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New York Times
10-04-2025
- Automotive
- New York Times
Autoworkers Union Chief Gives Trump's Tariffs a Mixed Review
The head of the United Automobile Workers union voiced partial support on Thursday for the Trump administration's tariffs, saying targeted duties on other countries could help bring some manufacturing jobs back to the United States. But the union's president, Shawn Fain, described President Trump's across-the-board global tariffs as 'reckless.' In an address to U.A.W. members that was streamed on YouTube and other social media, he also strongly criticized the administration for firing federal workers and slashing key government agencies, and accused it of violating the civil rights of students and others. 'We support use of some tariffs on automotive manufacturing and similar industries. We do not support tariffs for political games about immigration or fentanyl,' Mr. Fain said. 'We do not support reckless tariffs on all countries at crazy rates.' The address appeared aimed at distancing the union leader from Mr. Trump. In previous weeks, Mr. Fain praised the White House's tariff plans and faced some criticism for moving closer to an administration that often shows hostility to organized labor. He campaigned frequently and enthusiastically last year for former Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, often rousing crowds by referring to Mr. Trump as a 'scab.' 'We are not aligning everything we do with the Trump administration,' Mr. Fain said on Thursday. 'We are negotiating with the Trump administration.' Mr. Fain used the address to repeat familiar claims that free trade agreements — in particular, the North American Free Trade Agreement — allowed corporations to move U.S. factories and jobs to low-wage countries. He said some 90,000 factories in the United States closed in the last 30 years, hollowing out once thriving manufacturing cities like Flint, Mich., and Gary, Ind. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
CBS News
28-03-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
UAW's Shawn Fain slams Trump executive order targeting federal unions
Shawn Fain, the president of the United Automobile Workers, assailed a new executive order signed this week by President Trump as an attack on federal workers. He compared it to the 1981 air traffic controller strike, when President Ronald Reagan fired 11,000 air traffic controllers. "This is 100 times worse than PATCO ever dreamed of being," Fain said, referring to the Port Authority Corporation, "when you're talking, you know — 700,000 people — their contracts just being taken away." "Free speech is under attack. Unions are under attack," Fain told CBS News chief Washington correspondent Major Garrett in an interview airing Sunday on " Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan ." On Thursday, the president signed an executive order to stop or slow down collective bargaining with agencies that have national security responsibilities, claiming that unions have stood in the way of their management. It affects a broad swath of agencies across the federal government, including some that do not have direct national security duties. The departments of defense, homeland security, state, energy, treasury and health and human services are listed in the order. Fain blamed the "billionaires," who he said "want more tax cuts for themselves." "It's been proven time and again that's not what works for America," he continued. "That's not good for the American people, the working class people in America." "They want their fair share. They're not asking to be rich," Fain told Garrett. "They just want a decent standard of living," which he distilled into four issues, "living wages, adequate health care, retirement security and having some quality of life other than just everything revolving around work."
New York Times
12-03-2025
- Automotive
- New York Times
Why the White House Car Show Mattered to Musk
It wasn't so long ago that Elon Musk couldn't even get an invitation to the White House. The year was 2021, and President Joe Biden was announcing tighter pollution rules and promoting his electric vehicle policies. Behind him on the lawn were gleaming examples — a Ford F-150 Lightning, a Chevrolet Bolt EV, a Jeep Wrangler — as well as the chief executives of the companies that made them. But the nation's biggest electric vehicle producer was nowhere to be seen. 'Seems odd that Tesla wasn't invited,' Musk tweeted before the event. The Biden White House explained the snub by noting that the automakers that had been invited were the nation's three largest employers of the United Automobile Workers, a powerful union, and it suggested that the administration would find other ways to partner with Tesla. (Union animus toward electric vehicles later became a problem for Biden.) But today, the moment is seen as a turning point in a feud between Musk and Biden that some Democrats say they have come to regret deeply. 'They left Elon out,' said Mike Murphy, a Republican strategist who is working to get his party to embrace electric vehicles, 'and now he hates 'em.' It was hard not to think about that episode yesterday when Musk and Trump lined up Teslas, including Cybertrucks, on the White House driveway and proceeded to rattle off their benefits like denizens of a suburban showroom. 'I love the product,' Trump said. 'Try it,' Musk said. 'You'll like it!' Musk now has the White House attention and promotion that he wanted several years ago — and with it, a pile of potential benefits for some of his companies — but it's come at a price. He donated some $300 million largely through his own super PAC to help Trump get elected. My colleagues Theodore Schleifer and Maggie Haberman reported yesterday that he's signaled a willingness to put another $100 million into groups controlled by Trump's political operation. His alliance with Trump has also eaten into his customer base. Before the election, Murphy said, Democrats were four times more likely than Republicans to buy an electric vehicle. Now, sales of Teslas are slumping, and some Democrats are turning theirs back in to dealers. Musk may be hoping to find a new market on the other end of the political spectrum. Trump, who has spent years denigrating electric vehicles, insisted he was buying one, with a check. Sean Hannity, the Trump ally, said he, too, would buy a Tesla Model S Plaid as a show of solidarity with Musk. 'This thing rips,' he said on his show, 'and you can go 400 miles without a charge.' 47 percent That's the size of the staff cuts at the Education Department, an agency that Trump has said he wants to eliminate. The department announced on Tuesday that it was firing some 1,300 employees. Another 572 employees took separation packages offered in recent weeks, and 63 probationary workers were terminated last month. The department started the year with more than 4,100 workers. The cuts struck a blow to efforts that measure achievement in U.S. schools. At least 800 Education Department research employees and outside partners have lost their jobs. $TSLA Musk is using his X account as a megaphone. My colleague Kate Conger guides you through his most important messages in recent days. Musk initially celebrated his White House car show on Tuesday, but his posts on X eventually took a darker turn. By Wednesday, he was promoting theories that protests and vandalism at Tesla dealerships were part of a Democrat-funded effort to undermine him. 