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Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin

(107,111 posts)
Tue Dec 13, 2016, 06:16 PM Dec 2016

Trump attacked this union leader on Twitter. Then the real fight began.

INDIANAPOLIS — The yellow roses arrived just after lunch, and the daughter-in-law of the union leader worried his cigarette smoke would wilt them. “Maybe these should go in the kitchen,” she told him.

But Chuck Jones wanted to keep them in the union hall’s war room.

“First time in my life someone has sent me flowers,” he said gruffly, taking another drag on a Marlboro Red. The bouquet came from a stranger — another Chuck — along with a note: “God bless unions. Thank you for your courage.”

Jones, 65, is the president of the United Steelworkers 1999, which represents the Carrier factory jobs in Indianapolis that president-elect Donald Trump has vowed to save. He’s also adjusting to a new role, one surreal to a Midwestern man who uses a flip phone: Internet star.

Jones became famous overnight after pointing out Trump had overstated the deal he struck last month with United Technologies, Carrier’s parent company, to stop the plant’s jobs from moving to Mexico. “Chuck Jones … has done a terrible job representing workers,” Trump tweeted in apparent response Wednesday. “No wonder companies flee the country!”

The next day, as #StandWithChuck trended on social media, Jones huddled with friends and family in the squat, brick building, picking through care packages from people in Ohio, Kansas and California. They took turns answering the phone, scrawling tally marks on a dry erase board for every “good” and “bad” call.

By Thursday night, good was winning, 85 to 22.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/12/12/trump-attacked-this-union-leader-on-twitter-then-the-real-fight-began/?utm_term=.ade9b9bfa009&wpisrc=nl_rainbow&wpmm=1

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