UAW leaders get it wrong – Trump’s tariffs will not save autoworkers’ jobs

The United Auto Workers union posted a “Statement on new tariff action” on March 4. It begins by stating that, “For 40 years, we’ve seen the devastating effects of so-called ‘free trade’ on the working class” and blasts corporations for “killing good blue-collar jobs” by moving work to low-wage countries where workers are superexploited. (uaw.org)

So far, so good.

But the statement continues, promulgating the myth that “tariffs are a powerful tool in the toolbox for undoing the injustice of anti-worker trade deals.” The union, one that staunchly opposed President Donald Trump during his election campaign, adds “We are glad to see an American president take aggressive action on ending the free trade disaster that has dropped like a bomb on the working class.”

This position continues the UAW leadership’s shift to the right, expressed in an op-ed piece by President Shawn Fain in the Jan. 19 Washington Post, where he said he was “willing to work with Trump.” (Workers World, Feb. 5 ) Now there’s not only “willingness to work” with the ultraright-wing president, but high praise for the bigot-in-chief.

This is shameful. It represents a return to the chauvinistic “Buy American” line that the union embraced in the past, a line that undermines global working-class solidarity. The UAW seems to be moving away from the class struggle unionism of the 2023 “Stand-up strike” against Ford, General Motors and Stellantis, which garnered solidarity messages and visits to the picket lines from unions all over the world.

Moreover, the statement, which presumably President Fain either authored or approved, is misleading. Tariffs are hardly “a powerful tool” in the struggle to protect autoworker jobs. It’s true that the union can, and should, oppose any attempt to make workers and/or consumers absorb the cost of tariffs. But the UAW should keep in mind the words of African American lesbian poet Audre Lorde: “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.”

Tariffs are a capitalist tool, used by capitalists to punish other countries whose interests conflict with theirs. A tariff is essentially a tax surcharge paid by companies who import goods — such as vehicles or their component parts — from the targeted countries. Rather than take a cut in profits, the company will either raise prices for the consumer and/or cut jobs and worker compensation.

The ensuing trade wars don’t benefit workers in the U.S., Canada, Mexico or China. They serve to shift the blame for capitalist trade policies onto workers in other countries. We are told that other workers are “stealing our jobs.” But it is the ruling class of billionaires that has destroyed our livelihoods and communities, not only by moving jobs to low-wage countries but through automation and restructuring.

The working class has no future in “working with the White House,” regardless of which party has the presidency. The union movement needs to make a clean break with national chauvinism in every form and build global, working-class solidarity whenever the opportunity presents itself.

Martha Grevatt is a retired Stellantis worker who served on the executive boards of UAW Locals 122 and 869.