Evan Allardyce, who once worked as an electrician at one of the General Motors plants that dotted Michigan’s Saginaw County, now represents thousands of jobs lost to the company’s policies. It has become a decaying landmark. After the factory closed, he struggled to find work and was forced to travel around the country for contract work.
That’s why Mr. Allardyce, now the leader of the Saginaw branch of the largest electricians union in the United States, is against free trade agreements that have allowed automakers and other industries to move hundreds of thousands of high-paying jobs to Mexico and Canada. I understand the blue-collar anger. 1990s. He sees how the resulting economic decline and increased poverty in industrial centers helped elect President Donald Trump in 2016.
What Allardyce doesn’t understand is why so many of his own members in the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) know nothing but full employment and high wages that are likely to continue for years to come. The question is, do they still support Trump? Construction is booming in Saginaw. In that regard, he says they can thank Joe Biden’s huge spending on infrastructure.
But to Mr Allardyce’s despair, many members of his branch will vote for Trump again.
“Democratic support is still over 50% in this region (union branch), but it was much higher than that 20 years ago. Something happened in the last few moments. There are many reasons why. Yes, but it’s also generational. Those of us who have seen downtime have been a little bit devastated. But the younger generation has only seen really great work hours, and only busy, busy work.” he said.
“This situation will continue for years because of Biden, but they don’t understand that and don’t want to hear that the credit should go to Biden. I think they feel like they can make decisions outside of the box of what’s good or not. Trump is targeting people to get them passionate about things like immigration, and it’s working.”
Political lore in many parts of the United States is that Trump was elected eight years ago due to anger in Rust Belt countries over the impact of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which Bill Clinton signed in 1993. It is. Most of the negotiations were conducted by his Republican predecessor. Millions of jobs were lost in the decades that followed as factories moved outside the United States and the auto industry took advantage of cheaper labor overseas.
At a campaign rally at Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Michigan, a member of the United Auto Workers union, who was invited by President Trump to take the stage, speaks. Photo: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images
In 2016, Trump blasted NAFTA as “the worst trade deal in history” and won support in states with high percentages of blue-collar workers, which was key to his election. General Motors closed more than a dozen factories around Saginaw and moved most of its work to Mexico.
Trump returned to Saginaw on Thursday, a bellwether county in the battleground state, pushing the same message as eight years ago.
“Americans have seen our country lose our jobs. By the way, this state has lost 60 percent of its auto business over the years, more than any other state.” he said.
“According to my plan, American workers will no longer worry about losing their jobs to foreign countries; rather, foreign countries will worry about losing their jobs to America. We will bring them all back. Masu.”
President Trump made a similar promise in 2016, renegotiating some of the terms of NAFTA, but auto factories did not return.
Carly Hammond, a Teamsters member and Saginaw organizer for the AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest union federation, spent much of her time talking to members about how to vote and trying to steer them toward Harris. spending. She thinks it’s a mistake to view NAFTA as the original sin that drove blue-collar workers to support Trump.
Mr. Hammond said Mr. Trump continues to gain support by promoting himself as separate from a deep disillusionment with politicians rooted in years of failure to improve the lives of working people. It is said that there is.
“I don’t think there is any original sin. It’s just the repetition of hurt and pain. If you get cut a thousand times, you die. Lies have become so mainstream that overpromising and underachieving have become the only policies. “What I saw in Trump and what I still see in Trump is counterproductive to politicians who are too sophisticated to lie and pretend to be friends,” she said.
“What I’m seeing is Donald Trump supporters who are in unions. I think most of them remain in the same place. The trends I’m seeing with people in the Labor Party who are Trump supporters. It’s a trend where everyone is so upset with the status quo that they should be. People are going to stick with Mr. Trump until they feel like things are getting better for them.”
A Teamster member waves to President Trump during a rally in Saginaw, Michigan. Photo: Brendan McDiarmid/Reuters
Hammond, whose grandfather worked at General Motors in Saginaw and whose parents are anti-union Republicans, said many union members continue to believe that Democrats represent corporate interests more than the interests of American workers. He said he is doing so. She said that while millions of Americans lost their homes to foreclosure, President Barack Obama’s bank bailout after the 2008 financial crisis deeply hurt the hearts of many Democratic working-class voters. He points out that this is one of the wounds.
“A lot of that is because our party has betrayed the working class. When Barack Obama was elected in 2008 on a platform of hope and change, the first thing he did was bail out the banks. It was quite the opposite,” she said. “The legitimate concerns that many Trump supporters in labor unions have about Democrats are primarily about who corporations are buying more of.”
For some union members, there are also more pressing concerns at work. There is strong support for Mr. Trump among members of the United Auto Workers branch of the Saginaw plant, which makes car steering systems, who fear they will lose their jobs to Democrats’ push for electric vehicles.
The impact of blue-collar voting may not be as strong as it was eight years ago. Mr. Trump has been more favorable toward white voters with college degrees, who have a high percentage of union members.
Historically, about two-thirds of union members in Michigan do not have a degree. However, the percentage of college-educated whites in the state’s electorate has been declining, dropping to about 55% in this election.
Still, union members matter in states like Michigan, which Trump won by less than 11,000 votes in 2016 and narrowly lost four years later.
At Thursday’s rally in Saginaw, union members wearing Teamsters for Trump T-shirts lined up behind the former president. The Teamsters, one of the nation’s largest labor unions, refused to endorse the candidate after a vote of its members showed a clear majority supported Trump, a blow to Harris. It became.
“My pro-worker policies are one of the main reasons I have overwhelming support from rank-and-file members,” Trump said at the rally.
IBEW supported Harris in part because of the state’s massive infrastructure spending, including a vast semiconductor factory that has brought jobs to Saginaw. Mr Allardyce said the construction would provide jobs for hundreds of electricians.
“I give full credit to the Biden administration. We may be talking about years of work here, but this is an unprecedented conversation,” he said.
This is the message Mr Allardyce hammers home to members at union meetings.
“The IBEW and the unions have traditionally supported the Democratic Party. Even members who say they support them say, ‘But what have they done for us?’ But now we finally have a government that is doing something for us, but they are still not satisfied,” he said.
Rex Christian, the IBEW official responsible for recruiting members in Saginaw County, said most Trump supporters in the union’s chapters remain unconvinced.
“A lot of times I feel like they’re embarrassed or embarrassed or embarrassed because they know how we feel. But you can’t convince someone who’s made up their mind,” he said. Ta. “You can try to give them the facts, but they don’t want to hear it.”
Mr. Hammond plans to vote for Ms. Harris, but he does not believe the vice president will break the cycle and will have a hard time winning over many union members from Mr. Trump. She points to the economy, which many Americans say is their biggest concern.
“You can blame COVID-19 or external factors, but inflation is rising and businesses are doing better than ever. Stock prices continue to rise, but people are still suffering. People. “I don’t see any change yet,” she said.
“I don’t want to make it seem like there’s no difference between the candidates, because in fact there is, and I’m a supporter of Kamala Harris. But Ms. Harris has broken her promises while raising even more money.” She didn’t make much of a statement from the beginning, but as the weeks have gone on, the message has changed. This is a losing race for Harris. Harris will lose even more.
