Unions Won’t Stand Aside For Trump-Vance Ticket, Unlike Musk – CleanTechnica

Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News!

---

US unions have begun to rally round Vice President Kamala Harris as Democrats and Republicans gear up for an executive office fight over the labor vote in November.

On the other hand, Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s official endorsement of Trump is reportedly augmented by an interest in becoming a Trump-Vance funder. Such a position underscores his rightward trajectory and evolution into an overtly partisan backer of the GOP. That status is in opposition to workers who are the backbone of Tesla manufacturing and who continue to advocate behind the scenes for union representation.

The rejuvenation of the Democratic ticket could stall the momentum of pro-Trump conservatives in Silicon Valley, according to the New York Times, and entice more wealthy tech executives to throw their support — and money — behind Harris.

Chip in a few dollars a month to help support independent cleantech coverage that helps to accelerate the cleantech revolution!

Musk Tries to Persuade Other Silicon Valley Execs to Fund Trump Campaign

In the last few years, Musk has become both more vocal about his political views and swung to the right.

As the richest man in the world and a tech investor who complains about taxes, Musk would likely find the tax and regulatory environment more favorable under Trump than under Harris. As someone who owns big companies and is hostile to organized labor, he can rationalize opposition to Harris, who supports Biden-era National Labor Relations Board appointments.

As its owner and arguably most influential user, Musk has also used X to try to sway political discourse around the world. To do so, the Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, reports that Musk has said he plans to “commit around $45 million a month” to a new political action committee backing Trump.

A week after Elon Musk endorsed Donald Trump for president, President Biden’s team oddly used Musk’s social media platform X — in addition to more centrist spaces such as Facebook and Instagram — to announce he would end his Presidential reelection campaign. That’s even though X has become a less reliable place to find accurate information, according to AP, due in large part to changes Musk made since assuming the helm. Since the 2022 Twitter takeover, Musk has upended many of the former social media site’s policies, including around misinformation and hate speech, eliminated key staff, and transformed the messaging on the site due to carefully programmed algorithms.

Unions Line Up to Support Harris

Leading US unions warned voters last week not to be fooled by the pro-worker facade constructed by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and his running mate, JD Vance. The latter, a Republican senator from Ohio, has opposed congressional efforts to strengthen organizing rights, allowed corporate lobbyists to influence his legislating, and raked in donations from the elites he claims to despise.

Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest federation of unions, said in a statement the combined records of Trump and Vance make clear that, if elected, they “would eviscerate unions and empty workers’ pockets just to boost the profits of their corporate friends and donors.”

“Donald Trump has a miserable record of breaking every promise he’s made to working people—from failing to pay his workers and crossing a picket line to his disastrous four years in the White House. That betrayal would continue if he is reelected—so it’s no surprise Trump chose a vice president who will be nothing more than a rubber stamp for that anti-worker vision.”

Following a vote of its Executive Council, which represents 60 unions and 12.5 million workers, the AFL-CIO unanimously endorsed Harris for president in the 2024 election. Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO said in a statement the combined records of Trump and Vance make clear that, if elected, they “would eviscerate unions and empty workers’ pockets just to boost the profits of their corporate friends and donors.”

The AFL-CIO is the largest federation of unions in the US. They state that Harris has:

• Played a critical role in rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, investing in good-paying union jobs, bringing manufacturing back to America, lowering prescription drug costs and raising wages
• Saved the pensions of more than 1 million union workers and retirees
• Led the administration’s efforts to increase access to affordable child care and expand the child tax credit
• Championed worker organizing and chaired the White House Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment, where she championed for new worker organizing and training to create pathways to good union jobs
• Stood with striking writers

The 1.9 million-member Service Employees International Union (SEIU) was among the first to endorse Harris. SEIU President April Verrett had already issued a statement in response to Donald Trump’s pick of Ohio Sen. JD Vance as his running mate:

“JD Vance has made a political career out of playing both sides, but working people are not fooled. This November, working class voters of all races will be casting their votes for the ticket that has stood with us – not with CEOs and billionaires. SEIU members are committed to re-electing Biden-Harris, true working class champions who will help us finish what we started, and ensure every worker has a voice on the job and in our democracy.”

Vance opposed the PRO Act, which would make it easier for workers to form unions as well as worker-backed nominees for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and National Labor Relations Board. The SEIU is the second largest union of public service employees with more than 1 million local and state government workers, public school employees, bus drivers, and child care providers — including 80,000 early learning and child care professionals. Harris has close ties to the union and announced new safe staffing standards for nursing home workers with the union earlier this year.

Pro-Harris union support comes in contrast to Teamsters president Sean O’Brien, who delivered a prime time address to the Republican convention, praising Trump for his supposed willingness to “hear from new, loud, and often critical voices.”

The support owes to a perception of Harris as a labor ally, as well as an acknowledgment of the difficulty of a shortened campaign in which unions are eager to turn toward defeating Trump, union leaders and labor experts told ABC News. “Labor unions are coalescing quickly around Kamala Harris,” Stuart Applebaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale, Department Store Union, which endorsed Harris. “We’re excited.”

“This ticket isn’t pro-worker or pro-union,” said Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, urging workers not to buy the “slick rhetoric” of Trump’s running mate. “It’s the billionaire ticket through and through,” Nelson added.

Local 3000 of the United Food and Commercial Workers, a labor organization in the Pacific Northwest, also endorsed Harris. This union drew attention last week when it became the only Biden-aligned union to call for him to step aside.

On Monday, several other unions followed suit with endorsements, including the American Federation of Teachers.