'The dirty tricks campaign against me & my companies happened exactly as predicted,' he wrote, re-sharing an old post that predicted Democrats would turn on him because of his support for Republicans. Musk shared posts from Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia Republican, in which she called for an investigation into Democratic advocacy groups that she claimed were paying for protests against Tesla. Soon '$TSLA' was trending on X, as Tesla investors celebrated the stock's rally after losses earlier in the week. Shares in the electric vehicle maker rose seven percent after Musk's White House appearance, showing the power of his proximity to the president to help his companies. The meaning of Musk's suit Elon Musk did something unusual last week: He put on a suit and tie, twice. My colleague Shawn McCreesh, a White House reporter, took that to be a sign of a demotion. I asked Shawn to tell us a little more. Why does it matter so much that Musk decided to wear a suit last week? I think there is a costume element to Musk's marauding through the capital — that 'Tech Support' T-shirt he constantly wears, and the little joke he tells when he wears it, is very much part of the whole shtick. This sudden change of wardrobe coincided with a few other things happening around him last week that sure looked like the beginning of a power clampdown. That this most classic and essential of Washington symbols — the gray suit and tie — should also be the symbol of his subjugation was fascinating. Musk was back to the old blazer-and-T-shirt look at the Tesla event yesterday. What does that mean? It's his look, which I guess Trump will continue to tolerate. That he does says a lot about Musk's power and influence in Trump's court, because Trump absolutely loves suits. He has written about his love of them in several of his books over the years. It is his costume. It is what people wear when they dress up as him for Halloween. Rulers throughout history have had strict rules about how their courts are allowed to dress. King Louis IV, for example, had a rule that only a select group of noblemen could wear a certain blue silk jacket like his. Louis also loved diamonds, brocaded coats, elaborate wigs and shoes with red heels that symbolized the blood of his enemies whom he vowed to crush under his feet. Some people in Washington who dress slovenly on purpose — like John Fetterman and, to a degree, Bernie Sanders — do so to signal that they are one of the people. Musk strikes me as the opposite. His informality seems to be about reminding everyone that he is in a league of his own. Tell us, Shawn — when do you wear a suit? Well, after writing about this topic, I felt it'd be rather hypocritical not to wear one. So I've got a suit on today. Read more here.
Yahoo
06-02-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Hawley meets with autoworker union ‘looking for partners'
Republican Sen. Josh Hawley met with United Automobile Workers president Shawn Fain on Wednesday to discuss working together on pro-labor priorities, his latest bid to build the party's union ties. The Missourian, who is circulating a framework for pro-labor policymaking among his GOP colleagues and has joined picket lines for the UAW as well as other workers, met with Fain and other UAW leaders at their request on Wednesday. They discussed tariffs, Hawley's proposed labor legislation and how the massive labor group can work with the new GOP-controlled Washington while Hawley and other Republicans try to become more pro-union. 'Their attitude is interesting. They realize that Donald Trump has won the White House. They don't want to be shut out for the next four years. They want to actually see something happen. And so, I think they are looking for partners,' Hawley told Semafor on Thursday. Hawley is beginning to circulate legislation that would force an end to employers' stalling techniques after workers vote to join a union. He wants to capitalize on Trump's inroads with working-class voters in a Republican Party that's been historically skeptical or downright hostile to unions and their leaders. There are already signs that identity is changing: The Teamsters were neutral in the presidential race, and their president spoke at the Republican National Convention. Hawley said 'we are getting good traction on our initial efforts here on labor reform.' Still, the UAW endorsed Kamala Harris for president, and the AFL-CIO is leading a major campaign against the Trump administration's efforts to cut federal spending. Hawley said the UAW leaders told him multiple times that they're not affiliated with one party and 'seemed at pains to dispel' the notion that they're a political organization supporting Democrats. 'They're the ones who brought up tariffs. That's where they started with — Trump's tariffs, and they liked it. So I read all that as: they want to be relevant,' Hawley said. 'It's a good thing for my Republican colleagues to see that labor will work with you if you will do something that's good for working people.' In the Missouri senator's telling, the UAW leaders said they supported Trump's goal of using tariffs to move auto manufacturing back to the United States from Mexico. He also said UAW leaders support his legislative framework on labor and want to help create a bipartisan coalition to pass pro-union legislation. It won't be easy to convince Republican leaders to back such an effort. But Hawley said he sees a huge political upside to acting on a labor bill during Trump's second term. 'We could be a working-class party, but we have to deliver. And we've got a chance now, with the most pro-labor Republican president of my lifetime,' Hawley said. 'That's my message to my fellow Republicans.' Republicans will soon come to grips with their own internal divisions when it comes to unions. Trump's pick for labor secretary, former Oregon Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, will have her confirmation hearing next week before the Senate's top committee on labor issues. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., a member of that committee, has already said he will oppose her. Chavez-DeRemer has met with Senate Democrats whose votes may be necessary to save her nomination if Republicans rebel against her for being one of the few party members to support the union-friendly PRO Act during the Biden administration. Hawley said the Senate GOP should give Chavez-DeRemer the same deference given to Tulsi Gabbard, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and other potentially divisive Trump Cabinet picks. 'I know some of my Republican colleagues worry that she's too close to labor. Number one, that's the president's call,' Hawley said. 'They ought to support her, and I hope they will. I think it'll be a bad sign if they don't.' Hawley's first pro-labor bill has already picked up Democratic and GOP support, Punchbowl News reports. NBC took a deep into Senate Republicans' skepticism about Chavez-DeRemer.
