(Elon calls it X, yet keeps the twitter web address so everybody's set bookmarks keep it as regularly in play as before the rename. Elon doubtlessly has an explanation beyond helping folks who've saved links for it not being - X.com.)
State and national politicians have come out to support union workers, including U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, U.S Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Ann Arbor), U.S. Sen. Gary Peters (D-Bloomfield Twp.) and U.S. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.).
President Donald Trump rally in Battle Creek, Dec. 18, 2019 | Andrew Roth
Former
President Donald Trump’s plans to skip the second GOP presidential
candidate debate and head to Michigan to meet with striking autoworkers
isn’t going over well with the United Auto Workers (UAW) top official.
“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. “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 and expecting them to solve the problems
of the working class.”
Labor speaks. Former President Donald John Trump seems to face a headwind in trying to use the UAW. They saw him in action for four years. They see him in an attempt to use them. They have other aims than to give him a photo-op. They accept endorsement of their strike by those in politics who appear sincere in support.
FURTHER: Two other MinnReformer items, labor related, here and here. Also, this, about a report on labor matters in Minnesota:
Minnesota jobs have recovered to pre-pandemic levels, [...] according to a release from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development.
Minnesota’s labor force participation
rate — the number of working-age people who are employed or looking for
work — held steady at 68.5%, about six percentage points higher than
the national average.
For every unemployed person in Minnesota, there are two open jobs, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
That means employers are struggling
to fill open positions, and demographic trends have company leaders
worried that the problem will continue to worsen.
A shrinking portion of Minnesota’s population is working-age, according to a report
released Monday by data analytics firms, Presbyterian Homes and
Services and Minnesota Business Partnership, a trade group representing
Minnesota’s biggest companies.
And, the number of people moving out of Minnesota is outpacing migration into the state.
There’s also a growing disconnect
between the characteristics of Minnesota’s workforce and the jobs that
are in-demand. Most Minnesotans have an education beyond high school,
but the jobs that are projected to be in highest demand, like personal
care assistants and retail workers, require only a high school diploma.
Currently, 28% of Minnesotans 25 and
older have no higher education, while 45% of the labor demand is for
jobs that only require a high school diploma, according to the report.
And while 16% of Minnesota adults have an advanced degree, only 4% of
open jobs require that level of education.
The jobs projected to be in highest demand over the next 10 years are also some of the lowest-paid.
The report points to several ways to
bring people into the workforce and keep them there. Increased
productivity via automation and digitization, flexibility and
accommodations, immigration and training could help solve the problem.
An idea for attracting workers that is notably absent from the report: Raising wages.
[italics added] To avoid confusion, yet with some uncertainty, the reading Crabgrass gives is that the closing two paragraphs of item reporting refers to the report from the Minnesota Business Partnership, and not from anything released by the State agency, DEED. It just feels right to guess who'd be inattentive to raising wages as an option; DEED; or others.
The Business Partnership item begins, "Ask the leader of any business, regardless of industry or size, to name the biggest challenge facing their business today, and they’re likely to cite difficulty finding enough workers." At 50 pages in length, Crabgrass did not study the report.
Strange. Somewhere in a 50 page analytical item one might expect decent commentary about the link between worker attraction and wages. In a propaganda item, possibly not. Again, Crabgrass did not study the MN BP item. Readers may wish to.
FURTHER: Thinking it worth some effort, here is the lead page from that 50 pager.
click the image to enlarge and read
It says, "That’s why the Minnesota Business Partnership, Presbyterian Homes & Services, and SullivanCotter partnered with Lightcast on this report,[...]" and the page footer, right side, "LIGHTCAST."
Bullshit is as bullshit does, and the Crabgrass opinion is that LIGIHTCAST does not cast the MN BP in a good light. Propaganda is what it is. A webinar premised on a 50 page thingy which at its SECTION 4 declines to explore the link between pay level and filling a job, while at that SECTION 4 touting, "1. GET MORE PEOPLE INTO THE WORKFORCE, AND KEEP THEM THERE," seems to a degree, propagandistic. Dilute the labor pool and you can pay less is something you do not need a PhD in economics to comprehend; particularly if you're in the labor pool, and not the hiring pool. Opinions can differ, but I don't really like some things . . .
And, surprise, the UAW is striking for better pay. Tell that to LIGHTCAST, as a possible part of their webinar. The day after that webinar, UAW may strike another plant or two.
While serving as president, Trump
essentially took a neutral stance during the UAW’s last strike against
one of the Detroit Three — its 2019 action against General Motors that
lasted 40 days. The Republican did not go to the picket line.
“Here we go again with General Motors and the United Auto Workers. Get together and make a deal!” he tweeted on Sept. 15, 2019.
