Posts tagged Elon Musk
Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su Criticizes Donald Trump’s Labor Record at IOP
October 22, 2024 // Though Su declined to address the former president by name, she argued that “hypothetically,” opposition to overtime pay, sexual harassment, and support for Elon Musk are incompatible with a “pro-worker” position. “I don’t care how many McDonald’s drive-throughs you pretend to work at,” Su said, referencing Trump’s Sunday visit to a Philadelphia McDonald’s where he served fries and answered questions through the drive-through window. Su was joined by Sara Nelson, the president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO to discuss the future of the American Labor Movement. Brett Story and Stephen Maing, directors of “UNION”— a documentary film that followed the unionization of Amazon workers in Staten Island, New York — were also on the panel.
Unions face a moment of truth in Michigan in this year’s presidential race
October 18, 2024 // Union leaders have said his first term was far from worker-friendly, citing unfavorable rulings from the nation’s top labor board and the U.S. Supreme Court, as well as unfulfilled promises of automotive jobs. They emphasize Democratic achievements in states like Michigan, including the recent repeal of a union-restricting right-to-work law enacted over a decade ago by a Republican-controlled legislature. With membership dwindling in states like Michigan, Fain will need to attract more than just union workers to secure a victory for Harris, who has campaigned in the state alongside him. If the union president cannot deliver Michigan after all these efforts, it could raise questions about his union's political influence in future elections.
Teamsters President Sean O’Brien eviscerates the Democratic Party: ‘They have f**** us over for the last 40 years’
October 8, 2024 // 'I'm a Democrat but they have f***** us over for the last 40 years and for once we're standing up as a union saying what the f*** have you done for us?' O'Brien said in scathing remarks. 'I'm getting attacked from the left you know and since I've been in office over two and a half years we've given the Democratic machine $15.7 million. 'We've given Republicans about $340,000 truth be told, so it's like you know people say the Democratic party is the party of working people, but they're actually bought and paid for by big tech,' O'Brien explained.
In swing states that once went for Trump, unions organize to prevent a repeat
October 1, 2024 // This year, UNITE HERE says it is once again mobilizing its members and plans to knock on more than 3 million doors in Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina and Michigan “to ensure that Kamala Harris wins the presidency.” In Wisconsin, the Laborers are building political messaging into a union project to engage members more closely, “connecting union members with other union members,” Miller said, to explain how negotiations affect wages and health and retirement benefits, as well as the importance of increasing union representation.
Teamsters turn their back on Kamala Harris
September 22, 2024 // For the first time in decades, the American union has not endorsed the Democrats.
Commentary: How organized labor shames its traitors − the story of the ‘scab’
September 16, 2024 // In the 19th century, American workers started using the word to attack peers who refused to join a union or worked when others were striking. By the 1880s, periodicals, union pamphlets and books all regularly used the epithet to chastise any workers or labor leaders who cooperated with bosses. Names of scabs were often printed in local papers. Scab likely caught on because it directed visceral disgust at anyone who put self-interest above class solidarity.
Commentary: The Rise of “Pro-Labor” Conservatism
September 9, 2024 // Yet O’Brien’s move has attracted the attention of commentators from both sides of the political spectrum who see it as a bellwether. It is what conservative commentator Sohrab Ahmari has called a “brave gambit” and veteran labor reporter Steven Greenhouse dubbed a “huge gamble.” “A glacier of hostility has divided the GOP from organized labor for two generations,” Ahmari wrote in Compact. But the Teamsters president “took a pickaxe to that glacier” by speaking at the RNC. Ahmari attributes the rise of this strain of pro-labor, anti-union conservatism to Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO), a MAGA firebrand who has come out as perhaps the lone GOP senator to oppose right to work legislation, the anti-union laws on the books in 28 states.
Trump and Harris, with starkly different records on labor issues, are both courting union voters
September 5, 2024 // By comparison, two days after taking office in 2021, Biden issued an executive order that established masking guidelines, and his administration made health and safety protocols on the job during the rest of the COVID-19 pandemic a high priority. Compared with the inaction by the Trump administration during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Biden administration has been more active in proposing health and safety measures. For example, in July 2024 it proposed rules designed to protect some 36 million workers from health risks associated with extreme heat. After a period for written comments, public hearings will be held on the bill. When Trump tried cutting OSHA funding for 2018 by approximately US$10 million, Congress blocked his efforts. The Biden administration is seeking a 3.7% increase in OSHA’s budget for the 2025 fiscal year.
Harris girds for battle with Trump over union workers and their Big Labor bosses
August 28, 2024 // Ultimately, the labor vote is likely to follow the candidate workers feel can best address the economic concerns of the working class. Harris will almost certainly win the labor vote, but what will really matter is Trump's ability to cut into her margins with appeals to working-class voters on issues like immigration and trade.
Shawn Fain’s DNC Bombast And Trump/Musk Lawsuits Show UAW’s New Political Power
August 23, 2024 // A company statement said market conditions have caused it only to delay its production plans for the plant. It went on to say, “The Company has not violated the commitments made in the Investment Letter included in the 2023 UAW Collective Bargaining Agreement and strongly objects to the Union’s accusations. In fact, the UAW agreed to language that expressly allows the Company to modify product investments and employment levels. Therefore, the Union cannot legally strike over a violation of this letter at this time.”