AFL-CIO: Vance is ‘a rubber stamp’ for Trump’s anti-worker agenda

AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler notes that Vance introduced a bill to legalize "yellow dog" company-run unions. | afscme.org

MILWAUKEE —As far as workers are concerned, Donald Trump’s chosen running mate on this fall’s Republican ticket, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, “is nothing more than a rubber stamp” for Trump’s anti-worker vision, performance and platform.

The catch, the AFL-CIO said, is Vance, 39, portrays himself as a friend to workers—an image which is a lie. In its voting scores for last year, Vance’s first year in office, gave him a zero. And that’s not all.

Ohio’s real friend to workers is its other senator, veteran Democrat Sherrod Brown, who is second only to Vermont’s Bernie Sanders in long and strong support for workers and unions. Brown seeks a new six-year term this fall in now-reddish Ohio.

Convicted felon Trump announced his choice of Vance in the middle of the roll call at the Trump-choreographed Republican convention. Delegates meeting in Milwaukee ratified Trump’s nomination July 15. Vance was the first lawmaker to genuflect to Trump by attending Trump’s criminal trial in New York.

Delegates also ratified a Republican platform full of generalities, which isn’t really the platform Trump schemes to implement. Project 2025, commissioned by Trump, run by Trump regime appointees and sponsored by right-wingers ranging from the Heritage Foundation to the American Legislative Exchange Council, a secretive corporate cabal, is.

“Donald Trump has a miserable record of breaking every promise he’s made to working people—from failing to pay his workers and crossing a picket line to his disastrous four years in the White House. That betrayal would continue if he is re-elected—so it’s no surprise Trump chose a vice president who will be nothing more than a rubber stamp for that anti-worker vision,” AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler began her statement.

“Vance likes to play union supporter on the picket line, but his record proves that to be a sham,” the fed continued. Democratic President Joe Biden, who has enough delegates to secure renomination, plus strong and recently reaffirmed AFL-CIO support, calls Vance a Trump “clone.”

Shuler noted Vance introduced legislation to legalize “yellow dog” company-run unions, and trashed UAW strikers against the Detroit automakers after collecting $5000 in campaign contributions from GM last year.

Vance also opposes the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, “which would end union-busting ‘right to work’ laws and make it easier for workers to form unions and win strong contracts,” she said.

And Vance willingly agrees with Trump plans to “stack the federal agencies that exist to protect workers with union-busting corporate executives and anti-union extremists, strip funding for workplace health and safety, and do everything in his power to take away workers’ voice on the job–just like he did in his first term.”

“A Trump–Vance White House is a corporate CEO’s dream and a worker’s nightmare. Look no further than the devastating Project 2025 plan that would eviscerate unions and empty workers’ pockets just to boost the profits of their corporate friends and donors. That’s the Trump–Vance agenda,” Shuler concluded.

The AFL-CIO isn’t the sole critic of Vance’s record.

“”Donald Trump…plans to double-down on his extremist agenda and sow further division,” said Maurice Mitchell, executive director of the Working Families Party. “Vance has called for a national abortion ban and denied the results of the 2020 election. He’s bankrolled by the same billionaire CEOs who are raising prices while slashing wages for working people.

“All of us who believe in a future where people can live safely and freely must come together to defeat Trump and Vance in November.”

And The Lever, an investigative news site, points out Vance is now a corporate venture capitalist who can use a notorious “carried interest” tax loophole to pay extremely low taxes on ill-gotten gains. The News Guild calls that breed “vulture capitalists” for how such secretive investors strip companies, fire workers and leave behind “news deserts.”

Vance also co-sponsored—and brags about—the Sherrod Brown-authored legislation to re-regulate the nation’s railroads in the wake of last year’s East Palestine, Ohio, derailment, fire and toxic chemical cloud over the town. The Lever then points out Vance has since worked behind the scenes with rail industry lobbyists to sabotage key sections of the bill. The measure is stalled for lack of needed votes to halt a threatened Republican filibuster orchestrated by the railroads and their Wall Street backers.

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CONTRIBUTOR

Mark Gruenberg

Award-winning journalist Mark Gruenberg is head of the Washington, D.C., bureau of People's World. He is also the editor of the union news service Press Associates Inc. (PAI). Known for his reporting skills, sharp wit, and voluminous knowledge of history, Mark is a compassionate interviewer but tough when going after big corporations and their billionaire owners.