On Tuesday, the United Auto Workers (UAW) filed federal labor charges against Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and tech tycoon Elon Musk.
The union alleged former President Trump and Elon Musk attempted to “intimidate and threaten” workers during their Monday evening interview on X.
“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 asserted.
“When we say Donald Trump is a scab, this is what we mean. When we say Trump stands against everything our union stands for, this is what we mean,” said UAW President Shawn Fain.
Following allegations of unfair labor practices, Musk’s SpaceX has directly challenged the constitutionality of the National Labor Relations Board in a move experts warned could hobble the agency charged with investigating allegations brought by employees, unions and employers.
“Donald Trump will always side against workers standing up for themselves, and he will always side with billionaires like Elon Musk, who is contributing $45 million a month to a Super PAC to get him elected,” Fain said.
“Both Trump and Musk want working class people to sit down and shut up, and they laugh about it openly. It’s disgusting, illegal, and totally predictable from these two clowns.”
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organization (AFL-CIO), a federation of 60 national and international labor unions, posted their own criticism of the conversation on X, saying, “Scab recognize scab.”
UAW which endorsed Vice President Harris last month in the upcoming presidential election has had a rocky relationship with Trump for years.
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.”
Union Mgmt cant deal with Reality vs the rank & file workers
Seems to me these are the very same people that have said they were moving to Mexico. Maybe the UAW needs to get their sh!t together. Sure sounded like they were the one saying that the workers jobs were going to be gone.
UAW boss Sean Fain really tripped over his privates this time, for two reasons: (1) Trump was simply expressing a general opinion that striking workers should be fired, an opinion protected by the First Amendment; and (2) no specific workers, strikers or others, were ever intimidated. Prediction: any motion for dismissal or for summary judgment will be granted by any impartial judge.