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Sen. JD Vance, Donald Trump’s running mate, told Semafor on Wednesday that it’s a “tragedy” that private sector union participation has gone down in recent years.
Speaking to reporters on a press call focused on Trump’s union support this cycle, Vance was asked by Semafor whether he believes more workers should be in unions. The Ohio senator said it was “ultimately up to the workers,” but that he blamed foreign competition for reducing union membership.
“I’m not going to tell any worker exactly what they should be doing with their decisions, but I do think that the fact that union membership has declined shows that, in a lot of ways, we have heavily invested in shipping American jobs to countries that sometimes employ literal slaves,” Vance said. “Because people like Kamala Harris have said we’re never, ever going to fight back against these foreign countries using slave labor to undercut the jobs and wages of American workers, we’ve seen that union membership decline in a very big way.”
Union membership fell to a record low rate of 10% in 2023, according to data from the Labor Department, even as the total number of union members crept higher. Democrats have argued Trump and Vance are making a hollow pitch to labor, citing their opposition to the PRO Act, a top union priority that would clear hurdles to organizing workers, among other stances. Vance has distinguished between “good unions” and “bad unions” in prior interviews, arguing the legislation would empower labor groups that support Democrats.
Vance, asked about right to work laws in individual states by Real Clear Politics, added that a Trump-Vance administration believes that it is up to each state to determine policy.
“I think what we see is our job in national policy is to protect as many workers’ jobs as possible, to promote tax and spending and tariff policies that promote large scale economic growth and actually give workers more their take on pay and more jobs to begin with,” Vance said.
Vance also repeated Trump’s pitch to UAW workers that Democrats were hurting the industry by encouraging a transition to electric vehicles, an industry whose rise he predicted would ultimately help China.
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Wednesday’s press call comes after the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, a major labor union, declined to endorse either presidential candidate this cycle. Still, polling released by Teamsters showed that a majority of members preferred Trump over Harris. While Harris later earned endorsements from many state and local Teamsters units, the decision was seen as a blow to her campaign.
Setting the policy aside, the Trump campaign’s rhetorical pitch to unions is distinct from many others in the party, especially Republicans in red states with fewer traditional ties to labor. Nikki Haley, Trump’s on-again-off-again rival, openly boasted about discouraging unionized companies from opening up shop in South Carolina as governor.
The View From The Harris-Walz Campaign
“Donald Trump and JD Vance are running on the most anti-worker ticket in modern history,” Ammar Moussa, director of rapid response for the Harris campaign, said in a statement. “Trump stacked his administration with anti-worker stooges and is actively cheering on billionaires who attack union workers. Trump and Vance’s Project 2025 agenda would go even further to ban public sector unions, attack rights to organize, strip away child labor protections, and gut overtime pay. Workers aren’t fooled by Trump and Vance’s lies about labor and that’s why unions, including 1.5 million Teamsters, have endorsed the Harris-Walz ticket.”
Notable
- Trump and Harris have been battling over union worker support this cycle, recognizing the impact that it seemed to have on Trump’s 2016 win, CBS News reported last month.
- UAW filed federal labor charges against Elon Musk after Trump praised him for firing workers threatening to strike during an interview together ( Musk’s company, Tesla, denies illegally targeting workers trying to unionize).