Trump’s Inroads in Union Ranks Have Labor Leaders ScramblingNew York Times, Feb 17, 2017, NOAM SCHEIBER, MAGGIE HABERMAN and GLENN THRUSH
President Trump posing with labor union leaders and workers in the Oval Office last month. Among them: third from left, Sean McGarvey, the president of North America’s Building Trades Unions; and, second from right, Terry O’Sullivan, of the Laborers’ International Union of North America. Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times Donald J. Trump redrew the electoral map with his rousing economic nationalism and evocation of a lost industrial age. It was a message that drew many union members to his cause. And now it is upending the alliances and tactics of the labor movement itself.
In early November, workers at the Momentive chemical plant in upstate New York went on strike to beat back pension and health care concessions. By January, the workers were invoking some of Mr. Trump’s populist campaign themes — but with a twist. They planned to picket outside the Manhattan home of the billionaire Stephen A. Schwarzman, whose private equity firm until recently owned a share of the company, and whom Mr. Trump has appointed as an outside adviser on jobs.
“We used that angle — he’s one of the richest men in the country, has been appointed by Mr. Trump as the so-called jobs czar,” said Darryl Houshower, vice president of the local. “We were pressuring him, hoping he would put some pressure on the company.”
Whatever happened behind the scenes, they got the result they wanted. The day before the protest was originally planned this month, the company backed off a number of key demands. The workers ratified a new contract several days later.
The episode is just one sign of the sudden shifts buffeting the labor movement. Some unions, even if traditionally Democratic, have aims that align with Mr. Trump’s stated priorities: building infrastructure, rewriting trade agreements, blocking an exodus of jobs. But union leaders are in many cases scrambling to get in step with members who responded to his pro-worker rhetoric — and to tap into that energy.
The dynamic was on display earlier this week, when some employees at Boeing’s South Carolina facilities, which Mr. Trump visited Friday, spoke of a rising feeling of empowerment tied to the president’s posture and cited it as a factor in their vote for a union. (The union vote failed.)
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Some of Mr. Trump’s other early moves, like his presidential memorandums giving the go-ahead to the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines and killing the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, and his announcement that he would quickly seek to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, were clearly conceived with a similar objective.
They appear to have had the desired effect. Dennis Williams, head of the United Auto Workers union, which endorsed Mrs. Clinton, has professed eagerness to meet with Mr. Trump to discuss how they might undo Nafta and protect American jobs.
“He’s the first president that has addressed this issue, and I’m going to give him kudos for that,” Mr. Williams said at a round-table discussion with reporters in Detroit on Thursday.
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