ANN ARBOR, Mich. — The leadership of the United Auto Workers union is actively supporting Democratic presidential candidates, and the union Digital and Field Campaigns He promised to run against President Donald Trump in November and “do everything in our power to elect Kamala Harris as the next president of the United States.”
The UAW has also pledged to donate $1.5 million to the Democratic National Committee. Detroit News report — and this is on top of a labor lawsuit filed against the former president over comments he made during a controversial X-Space interview with Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
The allegations relate to a brief exchange in which Trump told Musk, “I see what you’re doing. You walk into a company and say, ‘Do you want to quit?’ and they start a strike. I won’t say the names of the companies, but they start a strike. And you say, ‘It’s fine. You all get out.'”
Musk’s simple response, “Yeah, we guessed it,” was enough for the union to file a federal labor lawsuit against the two men.
“In this country, employers need to be held accountable when they break the law.” UAW President Sean Fain told CBS:“It is a right under federal law for workers to strike. Workers cannot be fired for striking.”
Fain wields considerable political influence in the Wolverine State, home to 134,000 UAW members and 300,000 autoworkers, and has been more openly opposed to President Trump than ever before.
While it’s difficult to tell how UAW members will individually vote in November, both Trump and Harris are seeking to win the support of this politically divided group in Michigan, a must-win state in the Midwest.
“We’re not going to let the workers go to work,” one UAW member told CNN in June. He estimates that about 40% of union members support Trump..
Still, leaders of the powerful autoworkers union are vehemently opposed to Trump and his candidacy, drawing the ire of the former president, who called for Fain to be dissolved.
“The leadership of the United Auto Workers should be fired immediately and all auto workers, union and non-union, should vote for Donald Trump,” Trump told an audience at the Republican National Committee last month.
President Trump and the Republican Party are aiming to win the support of labor union members in this election, and they achieved a major feat by having Teamsters President Sean O’Brien appear at the Republican National Convention.
Last month, in a positive sign for Trump and his party, O’Brien suggested his union could work with Republicans.
The Trump campaign has made winning over working-class voters a central part of its strategy, and this week it sent Mr. Trump’s running mate, Ohioan J.D. Vance, to an industrial site outside Grand Rapids, Michigan, to present him as a champion of the working class.
