National labor leader rips into Trump 'lies': 'Catastrophic for workers'

Former President Donald Trump was ripped to shreds by the leader of The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations in a scathing Detroit Free Press op-ed calling out his history of empty promises to union workers over the years.

The article came out in response to Trump's rally with workers at a nonunion auto parts shop in Michigan, where he attacked electric vehicle incentives and claimed President Joe Biden was destroying the industry — a day after the president joined the picket line of striking United Auto Workers in Detroit.

"Underneath his multimillionaire-class status and luxurious private estates, his $100,000 plated Bedminster dinners and Mar-a-Lago golden galas, he’ll claim to lend a hand to working people," wrote Ron Bieber. This, he continued, is "the same lie he told us in 2016, when he first ran for president. But there’s a critical difference now: Trump has a record. And that record was nothing short of catastrophic for workers, highlighting an open hostility, especially to union families."

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Trump made gains among unionized voters in 2016 in the Midwest, which was key to his securing enough electoral votes in the region to become president in the first place.

But after Trump became president, argued Bieber, he didn't actually listen to unions or help them in any way, instead signing an enormous tax cut for millionaires. By contrast, he added, Biden has invested federal money in building new plants, and in revitalizing Michigan's infrastructure and cities, with 330,000 jobs created in the region since he took office.

"We need someone in the White House who understands the importance of worker solidarity," wrote Bieber. "It’s not Donald Trump — who restricted overtime pay, who opposed wage increases, who gutted health and safety protections during COVID, who appointed hundreds of anti-worker judges, and who fought against our very basic freedom to organize and join a union."

This comes as other union leaders have also sounded the alarm against Trump, with UAW President Shawn Fain attacking Trump as a servant of the "billionaire class," and another union leader at GM dismissing his rhetoric about the auto industry as "verbal diarrhea."