FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Wednesday, August 14, 2024
Media Contact: Aaron Pelo, apelo@miaflcio.org | 734.355.2741
Vance Hosts Event with OSHA Violators to Cushion His Falling Support with Voters
LANSING, Mich. – Two days after Donald Trump praised Elon Musk for illegally firing striking workers, JD Vance is making a stop on the Trump campaign’s increasingly sad “pick me” tour to court Michigan workers, this time at a non-union trucking company in West Michigan. To welcome JD Vance to the state, Michigan AFL-CIO President Ron BIEBER issued the following statement:
“After drawing a crowd of zero union members last fall, Donald Trump is sending JD Vance to Michigan, seemingly to appeal to working people. I couldn’t think of a surrogate more alienating to Michigan workers than a venture capitalist who graduated from Ohio State. If he gets any questions about why exactly Michigan voters should support someone who has proposed raising taxes on people without children and who said that Project 2025, which proposes eliminating public unions and slashing retirement benefits, has some good ideas, we hope he can answer them better than what makes him smile.”
The non-union trucking company Cordes, Inc. was fined $1,800 earlier this year as a result of a serious violation of a Michigan statute that protects employees from hazards that cause or are likely to cause death or serious harm. Project 2025 would gut safety standards and allow small businesses to violate OSHA’s workplace safety rules without punishment, regardless of any deaths or injuries caused by employer negligence.
The Michigan AFL-CIO, Michigan’s largest labor organization, is a federation representing forty different labor organizations, eighteen different central labor councils, and eight constituency groups representing over 1 million union members and their families.
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