Trump met with a number of union leaders from the building and construction trades on his first weekday in office:
Mr. McGarvey and Terry O’Sullivan, the general president of the Laborers’ International Union of North America, stressed to reporters their satisfaction at meeting with the president so soon after the inauguration. They said they went the entire Obama administration without being invited to a similar meeting.
(Some building trades leaders attended meetings with a broader cross section of unions at the Obama White House.)
Both groups endorsed Hillary Clinton for president in 2015, but their presidents were effusive in praising Mr. Trump’s knowledge of the building and construction industry.
The LIUNA broke with the SEIU and many other union leaders over DAPL. LIUNA members were working on it and they asked Obama to approve the pipeline. Nevertheless, these union leaders had previously been vociferous in their opposition to Trump:
At least two of the unions represented on Monday had been vocal in their endorsements of Clinton. One, the United Brotherhood of Carpenters, had circulated a document before the election saying, “Trump’s legacy will ruin America.” The magazine of the Northern California Carpenters Regional Council quoted the union’s general president, Doug McCarron, who was at Monday’s meeting, as saying, “Trump is 100 percent against us and every other union,” and that “this election is a clear choice, between an enemy of unions and a proven friend of working families.”
The NY Times reports that when Trump told these leaders he would be withdrawing from the TPP, they burst out in applause. Teamsters president James P. Hoffa also applauded Trump’s withdrawal from the TPP:
Today, President Trump made good on his campaign promise to withdraw the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. With this decision, the president has taken the first step toward fixing 30 years of bad trade policies that have cost working Americans millions of good-paying jobs.
“We take this development as a positive sign that President Trump will continue to fulfill his campaign promises in regard to trade policy reform and instruct the USTR to negotiate future agreements that protect American workers and industry.”
Sara Nelson, president of the flight-attendants’ union said:
Formally withdrawing from the TPP is the right move for working people and their families in this country. President Trump has repeatedly stated that his guiding principle will be to put American jobs first. We encourage the Trump Administration to enforce Open Skies agreements that promised to maintain and increase opportunities for aviation workers. Attention to the pending Norwegian Air International case is the place to start. We look forward to working with President Trump on this critical jobs issue.
Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, rightfully pointed out that labor’s staunch opposition had killed the agreement and declined to credit Trump in his Op-Ed:
On Monday, the United States withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. President Trump may have signed the TPP’s death certificate, but it was working people and our progressive allies who killed this unfair agreement. For years, we have mobilized and organized in opposition to the TPP, winning the debate in Congress and on the campaign trail.
Polling last year found that two-thirds of the country didn’t know about the TPP, though it also found that views on free-trade had flipped with Democrats now more supportive than Republicans. Whatever you may think of the TPP, or the Obama administration’s support for it, or the broader geo-political questions about pivoting to Asia, the plain fact is that union leaders and their rank and file believe it was a bad deal for them. Despite the efforts of the Obama administration to convince them otherwise, they worked to make opposition to the TPP part of the party platform. And Trumka’s right, largely in response to labor, Democrats in Congress opposed Obama and rejected the TPP.
Rust belt Democrats have followed labor’s lead in applauding Trump’s decision:
“I support President Trump’s issuing of an executive orders that will pull the U.S. out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and his recent steps to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA),” Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr. (D-Pa.) said in a statement. “NAFTA has adversely impacted middle class families in Pennsylvania and the TPP would have cost jobs and hurt income growth, which is why I voted against fast tracking the deal in 2015.”
Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) shared a similar reaction on Twitter:
Withdrawing from #TPP & moving to renegotiate #NAFTA are good 1st steps from @POTUS, but more must be done to keep his word to WI workers.
Both senators face re-election in 2018. Chuck Schumer when asked about TPP said:
But some of these mean very little. The TPP was dead long before he became president. If he wanted to do something real on trade, he could have done what he promised to do over and over again in his campaign, call China a currency manipulator. He said, on the first day I’m in office, I will call China a currency manipulator. That would have done something.
Congressional Republicans, largely supported the TPP (in contrast to their base). Though there were notable exceptions among Republicans on the ballot in the industrial mid-west. Once Trump was the nominee, the GOP platform was modified to remove support for TPP, following his lead.
Paul Ryan was an advocate for the TPP, but later tempered his support to align with Trump. Ryan and Mitch McConnell refused to bring TPP to the House and Senate floor in 2016. However, many GOP leaders continue to advocate for the TPP. John McCain went on the record yesterday to say:
Senator John McCain, chairman of the Senate armed services committee, described it as a “serious mistake” with long-term consequences. “This decision will forfeit the opportunity to promote American exports, reduce trade barriers, open new markets, and protect American invention and innovation,” he said.
Both Republicans and Democrats seem to face a series of choices here that pit some of their grassroots activists against party leaders and some of their larger donors against labor. For the Democratic party, this is critical. Obama won union households nationwide by 18 points in 2012, Hillary Clinton’s margin was much lower at 8%. Even teachers’ union members voted in substantial numbers for Trump.
Populist movements on the right face a real threat to labor’s alignment with Democrats. It’s not clear to me the party has an effective response to Trump’s overtures towards rank and file union households. Eventually, labor leaders will follow their rank and file members. If labor turns away from Democrats, so does much of the industrial mid-west. And that means much of the grassroots organization for Democrats goes away. Organized labor reliably shows up to canvass/GoTV for Democrats. What happens when they don’t?
None of this augurs well for 2018, or for 2020, or 2024 for that matter.