United Auto Workers (UAW) President Shawn Fain hit former President Trump on labor policy Tuesday, claiming Trump “doesn’t care about working-class people.”
“Donald Trump’s all talk, and he’s a master at BS,” Fain told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes. “The bottom line is this, Donald Trump doesn’t care about working-class people, and he showed it when he was president.”
“And you know, in 2019 he talks about saving the auto industry and how he’s going to bring the auto industry back. Where the hell was he when he was president?” he continued. “Because plants were closing. Lordstown, Ohio, plant closed. Donald Trump told people there, don’t sell your houses. And what did he do? He did nothing. He said nothing. That plant closed. Those workers got sent all over this country.”
Fain has emerged a vocal critic of Trump as the UAW has become a major force in the 2024 election since backing President Biden and, after he withdrew from the race, subsequently endorsing Vice President Harris ahead of November.
The comments come the same day UAW filed a labor complaint against Trump and the social platform X owner Elon Musk for comments they made about firing striking workers during a livestreamed interview Tuesday, which was hosted on the X’s Spaces platform.
“I mean, I look at what you do,” Trump told Musk. “You walk in, you say, ‘You want to quit?’ They go on strike, I won’t mention the name of the company, but they go on strike, and you say, ‘That’s OK, you’re all gone. You’re all gone. So, every one of you is gone.’”
Federal law protects workers who go on strike from being fired, and it is illegal to threaten to do so, the UAW argued in the complaint.
“When we say Donald Trump is a scab, this is what we mean,” Fain said in a statement early Wednesday, a moniker he has given the former president before. “When we say Trump stands against everything our union stands for, this is what we mean.”
Labor unions have largely backed Harris in the 2024 race, with only the Teamsters showing the former president any favor. No major labor unions have endorsed Trump.
The UAW also launched an ad last week blasting the GOP nominee as anti-worker and dishonest about his positions on working class issues.
Following the video’s release, Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt called Fain “a puppet for the Democrat Party who is sadly not serving the millions of hardworking union laborers across the country who are supporting President Trump because they know he will protect their jobs and put them first.”