Leading U.S. unions warned voters on Monday not to be fooled by the pro-worker facade constructed by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, a Republican senator from Ohio who has opposed congressional efforts to strengthen organizing rights, allowed corporate lobbyists to influence his legislating, and raked in donations from the elites he claims to despise.
Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO—the nation's largest federation of unions—said in a statement the combined records of Trump and Vance make clear that, if elected, they "would eviscerate unions and empty workers' pockets just to boost the profits of their corporate friends and donors."
"Donald Trump has a miserable record of breaking every promise he's made to working people—from failing to pay his workers and crossing a picket line to his disastrous four years in the White House," said Shuler. "That betrayal would continue if he is reelected—so it's no surprise Trump chose a vice president who will be nothing more than a rubber stamp for that anti-worker vision."
Shuler continued:
Sen. JD Vance likes to play union supporter on the picket line, but his record proves that to be a sham. He has introduced legislation to allow bosses to bypass their workers’ unions with phony corporate-run unions, disparaged striking UAW members while collecting hefty donations from one of the major auto companies, and opposed the landmark Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, which would end union-busting "right to work" laws and make it easier for workers to form unions and win strong contracts.
"A Trump-Vance White House," she added, "is a corporate CEO's dream and a worker's nightmare."
Service Employees International Union president April Verrett offered a similar assessment of the Trump-Vance ticket, saying that while Vance "may portray himself as a working-class hero," his "record tells another story."
"The truth is that Senator Vance's loyalties lie with the Wall Street bankers and Silicon Valley billionaires who have bankrolled his political career," said Verrett. "Together, Donald Trump and JD Vance will seek to protect the wealthy and corporations while enacting their insidious Project 2025 agenda. There's a stark contrast between Biden-Harris, who have backed workers and taken action to lower prices and raise wages, and Trump-Vance, who side with price-gouging, union-busting corporations."
The unions' statements came as Republican delegates at the party's convention in Wisconsin—a state that's been described as a "laboratory" for the GOP's anti-union agenda—formally nominated Trump as their presidential candidate, just days after an assassination attempt.
GOP delegates also approved their party's platform, which includes the vague promise to put "American workers first" but does not mention the word "union." The nation's union membership rate fell to an all-time low last year thanks to a long-running war on labor rights waged by corporate America and its GOP allies.
The Republican platform contains an ostensibly pro-worker pledge to exempt tips from taxation, a vow that—according to one critic—"appears to be a way for Republicans to change the subject if anyone questions their opposition to raising the minimum wage, which has been stuck at $7.25 for the past two decades."
Despite backlash from within his union, Teamsters president Sean O'Brien delivered a primetime address to the Republican convention Monday night, praising Trump for his supposed willingness to "hear from new, loud, and often critical voices."
But other union leaders expressed a much harsher view of the former president, given that during his first term he stacked federal agencies and courts with opponents of organized labor and worked to gut worker protections. Trump's reelection campaign is backed by at least a dozen billionaires, including the world's richest man.
"This ticket isn't pro-worker or pro-union," said Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, urging workers not to buy the "slick rhetoric" of Trump's running mate.
"It's the billionaire ticket through and through," Nelson added.
