Top U.S. labor leader blasts Trump on trade in dueling speech

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

Politics | Tue Jun 28, 2016 12:02pm EDT

Top U.S. labor leader blasts Trump on trade in dueling speech

WASHINGTON | BY EMILY STEPHENSON AND AMANDA BECKER

The head of the largest U.S. labor union federation tried to pre-empt Donald Trump's planned speech on trade on Tuesday, saying the Republican presidential candidate was full of "empty promises" as he tried to make inroads with working-class voters.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka - a top ally of Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton - said at a trade conference in Washington that, at Trump campaign stops in the Rust Belt states of Ohio and Pennsylvania, voters should expect to hear "crocodile tears about lost jobs and shuttered factories."

"Trump embodies everything that is wrong with our current trade policy. He has consistently sent American jobs overseas to line his own pockets," Trumka said, apparently referring to Trump-branded products such as suits and ties that are made abroad.

Trumka's rebuke occurred just hours before the New York businessman was slated to make a speech attacking Clinton's record on trade, followed by a stop in Ohio.

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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-idUSKCN0ZE0Z0

[pampango]

1. Right wing demagogues are very dangerous and should be taken very seriously.

I am glad that Trumka is doing just that.

[democrattotheend]

2. I love Trumka

Back when he was Secretary-Treasurer at the AFL-CIO, I ran into him one day in the elevator, and I introduced myself to him. I addressed him as "Secretary-Treasurer Trumka", but he said "no, it's Rich." This was one of a few encounters I had with him, and every time, I got the feeling that despite rising to such a high level position, he had never lost sight of his coal miner roots.