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.