Donald Trump is skipping the GOP primary debate to hang out with the United Auto Workers. Republicans have a good case that the Democrats the UAW helped get elected are harming the interests of auto workers by pushing the “energy transition” with EV mandates. But that works under the assumption that the UAW exists to represent the interests of auto workers. It doesn’t. It exists to push progressive politics.
It always has. As Amity Shlaes wrote today, the most famous UAW president, Walter Reuther, saw the union as a vanguard for social democracy. The UAW has always been active far beyond the interests of its members, and it has always put its political support behind left-wing causes and groups. It has often done so corruptly, with two former presidents convicted for embezzlement in recent years.
This is an organization that conservatives have rightly sought to free people from. Democrats have done the opposite, best exemplified by Michigan repealing right-to-work protections last year under Governor Gretchen Whitmer. Part of the appeal of Republicans to voters is that Republicans don’t want anyone to have to give part of their paycheck to corrupt, left-wing organizations such as the UAW.
The UAW knows this, which is why it has responded to Trump’s plans by saying how much it hates Trump. “Every fiber of our union is being poured into fighting the billionaire class and an economy that enriches people like Donald Trump at the expense of workers,” UAW president Shawn Fain said, using a glorious mixed metaphor. (How do fibers fight, and how are fighting fibers poured?) “We can’t keep electing billionaires and millionaires that don’t have any understanding what it is like to live paycheck to paycheck and struggle to get by expecting them to solve the problems of the working class.”
Never mind that Joe Biden is a millionaire, and the UAW worked to elect him. Or that UAW members shouldn’t be living paycheck to paycheck, considering they make well above average wages and also receive generous benefits. Or that the UAW has been much more successful unionizing graduate students than it has been unionizing auto workers in recent years.
If Trump or any other Republican is hoping to make an ally out of the UAW, it would be hopelessly naïve. The tried-and-true Republican approach to organized labor is just as good now as it has been for the past 75 years: Demand transparency and accountability from union bosses, and support workers’ rights to get out.