There is a trend in the U.S. labor movement today, especially since Trump’s election, to avoid politics or confrontation with the right wing for fear of alienating some union members who support parts or all of Trump’s agenda. There can be a pressure for unions to only focus on bread-and-butter economic issues because politics is “too divisive.” 

Trump wants to scapegoat immigrants and trans people for the issues facing working people today that he has no real solutions for, like inflation and flat living standards. But this is really an attack on the entire working class, meant to distract from the real culprits—the same billionaires Trump gave front-row seats at his inauguration. 

Raids on workplaces with high immigrant populations, like Amazon, make it that much harder for all workers there fighting to unionize for $30/hr starting wages, 180 hours paid time off, and more. Trans bathroom bans in federal workplaces are a danger to trans workers and open the door for bosses accessing the private medical information of all workers. Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is starting to carry out mass layoffs of public sector workers under the guise of “draining the swamp,” all while he and Trump joke about firing workers who dare to go on strike.

What’s divisive is Trump’s anti-worker administration, and the labor movement needs to stand united against his attacks. Trump’s divide-and-rule tactics against immigrants and trans people, his authoritarian tendencies to repress democratic rights, and the threat of global recession from his nationalist tariffs can all cut across the important gains the labor movement has made over the last few years. 

Failure to meet Trump’s attacks with united working-class action will critically undermine the foundation of solidarity that will be necessary to win victories in the coming period, much less continue the effort of rebuilding a militant labor movement to reverse decades of retreat.

Without an organized fightback, attacks on workers will only continue and intensify, but they can be pushed back. Strikes at the Big Three auto companies, Boeing, and of longshoremen show that there is a mood to fight against the bosses, but the labor movement and its leaders need to be at the forefront of resisting Trump’s union-busting attacks.

Labor Leaders’ Response (Or Lack Thereof) To The Danger Of Trump

Shawn Fain, President of the United Auto Workers (UAW), recently said, “We do not agree with Trump on much of his domestic agenda, but we do hope to find common ground on overhauling our devastating trade policies and rebuilding U.S. manufacturing.”

Just 24 hours before Trump started his second term, Fain authored a Washington Post article on finding “common ground” with the billionaire Republican President. The statement is a change in tune from Fain, who during the Big Three strike went after big manufacturers’ greed, now he seeks common ground with Ford and GM. Compare this to last year when he labeled Trump a scab and railed against the billionaire class as a whole. 

Fain’s article makes no criticisms of Trump other than mentioning vague disagreement with “much of his domestic agenda.” No mention is made of Trump’s Project 2025 plans to attack and privatize the public sector including eliminating many union jobs. International graduate students in the UAW are being threatened with having their visas revoked for participating in anti-war protests, but Fain is silent. 

Sean O’Brien, President of the Teamsters, has seriously tacked to the right in recent months. On a recent episode of his podcast interviewing MAGA Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, O’Brien says “Social issues are all well and good, but protecting illegal immigrants that come into our country to commit crimes and steal jobs, that’s a tough pill to swallow.”

For immigrant workers, documented and undocumented, the toughest pill of all to swallow may be a union leader who pits you against your U.S.-born coworkers. Divide and rule, to pit different sections of workers against each other, is a classic tactic of the bosses. It weakens the labor movement’s ability to fight for higher wages and better working conditions by keeping the workplace fractured rather than united in struggle around a common goal. The super exploitation of immigrant workers only drives down the wages for everyone. Uniting immigrant and native-born workers is essential for rebuilding a fighting labor movement. For a labor leader like O’Brien to parrot this divisiveness raises the question, “Which side are you on?”

Unions Need To Lead From The Front

Unions in many other countries have shown just how crucial it is for the labor movement to take a political stand against anti-workers governments. In Argentina, President Javier Milei’s austerity budget, which would have been devastating for workers, was set back by a 1.5 million-strong general strike. In the UK today, some labor leaders are organizing meetings to discuss launching a new working-class party to oppose the two establishment parties. The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions last year launched a campaign to organize the nearly half-a-million undocumented workers in South Korea and fight for legal status. 

There are pockets of militancy against Trump’s agenda within the U.S. labor movement that need to be built on. The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), under threat of ICE raids in schools, put out a memo to members to organize “sanctuary teams” of teachers, faculty, parents, and students to resist any attempted raids on schools. They have so far prevented federal agents from entering Chicago schools. Educators’ and healthcare workers’ unions in particular should be taking the lead in resisting deportations by organizing defense committees against deportations, organizing rallies to build public support, and joining with protestors in the streets. Any actions by unions against deportations need to be connected to a strong economic program to speak to the needs of the entire working class.

Winning workers away from Trump’s right-wing populism requires the labor movement going on the offensive with bold organizing campaigns and taking strike action to deliver strong union contracts. The Teamsters’ efforts to organize Amazon workers and the UAW’s campaign to organize the non-union auto industry, like at Tesla, brings these unions into direct conflict with two of Trump’s biggest allies, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. For workers who are concerned with inflation eating away at their wages, the best path forward is unionizing and struggling against the bosses, not the divide-and-rule tactics of the many bosses in the White House.

We Need A New Party

Neither party of big business offers any real solutions for the problems facing working people. The Democrats under Biden oversaw four years of rising inflation, denied the right to strike to railway workers, and just a week before Trump took office, oversaw the deportation of union members of the United Farm Workers. This Trump administration promises to go even further in its attacks on working people.

Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD), a reform caucus within the UAW of which Fain is a member, joined the United Electrical Workers Union and passed a resolution in January saying working people need a labor party independent from the Republicans and Democrats “to truly confront the billionaire class, and unite and speak for the working class.” The labor movement cannot survive by “sitting out of politics,” and it cannot continue to line up behind a Democratic Party whose failures have only driven many workers into the arms of Trump. To counter Trump’s phony pro-worker posturing, we need a new working-class party.

Fain, as a representative accountable to the membership of UAWD, should reverse his statement on working with Trump and publicly advocate and organize to build a labor party in the U.S. Fain’s announced General Strike 2028 plans should include calls for a new party along the lines UAWD proposes. Other unions and locals should pass similar resolutions and begin organizing towards a new party that refuses to take corporate and billionaire donations, fights for popular programs such as free, high-quality healthcare for all, and stands unquestionably on the side of fighting for good union jobs for all. Only a united, organized working class has the power to fully resist Trump’s billionaire agenda.