The following message is from UAW Vice President Cindy Estrada:
• From the Detroit News: United Auto Workers President Dennis Williams on Wednesday branded Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump “an enemy” of the American middle class, and warned automakers against expanding production outside the United States.
Williams rejected Trump’s suggestion that Detroit’s Big Three automakers move plants to lower-wage parts of the United States. He said that would hurt workers and weaken manufacturing in the industrial Midwest — as would plans to move production from the United States to Mexico.
“I think Donald Trump’s comments demonstrate what’s wrong with this country. I think he is a prime example of why we need a huge change in this country,” Williams told The Detroit News. “His comments about he’s going to make America great one day and then talking about diminishing people’s wages, to find less pay for them, is contradictory and he is an enemy — in my mind — of the middle class. He ought to do what he does best: build hotels.”
In an interview with The News last week, Trump criticized investments by U.S. automakers, especially a $2.5 billion investment by Ford, in Mexico. He suggested automakers could reduce wages and still keep jobs in the U.S. by closing plants in Michigan and moving the work to lower-cost locations in the South.
“You can go to different parts of the United States and then ultimately you’d do full-circle; you’ll come back to Michigan because those guys are going to want their jobs back even if it is less,” Trump told The News. “We can do the rotation in the United States. It doesn’t have to be in Mexico.” After Michigan “loses a couple of plants — all of sudden you’ll make good deals in your own area.”
Williams says Trump is telling automakers “don’t build in Mexico, but go somewhere else where you can find lower wages and take advantage of people. What’s the difference? Philosophically, if we’re going to have a middle class in this country, people have to have disposable incomes; they have to have purchasing power; they have to have a right to buy a house, a car; they’ve got to send their kids to school. There’s a whole lot of things that we ought to be doing as a country, and Donald Trump is not about that.”
Asked about reports that General Motors Co. may export the Chinese-made Buick Envision crossover to the United States, Williams said automakers sometimes “float something out in the media” to gauge reaction of union leaders and members. “I think it was a temperature test.” He said that investments in Mexico announced recently by GM and Ford Motor Co. haven’t helped. “It’s raised the temperature of our members. The bonuses that (executives) get, raises the temperature in the plant — so they haven’t made it easy.”
Tom Brune
UAW Communications Coordinator
Wentzville Assembly
636-327-2119
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