Retired auto worker who worked in the auto industry for 36 years Crisis for both Fords Chrysler, now Stellantis, launched a pro-Trump group of co-workers and retirees in 2017 that has recently grown to several thousand members.
In a wide-ranging interview with Fox News Digital, founder Brian Pannebecker said the group started with 30 current United Auto Workers (UAW) members who supported former President Trump in 2016.
“Word got around in my factory and it soon doubled and tripled in size. … Other car factory workers saw it, [on social media] “And we asked them to join, and all of a sudden we had hundreds of members,” Pannebecker said.
Now his group has expanded beyond the internet, regularly visiting auto plants around Michigan where he and his legion of pro-Trump union members can connect with other union members and rally support in an industry long known to be reliably Democratic.
Panebecker said the UAW has been and will continue to be a vital organization for middle-class workers, adding that he and his members support collective bargaining and the idea that unions built the American working class. He said Henry Ford also deserves credit for inventing the five-day workweek and setting aside personal profits to pay his employees $5 a day, the highest wage at the time.
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At left, Brian Pannebecker, founder of the Trump 2024 Auto Workers union, speaks next to former President Trump during a rally in Waterford Township, Mich. (Nick Antaya/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Pannebecker stressed that he and his group are not at odds with the UAW itself, but he has clearly different political views from UAW leaders, including President Sean Fain, a prominent critic of President Trump.
One of the big issues uniting his growing group of supporters of Trump and other Republicans is Democrats' support for what he calls “Green New Scum.”
“I think this whole thing is a farce,” Pannebecker said, adding that American consumers clearly don't want to be forced to buy electric cars and that the government's insistence on favoring electric vehicles over internal combustion engines has led to worker cuts and countless electric vehicles sitting idle in parking lots in Detroit and at dealerships across the country.
Pannebecker added that President Trump's replacement of NAFTA with the USMCA has given new energy to the auto industry by reducing labor's desire to offshore.
“rear [President Clinton] Once it was signed and went into effect, car companies who were in business to make money and make profits for their shareholders began to close factories in the United States and relocate them just south of the border, maybe 10 miles or so away. [into Mexico]”
“Well, neither the Democrats nor some of the previous Republican administrations have addressed that issue. So Donald Trump said during the campaign, 'If I'm elected, I'm going to tear up NAFTA and renegotiate our own trade agreements in favor of American workers.'”
“And guess what happened? He kept his campaign promise.”
Pannebecker said the United Auto Workers, which supports Trump, is united on two issues: the federal government's push for electric vehicles and environmental regulation, including fuel economy standards and the offshoring that has taken place over the past few decades.
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“Kamala Harris has publicly stated that she wants all vehicles made in the United States to be zero-emissions by 2035, and she sponsored legislation to that effect as a U.S. senator,” he said, citing reports that Harris is the most liberal senator in the United States.
“She's dangerous because she's more liberal than Bernie Sanders,” he said. “She knows nothing about manufacturing, she knows nothing about economics. She was a liberal district attorney in San Francisco and then became attorney general of California. And we all know what happened in California. They ruined that state.”
“So it's very clear who the choice is for autoworkers in this election: Donald Trump. He has the track record to win elections. Kamala Harris is just a liberal lawyer from California.”
Pannebecker said Harris and other Democrats are supporting legislation in Congress that would “destroy” the auto industry and jobs in the United States.
President Biden speaks during a campaign event for Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Harris at IBEW Local 5 in Pittsburgh on September 2, 2024. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
“My group's job is basically to make autoworkers aware, to educate them, and then rally and motivate other workers who are already aware of the issue, and get them to go vote. We can't stay home. No one can stay home in this election.”
Rep. John James, a Republican from Michigan whose family business works in the auto parts sector and who represents many of the workers in Pannebecker's group, told Fox News Digital in a separate interview that liberal politicians “don't understand” the needs of workers.
“They don't understand that our lifestyle doesn't match up with the plans they're making for their coastal cottages,” he said.
“When you put this kind of 'comply or die' mandate on an industry, the auto industry represents 50 percent of the economic impact in Michigan,” he said.
Senator Harris has supported a zero-emission vehicle bill that would phase out other vehicles by 2040, but her campaign sent out a “fact-check email.” Obtained Axios It signaled a change in her previous position, saying she “does not support an electric vehicle mandate.”
