Trump's Blue-Collar Populism Is Dividing Unions
- Embattled movement wrestles with collaboration and resistance
- Long-running divisions offer chance to ‘divide and conquer’
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Donald Trump’s presidency presents unions with the threat that unified Republican governance will bring sweeping, hostile changes to laws they hold dear. Labor has responded with a muddle of denunciation, cautious quiet and, in some cases, even exultation.
Randi Weingarten, head of the American Federation of Teachers and a speaker at the Women’s March on Washington, said last week that “we’ve got to be whistle-blowers for righteousness.” Just the day before, the Laborers’ International Union of North America was gushing over the new president: “He has shown that he respects laborers who build our great nation, and that they will be abandoned no more.”