The UAW’s corporatist alliance with Trump
17 March 2017
On Wednesday, United Auto Workers (UAW) President Dennis Williams joined with President Donald Trump and the CEOs of the Big Three US automakers to promote a reactionary program of extreme economic nationalism, corporatism and war.
The event was a campaign-style speech by Trump before UAW bureaucrats and a section of workers bused in by the auto bosses to the decommissioned Willow Run auto plant in Ypsilanti, a suburb of Detroit.
Trump reprised the fascistic themes of his inaugural address, with a heavy emphasis on the unity of workers, employers and the state in defense of the “national interest” and in opposition to foreigners. “That is how we will succeed and grow together—American workers and American industry side by side,” the president declared. “Nobody can beat us, folks. Nobody can beat us. Because whether we are rich or poor, young or old, black or brown or white, we all bleed the same red blood of patriots.”
As a matter of fact, during the Vietnam years, Trump was able to take advantage of the political connections of his millionaire father to stay out of the military and make sure that none of his “red blood” was spilled in an imperialist war that cost the lives of 58,000 Americans—mostly poor and working class—and upwards of 3 million Vietnamese.
Trump made explicit the warmongering essence of his corporatist ideology, which fraudulently claims that the corporations, the capitalist state and the working class have identical interests. He hailed as the model for today the united effort of the auto companies, the UAW and the state in producing the B-24 bomber at the now-closed plant during World War II.
“At peak…