J.D. Vance on Wednesday doubled down on Donald Trump’s comments about firing striking workers.
As Vance addressed a small crowd at a campaign event in Michigan, a CBS News reporter gave Vance a chance to clean up the mess Trump made during his conversation with Elon Musk earlier this week.
“The UAW president said that Donald Trump and Elon Musk sneered at labor workers when talking about how Elon Musk fired folks looking to organize. The Teamster president who also spoke at the RNC called this ‘economic terrorism.’ What’s your reaction to the backlash that Donald Trump’s getting from that interview?” asked the reporter.
“Well look, I like Teamsters’ president, I think he’s a good guy,” Vance said of Sean O’Brien. “But I think he’s wrong about this.”
“Donald Trump was not talking about firing Michigan autoworkers,” he continued. “He was talking about firing the employees of Twitter who use their power to censor American citizens. Those people ought to be fired.”
Adam Bettcher/Getty Images)
It looks like no one briefed Vance on how to answer this question. Regardless of their workplace, threatening to fire workers for concerted labor activity, such as going on strike, is illegal under the National Labor Relations Act.
Musk was accused of violating labor law at X (then known as Twitter) when he fired an employee who was attempting to organize against return to office plans. He also retaliated against unionized janitors, laying off the Twitter custodial staff right before the holidays.
Vance’s faulty logic of pitting autoworkers organizing in Michigan against workers wronged by Musk at Twitter, Tesla, and SpaceX won’t hold up.
On Tuesday, the United Auto Workers filed federal labor charges against Trump and Musk. They accused the billionaires of “illegal attempts to threaten and intimidate workers who stand up for themselves by engaging in protected concerted activity, such as strikes.” Maybe they can now add Vance into the mix too?
Source Agencies