President Biden and Kamala Harris (Getty Images)
James said federal policies affect everything from workers to supply chains and even the management themselves, who often follow the government.
He praised Pannebecker's activism, saying hundreds of autoworkers have been laid off and will eventually be laid off because of the push for environmental regulations and anti-worker policies of the left.
James criticized his Democratic opponent, Judge Carl Merlinga, pointing to a 2022 interview with The Detroit News in which James said he wanted to “hold on tight and hang on to a declining industry as long as I can.”
“Or you can do it my way and embrace the new products of the future, the new green industrial revolution.”
When asked about such comments on Tuesday New York Post“Unlike John James, who is happy to cede future auto jobs to China, Karl said our policies should prepare Michigan to be the manufacturing capital of the world in the 21st century,” said Alan Fosnacht, Marlinga's campaign manager.
But James countered that the environmental movement being supported is not based in “reality.”
“[The] “The technology isn't ready to address products that people don't want,” James said, adding that autoworkers like Pannebecker understand that and are making their voices heard this election season.
As word spread about Panebecker's burgeoning autoworkers group, members began hanging out in huge parking lots outside Detroit-area plants during the current 2024 election cycle.
When Pannebecker and others worked at the Ford axle plant, they would stand outside the plant before and after their shifts to greet and interact with workers as they came and went.
United Auto Workers President Sean Fain will attend the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago on August 19. (Reuters/Mike Seeger)
Pannebecker said that while they don't disrupt traffic, the Trump-supporting United Auto Workers has been very successful in engaging with the hundreds of workers waiting in line to get in and out of plants. Sometimes the workers themselves have volunteered, which has significantly increased the group's numbers, he said.
He said many workers often question why they should support a Republican candidate.
“As word spread, some of the workers in the factory who had been taking part in the demonstrations and rallies started walking up to us after their shifts and holding up signs.”
“Support for Donald Trump has now become so commonplace for workers at the plant that they no longer fear retaliation from UAW officials and want their union leaders to support them.”
Union members have long been considered a key Democratic voting bloc, but the tides are turning since Trump injected his policies into the Republican Party, Pannebecker said.
He said parts of Michigan long dominated by Democrats are increasingly becoming “swing” districts, adding that the same is happening in other union-heavy areas.
In Pennsylvania's anthracite coal region, Trump signs are aplenty in previously Democrat-friendly counties like Schuylkill, Carbon and Northumberland, which now tend to elect Republicans to the state capital, Harrisburg, and Washington, DC.
President Biden, who calls himself the “most pro-union president,” is trying to slow it down by visiting key locations similar to those Pannebecker's group is making.
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Former President Trump (Bill Priano/Getty Images)
Biden toured Mack Trucks' main facility in Macungie, Pennsylvania, in 2021 and then toured current parent company Volvo's plant in Washington County, Maryland, in 2022 to tout his credibility and interact with workers.
Biden likes to talk about growing up in the industrial town of Scranton, Pennsylvania, and later living in Claymont, Delaware, just across the border in Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania, just down the road from a giant oil refinery.
Pannebecker suggested that similar issues — the economy, job outsourcing and environmental policy — are fueling pro-Trump sentiment in the trucking industry.
He credited Teamsters Chairman Sean O'Brien, who spoke at this year's Republican National Convention with being an open-minded speaker, after O'Brien was seemingly snubbed at the Democratic National Convention.
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“That's not an exaggeration: Almost 90 to 95 percent of the trucks that go by, whether they're hauling auto parts or whatever, honk their air horn, give a thumbs up or shake their fist so we can see,” he said, noting that those truckers are often members of the Teamsters.
As for Fein, the UAW leader, Pannebecker said many of the members he spoke with don't understand why the union chose him.
“He certainly negotiated a good contract for them and made them understand all the concessions they've made over the last couple of contract cycles. But they don't like his politics. They think he's getting bossy now. They disagree that he's endorsing Kamala Harris.”
As for future plans for the pro-Trump auto workers union, Pannebecker said they hope to target some of Michigan's biggest factories to get their message out.
“When the voting begins in Michigan, it will be fresh in their minds, and Donald Trump will win the votes of the UAW members, I promise you that,” Pannebecker said.
Fox News Digital reached out to Harris' campaign and the UAW for comment but had not heard back at the time of publication.
Fox News Digital's Matteo China contributed to this report..
