The United Auto Workers is challenging the explicitly anti-union, and anti-workers language used by former President Donald Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk during an interview on Musk’s social media service X on Monday.
In a move following a conversation between Tesla/X CEO Elon Musk and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Monday, the United Auto Workers Union has filed unfair labor practice charges against both men, accusing them of trying to intimidate workers.
The union claims Trump and Musk used their two-hour chat on the former Twitter to threaten and to intimidate workers who ask for union representation or strike for higher wages and better working conditions. Musk has made no effort to downplay his desire to keep his own workers at Tesla from organizing.
Trump calls for firing striking workers
Trump has long opposed new environmental regulations impacting the auto industry.
“I mean, I look at what you do,” Trump told Musk during a rambling interview on X – which Musk acquired nearly two years ago. “You walk in, you say, ‘You want to quit?’ They go on strike. I won’t mention the name of the company, but they go on strike, and you say, ‘That’s okay. You’re all gone. You’re all gone. So, every one of you is gone.’”
Under the National Labor Relations Act, workers cannot be fired for attempting to organize a union, or striking – nor can they be punished for considering whether to join a labor organization. Even so, unions, including the UAW, have complained for years employers have routinely taken illegal steps to keep workers from organizing over the past forty years.
In 2017, Tesla fired dozens of UAW supporters touching off a long legal wrangle that remains unresolved at this point. Musk also fired pro-union employees at Tesla’s battery charger plant in Buffalo, New York. Musk has asked a federal judge in Texas to set aside another NLRB ruling in a case involving disaffected employees from his rocket company, SpaceX.
Musk challenged by UAW
Elon Musk has taken a sharp turn to the right since acquiring Twitter, now renamed X.
Last year, the UAW launched a major push to organize the entire non-union auto sector in the U.S. after winning new contracts with Detroit’s Three automakers. At the time, not a single foreign-owned “transplant” assembly plant was union organized, nor were the Tesla assembly plants in California and Texas, or its battery Gigafactory in Reno, Nevada.
Since the drive was launched, workers have voted for UAW representation at the Volkswagen factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee. But the union was rejected in a vote at a Mercedes-Benz plant in Vance, Alabama.
The Detroit-based UAW says workers at 13 nonunion automakers have campaigns across the country to join the union.
More Tesla and Election News
- Musk Uses Live Conversation with Trump to Promote EVs, Tesla
- Musk Money in Hand, Trump Turns Favorable on EVs
- Tesla Halts Orders for Base Cybertruck
Fain takes aim at Musk, Trump
UAW President Shawn Fain is directly overseeing the latest drive to organize plants in the southeast.
Shawn Fain, the UAW’s President, said after the Trump-Musk chat on X that neither the Republican presidential candidate nor the Tesla CEO have any interest or plans for improving the lives of blue-collar workers.
“When we say Donald Trump is a scab, this is what we mean. When we say Trump stands against everything our union stands for, this is what we mean,” said Fain.
“Donald Trump will always side against workers standing up for themselves, and he will always side with billionaires like Elon Musk, who is contributing $45 million a month to a Super PAC to get him elected. Both Trump and Musk want working class people to sit down and shut up, and they laugh about it openly. It is disgusting, illegal, and totally predictable from these two clowns,” said Fain.
Musk blasts Fain
After the UAW filed its charges, Musk said in a tweet on X that, “the last two UAW presidents went to prison for bribery & corruption and based on recent news, it looks like this guy will join them!” The statement is inaccurate since neither of Fain’s two immediate predecessors, Ray Curry, and Rory Gamble, were accused of corruption and Fain was selected as UAW President in 2023 in an election supervised by a court-appointed Monitor.
Two other UAW Presidents, Gary Jones, and Dennis Williams were sentenced to prison as the result of a federal investigation that began in 2016 and concluded in 2020.
UAW ready to campaign against Trump
Fain has announced that the UAW plans an aggressive campaign to boost the Democratic ticket of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, who have long records supporting unions such as the UAW. Harris made a campaign appearance at a union hall in suburban Detroit last week.
The UAW plans to highlighting the sharp contrast between Trump’s seemingly pro-worker rhetoric and the Republican candidates’ support from what it bills as anti-worker billionaires such as Musk.
In a new video posted to the UAW website this week, the union praises Harris’ track record in delivering for autoworkers. “Donald Trump is all talk and no action when it comes to delivering for autoworkers,” Fain said in the video. On the other hand, he praised both President Joe Biden and Harris, in her role as vice president, for helping U.S. auto workers.
Automotive issues, ranging from EVs to trade with China, could prove significant for many voters in November. The UAW hopes influence a slice of blue-collar workers, including many union members, who are wedded to neither the Republican nor Democratic parties but are true swing voters.
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