Trumka was an ungrateful idiot. He was more concerned about Canadian workers than American workers.
The union brass only care about themselves and their democrat partners. They both sacrificed the American worker for their liberal globalist agenda. They are all in a panic right now because president Trump is making inroads with black voters and union voters. Those are two groups the liberals cannot stand to lose.
Trumka was just WAY off the mark with his remark about “falling wages” and “rising gasoline prices”. The cost of gasoline is NOT the greatest annual cost of owning a new car, depreciation is. And insurance runs way up there on the list.
A large part of the cost of that automobile is the built-in costs of the union-driven compensation package for RETIRED auto workers, who no longer make a contribution to the value of that automobile. That is a large part of what broke GM, and drove Chrysler Corporation into the arms of foreign investors. Ford only survived because it has less exposure than either of the other two, while the Asian automobile manufacturers simply bypassed most of the union organization efforts altogether. The European manufacturers like Volkswagen thought they could work “cooperatively” with the unions as they do in Germany, but the driving philosophy of the US unions is to treat the company management like adversaries, not partners.
The top members of the big unions still cannot grasp the idea of working WITH corporate management, unless they can get a “seat” (veto power) on the board. Which is just another way of throwing obstacles in the way of innovation and enlightened profitability.