Two of the big three automobile companies are paying workers to attend Trump’s rally today and providing busing to the event.
General Motors and Fiat Chrysler are paying workers any wages they would miss to attend the rally and are providing busing and lunch to those attending the rally. Ford is not making up missing wages but is providing lunch and busing to any worker attending the Trump rally.
The President of UAW Local 372 Gabe Solano says,
"I have been at Chrysler for 23 years, and I have never seen this kind of approach. We have never seen them go out of their way to pay people to go to a rally," said Solano, who represents UAW members who make engines for Fiat Chrysler. "I find it amusing that Trump's camp always likes to say Democrats are paying people to attend rallies. It's kind of ironic now that companies are paying people to attend Trump rallies."
The big three automobile companies are hoping to curry approval with Trump after his tweetstorms and to ask for regulatory favors by providing a back drop of employees being paid to attend.
Throughout President Obama’s tenure he never asked plants to provide workers as ‘back drops’ but Trump specifically is. Trump has requested that the big three auto companies provide employees as props for his rally and they are doing so.
Local leaders throughout of the UAW are urging members not to attend because they believe (and we certainly know) that Trump, much less the big three, do not have workers interests at heart.
Charles Bell, president of UAW Local 1700 in Sterling Heights, said he has declined an invitation to attend, and he posted a statement about the decision on the website of his local, which represents workers at Fiat Chrysler's Sterling Heights Assembly Plant.
"I think, in my opinion, that he does not have the best interest of working-class people in his heart," Bell said, referring to Trump. "I think he sees an opportunity to say that he has the support of unionized workers in Michigan, and that’s why he wanted workers at his rally, and I was not going to be a part of that."
There is one autoworker who is applauding the propaganda aims of the big three and the Trump administration and that’s Brian Pannebecker. Pannebecker is a spokesman for Michigan Freedom to Work, a supposedly ‘grass roots’ organization that fought for RTW legislation in Michigan. He’s also a long time political activist for the right.
The UAW leadership endorses Democrats and it’s internal polling shows that 59% of its membership voted for Hillary Clinton in November and 33% voted for Trump. 8% of its membership either didn’t vote at all or voted for third party candidates.
Either way, it’s pretty galling the a sitting President has encouraged and is willing to have paid political props stand behind him. More so since Trump will absolutely offer nothing to these workers but will more than likely gut regulations that benefit us all as a hand out to big business.
Detroit Free Press