Labor leaders and DNC members praise Harris, criticize Trump – People’s World

‘Trump is a scumbag’: United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain speaks at the Democratic National Convention on Monday, August 19, 2024. | AP

CHICAGO—Labor leaders and two union members marched to the stage on the opening day of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, heaping praise on Vice President Kamala Harris and raving about her Republican rival, convicted felon and white nationalist Donald Trump, President Biden’s predecessor.

Auto Workers President Shawn Fain led the parade after announcing earlier in the day that Stellantis, one of the Big Three auto companies, has failed to honor its contractual commitment to reopen and expand its massive Belvidere plant starting next year and reach full production within three years.

The contracts won by the UAW in its historic strike give the union the right to strike over grievances. The reopening of Belvidere was a significant and specific UAW victory that was especially meaningful to the community, the workers, and of course their union. “On behalf of autoworkers everywhere, we stand up to a company that wants to renege on its promises and engage in a race to the bottom at the expense of the American worker,” Fain said in a union statement.

However, the UAW has won back many of the concessions it and its members lost over the past 15 years, as well as written commitments from Ford, GM and Stellantis/FiatChrysler that UAW union members would work on next-generation electric vehicle assembly and battery plants.

The union endorsed the climate change program that President Biden strongly supported, and Trump, who like other Republicans is a climate denier and fossil fuel advocate, opposed it. He called Fain “irresponsible” and called for his replacement.

“We went on strike for 40 days, and Donald Trump did nothing,” Fain explained. “Biden stood shoulder to shoulder with us” outside a Ford plant in Michigan. The strike’s success “produced life-changing gains,” he said.

It also delivered the promised reopening and expansion of a Stellantis plant in Belvidere, Illinois, that the company closed before the strike began. That plant had been a poster child for the auto companies’ implementation of a two-tier wage system and its impact on workers and their families. Another life-changing gain in the new pact was the elimination of two-tier pay.

During the historic walkout, Trump sought to divert attention from Biden’s picket line walk, organizing a rally at a non-union auto parts plant elsewhere in Michigan with a hired small group of supporters holding signs reading “Auto Workers for Trump.” He lashed out at Fain and the UAW.

“Donald Trump is all for himself, and Harris does what he says” for workers, Fain said, referring to her speech to union workers during this campaign and her participation in the picket lines at her previous posts before becoming vice president.

“The UAW will take whatever action is necessary to hold a company accountable to everyone. Donald Trump laughs at firing workers.” Trump even cheered fellow billionaire Elon Musk’s firing of striking workers, while Musk chuckled and grinned in a podcast. The union immediately filed charges of labor law violations, formally called unfair labor practices, against both.

Referring to the excitement Harris has generated among voters during the campaign, he added: “As a great American poet said, ‘It’s getting hot in here.'”

Fain was kind to Trump in a way. The Republican appointed prominent members of the business class to his administration, though he had to withdraw his first nomination for Labor secretary after the revelations of sexual exploitation at the man’s restaurant chain.

The two workers who spoke at the DNC, members of Plumbers Local 489 in Phoenix, drew a contrast in job creation between Trump and the Biden-Harris administration. “Donald Trump said he was going to bring back American jobs. Thanks to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, we’re actually building factories of the future. Sometimes we have so many projects that we have to outsource some of the work to other states.”

“Our local chapter now has 4,800 members, up from 2,800 in 2020,” his colleague added. “Thanks to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris” and their plan to combat climate change and their American Jobs and Infrastructure Act, “it’s an exciting time for us and our kids.”

The other union leaders highlighted other positives for workers under the Biden-Harris administration. “Joe Biden and Kamala Harris passed the American Rescue Plan, which is going to get us back to work,” said AFSCME President Lee Saunders. His union of state, county and municipal workers saw tens of thousands of jobs disappear overnight as local tax revenues dried up as the country plunged into a depression caused by the coronavirus — a virus Trump initially denied existed.

Harris and Biden “were guided by a principle: more freedom for working people, including the freedom to unionize. So this November, we’re going to the polls for Harris.” And for Service Employees, new chair April Verrett said Harris “ran with us” as a senator and “worked with us for a day” when she previously ran for public office.

Other speakers included Democratic lawmakers, Biden — later — and several women who praised Harris’s commitment to passing a national law restoring the federal constitutional right to abortion. Trump-appointed U.S. Supreme Court justices were the leading votes to eliminate that right two years ago, sparking a massive political backlash among women in red, blue and purple states.

Related personal experiences

The women who spoke at the convention shared personal experiences, such as that of a woman who was a high school cheerleader until her stepfather raped and impregnated her at age 12. No woman should have to go through that without having a choice about pregnancy, she said.

Is against the Gaza policy

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., who, like the rest of the ultra-progressive “Squad” in the U.S.

House, who opposes Biden’s support for Israel’s war on Gaza, said: “I’m here because in Kamala Harris we have an opportunity to elect a president who comes from the middle class and is for the middle class.”

“And she is for a ceasefire” in the Israeli war “and for returning the hostages.” Unmentioned: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opposes a ceasefire and ignores the families of hostages, while the US continues to supply Israel with weapons it uses to pursue genocidal policies in Gaza.

“Donald Trump could sell his country for dollars in the pockets of his Wall Street buddies. But to love this country, you have to fight for everyday people like bartenders and fast food workers,” Ocasio said. She is a former bartender in New York City and previously served as a congressional aide.

But Ocasio-Cortez, the only speaker, warned that Harris “can’t do it alone.”

“We need to elect people who can carry out our work agenda” by retaking the House of Representatives, where Democrats hold five seats, and maintaining or expanding the party’s slim majority in the U.S. Senate.

And Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the lead prosecutor in Trump’s second impeachment for aiding and abetting the Trumpite invasion and insurrection of the U.S. Capitol three and a half years ago, recalled that encounter, which left five protective officers dead and dozens injured.

“Under Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution, the president is to ‘take care that the laws be faithfully executed,’ not to have the vice president (physically) executed,” said Raskin, a constitutional law professor who is on leave.

The intruders, angry over Vice President Mike Pence’s opposition to Trump’s demand to decertify electors from key swing states that favored Democratic nominee Joe Biden, laid a noose on the Capitol lawn. They then stormed and ransacked the building, carrying a Confederate flag and chanting, “Hang Mike Pence,” and shouting, “Where’s Nancy?” as they searched for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

They planned to hang them both. Both leaders, other lawmakers, aides and journalists hid and later escaped the wreckage, being escorted to safe areas within the Capitol complex.

“Are we going back to the days of election suppression and violent insurrection?” Raskin asked. “Are we going to elect Kamala Harris or are we going to let Donald Trump end our Constitution?

“We need to elect a career prosecutor,” Harris, “in a landslide, to defeat a career criminal,” Raskin implored. “Let’s have a landslide so big that Trump and his hand-picked Supreme Court justices”—who earlier this year gave Trump virtual immunity from federal prosecution, potentially on two of the four charges related to the insurrection—“can’t even try to steal it.”

Cameron Harrison provided material for this story.

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