Trump Proudly Brags About How He Got Out of Paying Workers

October 1

At an Erie, Pennsylvania, rally Sunday, Donald Trump let slip how he really feels about workers, telling his crowd of well-wishers how much he hated paying overtime at his companies.

“I know a lot about overtime. I hated to give overtime, I hated it. I’d get other people—I shouldn’t say this, but I’d get other people in. I wouldn’t pay,” Trump said, basically admitting to wage theft and hiring scabs.

Kamala Harris’s campaign immediately attacked Trump’s statement, with a spokesperson telling The Daily Beast that “Donald Trump is finally owning up to it: He’s built an entire career on screwing over workers. It’s exactly what he did in the White House—trying to rip away tips and overtime pay for millions of workers–and exactly what he plans to do in a second term.”

Indeed, Trump’s statement exposes the truth behind the GOP effort to woo working-class voters. The former president’s running mate, J.D. Vance, along with fellow Senator Marco Rubio and others, have long made token statements supporting workers and unions. But, as with Trump, it doesn’t take much to reveal these statements as hollow.

Conservatives actively work against unions and organizing, voting against pro-labor bills in Congress, with Republican-led states seeking to undermine organized labor with so-called “right-to-work” bills. Teamsters President Sean O’Brien caused a stir by speaking at the Republican National Convention over the summer, only for his speech to be met with crickets from the audience when he criticized corporations and championed union rights.

The Trump campaign, along with Republicans in recent years, has made inroads with working-class voters, even polling well with them. But as The New Republic’s Timothy Noah points out, every time the Republican Party regains control of the House of Representatives, it changes the Education and Labor Committee’s name to the “Education and the Workforce” Committee, going out of its way to dissociate itself from organized labor.

Republicans, including the ones who feign support for workers like Vance and Rubio, also oppose the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, which would ease restrictions on forming a union, strengthen protections for labor unions, and eliminate right-to-work laws. Trump was anti-union long before his Saturday speech, going back to before his time as president. Democrats and those who support workers’ rights need to sound the alarm to prevent Trump and the GOP from making the lives of working people much, much worse.

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