The previous year, in May 2018, Trump issued Executive Order No. 13837
that hurt a union’s ability to represent workers by preventing union
stewards from using official time to aid employees in preparing or
pursuing grievances.
This time, the UAW is fighting for
increased wages, a 32-hour work week and better pension benefits, among
other issues such as an end to tiered compensation between workers with
different lengths of service.
Biden, Dems and unions slam Trump
President Joe Biden, a Democrat who defeated Trump in the 2020 election, blasted his former opponent.
“Donald Trump is going to Michigan
next week to lie to Michigan workers and pretend he didn’t spend his
entire failed presidency selling them out at every turn,” Ammar Moussa,
spokesperson for Biden-Harris 2024, said. “Instead of standing with
workers, Trump cut taxes for the super-wealthy while auto companies
shuttered their doors and shipped American jobs overseas.
“He’s said he would’ve let auto
companies go bankrupt, devastating the industry and upending millions of
lives. That’s why Trump lost Michigan in 2020 and his MAGA [Make
America Great Again] friends further decimated the Michigan Republican
Party and cost them 2022. No self-serving photo op can erase Trump’s
four years of abandoning union workers and standing with his ultra-rich
friends.”
Biden has not announced plans to
visit with striking workers, although several of his allies, like U.S.
Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, have done so.
On Tuesday, U.S. Reps. Debbie Dingell
(D-Ann Arbor) and Haley Stevens (D-Waterford) joined Michigan Democrats
for a press call slamming GOP former president Donald Trump’s
“anti-worker record following reporting” of his planned visit to
Michigan next week.
Both speakers highlighted how Trump’s
“MAGAnomics” [Make America Great Agenda] agenda “hurt autoworkers,
incentivized companies to ship jobs overseas, and lined the pockets of
billionaires and big corporations at the expense of Michigan’s middle
class.”
The call also spotlighted the “stark
contrast” between Trump and President Joe Biden —”who has a proven
record of being the most pro-union president in history and a
demonstrated history of standing up for workers,” according to a press
release issued by the Michigan Democratic Party.
[image omitted]
“Trump was one of the most
anti-worker presidents this country ever had. He showed us what he
really stands for when he said he would have let the auto companies go
bankrupt in 2008,” said Dingell. “The last thing Michigan’s autoworkers
need right now is more empty promises or kerosene on a fire. So while
President Trump’s gonna try to come in and erase his history … I think
that Michiganders are going to know what the record was and will reject
his anti-worker agenda.”
Stevens argued that Trump did little to address negotiations between the United Auto Workers (UAW) and the Detroit Three.
“He signed into place a tax law that
gave billions of dollars in tax cuts to the wealthiest and did hardly
anything, if close to nothing, for the middle class,” Stevens said. “I
find this disrespectful to the men and women of the UAW on the picket
line right now. Donald Trump can take his politics elsewhere.”
United Association of Union Plumbers and Pipefitters General President Mark McManus also threw shade on a Trump strike visit.
“When Donald Trump was first elected
president, he invited me into the White House during the first days of
his administration and promised that he would pass the largest
infrastructure bill in generations. He claimed to be a builder, just
like us. But after four years, one thing was clear: when it comes to the
bread and butter issues our members care about – fair wages, safe job
sites, and the ability to retire with the dignity we earned – Donald
Trump is just another fraud.”
What Minnesota needs is a webinar on when it comes to the
bread and butter issues union members care about – fair wages, safe job
sites, and the ability to retire with the dignity they've earned - be there or be square.
And the one Dem politician saying Biden has been the best president for unions, if you think about it that might be true over my lifetime, very young, Truman, and then onward, two Bushes and a Raegan, and to make it false we should have elected Bernie, over Biden, or, sooner or later, might it be AOC time?
FURTHER: This is important. Some readers may already have spotted a less than total rabid embrace of organized labor at Crabgrass, while most may not have.
Yet it is necessary to my self expectations to explain myself - Bob Kroll and the Minneapolis police union were so misguided that the federal government had to step in and mandate reasonableness at the same time that the George Floyd murder inspired most of the State to view that union as a diseased entity for what it embraced and fostered. Then, the Iron Range focus upon jobs at any cost, including the likely sacrifice of earth's integrity in Northern Minnesota for a temporary handful of sulfide mining jobs shows ignorance, and disdain toward the remainder of the nation for one job more, and the Tom Bakkian attitude of leverage begetting privilege over time grew harsh judgment from many populist progressives aside from Crabgrass. Other than those two 21st Century adverse examples, unions have not had past power in the nation, and Crabgrass believes that factor has lessened rather than enhanced fairness in the nation's apportionment of economic wealth and benefit.
