The United Auto Workers (UAW) union has filed federal labor charges against former President and Republican White House candidate Donald Trump and social media owner Elon Musk for threatening to intimidate striking workers.
UAW said that “after significant technical delays on X, before Twitter, Trump and Musk had a disorganized and confusing conversation Monday night in front of more than a million listeners in which they advocated for the illegal firing of striking workers,” recalling that under law workers cannot be fired for striking, and threatening to do so is illegal under the National Labor Relations Act.
“Look, I see what you do. You go in and you say, ‘Do you want to quit?’ They go on strike. I’m not going to mention the name of the company, but they go on strike and you say, ‘Okay, you’re all out, you’re all out. So you’re all out,'” Trump said, while Musk laughed at his statements.
Faced with this, UAW President Shawn Fain said that these statements by the former president are an example of when union members say that “Trump is a scab” or that “he opposes everything that his union stands for.” “He will always be against workers standing up for themselves, and he will always be on the side of billionaires like Musk,” he said.
“Both Trump and Musk want the working class to sit down and shut up, and they openly laugh at it. It’s disgusting, illegal and totally predictable on the part of these two clowns,” Fain concluded.
The Trump campaign has called the move a political stunt by “Democratic special interest bosses.” “This frivolous lawsuit is a shameless political maneuver designed to erode President Trump’s overwhelming support among American workers,” senior campaign adviser Brian Hughes said, according to CNN.
