the campaign trail in 2015?” Booth said. “The proof is in the pudding. His actions in office went to enrich the very elite few while the working class of America stagnated. This stunt is another ploy to pull the wool over the eyes of the working class. Again!”
Booth’s comments are likely a reference to Trump’s vow during his 2015 presidential campaign to bring millions of jobs back to America and away from foreign adversaries.
Booth’s comments echo those from UAW President Shawn Fain Tuesday, who said Trump serves a “billionaire class,” and does not have “any bit of care about what our workers stand for, what the working class stands for.”
Like Booth, Fain also took aim at Trump’s track record, asking where the former president was during the 2019 strike by General Motors workers. Fain also called out Trump’s rpopsoal during his 2016 presidential campaign to rotate auto manufacturing industry jobs from the Midwest to the South, which the union has argued would force union workers into jobs with lower wages.
Trump’s visit to Detroit comes on the heels of President Biden’s trip to Belleville, Mich. on Tuesday, where he joined the picket line with striking autoworkers. The move was seen by some as a likely offense against Trump, who could be the incumbent’s 2024 presidential opponent.
Biden spoke at a General Motors facility alongside Fain, who has yet to endorse Biden’s reelection bid, citing concerns over the Biden administration’s push for electric vehicles (EVs), which put autoworkers’ jobs at risk.
The UAW began its strike against the automakers nearly two weeks ago, and expanded it to an additional 38 locations last week. Reports surfaced Wednesday that the union could further expand the strike Friday if significant progress is not made in talks with Detroit automakers.
The union is asking for wage increases, cost-of-living pay raises, a 32-hour work week with 40 hours of pay, union representation at new battery plants, restoration of traditionally-defined benefit pensions for new hires who currently receive only 401(k)-style retirement plans, and pension increases for retirees.
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