List: AFL-CIO’s 37 reasons to vote against Trump

My question was obvious: Trump’s bragging on a good economy and ultra-low unemployment rates would seem to have some resonance with blue-collar workers.

Initially, Trumka was mildly dismissive of Trump’s strategy. “That’s what he’s doing, and I think it’s not going to have the effect” on workers, he said.

Then, he reached for a small stack of papers and told me, “I sort of anticipated that you might ask me about that, particularly you. See this right here?”

It was six pages of reasons — 37 of them — for why the AFL-CIO believes workers shouldn’t vote for Trump.

“These are all the things that his administration has done to hurt workers. So that when you go into a state and say, ‘I’m great,’ and you’ve got a minimum wage worker and [Trump’s] opposed every increase in the minimum wage, you have to ask did he really care about that worker?” asked Trumka, speaking on several of the 37 items.

Trumka said his attack strategy worked in 2018, and he noted that “almost 1,000” union members were elected to office, including in the House and Senate.

“All I’m doing is calling balls and strikes. When he does something that’s good for workers, I say he did something that’s good for workers. When he does something that’s bad for workers, I say he did something that’s bad for workers,” he said at the breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.

“Unfortunately for workers, there has been more of the latter than the former. I wish that were not true because workers in this country would be much better off if it weren’t true,” he added.

To highlight the list that touches on minimum wage, worker safety, Social Security, and Medicare, his office even created a graphic that reads “The Failed Pledge To America’s Workers.”

In 2016, Trump won a huge portion of union households, 43%, similar to former President Ronald Reagan. That year Trumka campaigned for Hillary Rodham Clinton.

This year, despite Big Labor’s anti-Trump plan to steer them back to Democrats, the president’s campaign hopes his economic record will help to expand his support on the assembly line, in kitchens, and in big rigs.

“Under President Trump’s leadership, blue-collar workers are thriving with wages rising and record low unemployment,” said deputy campaign spokeswoman Sarah Matthews.

“Meanwhile, all Democrats have pledged to end fossil fuel industries, which would kill more than 10 million jobs nationally. Democrats blindly support the job-killing Green New Deal and eliminating union-negotiated healthcare in favor of a government-run program. When faced with the choice of economic success or failure, the choice for American workers is clear,” she added.

Democratic pollster John Zogby said union voters may split the difference again between the Trump they know and the uncertainty of a Democratic presidential candidate.

“Blue-collar workers, like most voters, are not one-dimensional. I never fully bought in to James Carville’s rule that ‘It’s the economy, stupid.’ There is so much more,” he said.

“Are they evangelicals? Members of the NRA? Have a child with special needs? Are they resentful that public sector workers get automatic raises, longer vacations, can retire early, and so? And feel that they are footing the bill while they stay in place? Were they bullied in school and have found their badass who loves to rage against power? The AFL-CIO is doing what they have to do, but the result may not be enough to rein in their membership,” he explained.

Back to the breakfast, Trumka conceded that 2020 will be a big message war. And he said of Trump, “He has a case to be made.”

The AFL-CIO fact sheet:

Trump’s Failed Pledge to America’s Workers

HURTING OUR POCKETBOOKS

• Opposed any increase in the federal minimum wage, denying a desperately needed raise to nearly 40 million workers.

• Derailed the Department of Labor’s overtime rule, blocking millions of workers from receiving a full paycheck.

• Undermined the fiduciary rule, potentially costing working people more than a quarter of our retirement savings.

• Oversaw a rise in outsourcing, including the highest rate of outsourcing by federal contractors in a decade.

• Threatened the future of Social Security, chipping away at working people’s retirement security through $26 billion in proposed funding cuts.

ASSAULTING OUR UNION RIGHTS

• Stacked the National Labor Relations Board with union-busting corporate lawyers, denying working people our right to organize through a fair process.

• Defended so-called Right to Work in a brief to the U.S. Supreme Court.

• Rescinded the Department of Labor’s persuader rule, which required companies to disclose anti-union legal activities.

SERVING THE RICH AND POWERFUL

• Jammed through a massive tax giveaway for the rich, robbing working people of $1.5 trillion while encouraging corporations to outsource our jobs.

• Overturned the CFPB’s ban on forced arbitration clauses, which had prohibited unfair contracts that force consumers to give up our right to sue.

• Destroyed key Dodd-Frank protections, placing the financial system at greater risk, exposing homebuyers and students to predatory lending and weakening protections against racial discrimination in credit.

• Pushed to weaken the rights of shareholders, which would prevent working people and our pension plans from holding corporations and CEOs accountable.

THREATENING OUR HEALTH AND SAFETY

• Targeted Medicare and Medicaid, proposing more than $1 trillion in funding cuts.

• Championed ‘Trumpcare,’ threatening to rip health coverage away from 24 million Americans.

• Actively undermined the Affordable Care Act, increasing the number of uninsured Americans by 7 million.

• Made workplaces more dangerous by rolling back critical federal safety regulations.

• Cut federal workplace safety inspectors to their lowest level in OSHA’s history.

• Repealed recordkeeping rules requiring employers to keep and report accurate injury records.

• Refused to publicly disclose fatality and injury data reported to OSHA.

• Loosened requirements for federal contractors, overturning a rule requiring companies to disclose labor violations before being awarded a federal contract.

• Undermined workers’ voice on the job, withdrawing a policy allowing nonunion workers to participate in safety inspections.

• Delayed OSHA’s silica and beryllium standards, while proposing to eliminate exposure monitoring and medical exams for affected workers.

• Proposed eliminating the Chemical Safety Board and cutting workplace safety research and training programs.

• Proposed revoking key child labor protections for teenagers working in the health care industry.

• Weakened MSHA’s mine safety enforcement, forcing miners to work in hazardous conditions.

• Halted new rules on styrene, combustible dust, construction noise, infectious diseases, silica, and mine safety.

• Delayed and proposed rolling back the EPA’s chemical risk management rule, leaving workers, the public, and first responders in danger.

FAILING TO GOVERN