The United Auto Workers slammed former President Trump after he called for the union’s president, Shawn Fain, to be fired for letting carmakers build factories abroad, during his Thursday evening speech at the Republican National Convention.
Trump accused China of making cars in Mexico to sell in the United States, “no tax, no anything,” during his more than 90-minute acceptance speech.
“The United Auto Workers ought to be ashamed for allowing this to happen, and the leader of the United Auto Workers should be fired immediately and every single autoworker, union and nonunion, should be voting for Donald Trump, because we’re going to bring back car manufacturing and we’re going to bring it back fast,” Trump said.
The union took to the social platform X soon after to post its rebuttal.
“@realDonaldTrump is a scab and a billionaire and that’s who he represents. We know which side we’re on. Not his,” the UAW wrote.
The UAW endorsed President Biden in January, as both candidates vied for the support of major unions ahead of the 2024 election. The endorsement followed Biden’s historic visit to the picket line in Michigan during the six-week UAW strike against three major automakers last fall, a first for a sitting president.
Fain said during his January endorsement that Biden “heard the call, and he stood up and he showed up,” and called Trump a “scab” and a “billionaire” who “stands against everything we stand for as a union.”
A few days later, Trump took to Truth Social to rip Fain as a “STIFF” helping sell the automobile industry “right into the big, powerful hands of China.”
“Get rid of this dope & vote for DJT. I will bring the Automobile Industry back to our Country,” he wrote.
While the UAW and Fain have made their distaste for the former president clear, another union president took the stage at the Republican National Convention for the first time in its 121-year history.
Sean O’Brien, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, called Trump “one tough SOB.”
The union has not endorsed either candidate, and O’Brien said that if Republicans want that union’s endorsement, there must be changes, as there are still members of the GOP “who stand in active opposition to labor unions.”
“I want to be clear. At the end of the day, the Teamsters are not interested if you have an R, D, or I next to your name. We want to know one thing: What are you doing to help American workers?” O’Brien said.