USW, AFL-CIO Rally in Downtown Pittsburgh, Assailing Trump’s Attacks on Working People

Contact: Jenn Wood, jwood@usw.org, 412-562-1160

(PITTSBURGH, Pa.) – Hundreds of members of the United Steelworkers (USW) and other area unions championed the power of collective action and denounced Donald Trump’s attacks on working people at a rally welcoming the AFL-CIO’s nationwide bus tour to Pittsburgh.

The bus tour, “It’s Better in a Union: Fighting for Freedom, Fairness & Security,” launched earlier this month in Washington, D.C., and will crisscross the nation, traveling to 26 states in total, to amplify workers’ voices on their fights to organize, the issues that matter to them, and how the Trump administration is making the lives of working people harder.

The USW represents tens of thousands of members in Western Pennsylvania who are facing draconian cuts to vital programs on which their jobs and communities rely. This includes slashing research funding for higher education and public health, rollbacks to Medicaid, and mass firings across the Department of Veterans Affairs. Workers are additionally grappling with the Trump administration’s decision to gut health and safety agencies like the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

In the face of this onslaught, it’s important for workers to stand together and resist efforts to distract and divide them, noted USW International President David McCall.

“We’re going to hold those accountable who stood with the billionaires instead of the middle class and those wanting to join the middle class,” said McCall. “If we put people in good-paying union jobs, it would increase our tax base all across this country. That’s how you pay down the national debt – give people good jobs with good wages. You don’t gut our needed services.”

USW International Vice President at Large Roxanne D. Brown said that Trump’s efforts to slash essential protections represent one part of his broader scheme to undermine Americans’ fundamental labor and civil rights.

“It is more important than ever that we lift our collective voices together and fight. So much of what we value as working people, as a labor movement, is not just on the chopping block; it’s being decimated by those who think they know what’s best for workers. We’ve got work to do, but we are powerful. The fight is within us,” said Brown.

Pittsburgh served as the ideal backdrop for the bus tour, anchored by union members who not only wield the power of collective action to win good contracts but also support workers across the country as they fight for the same benefits.

The USW represents 850,000 workers in North America employed in many industries that include metals, mining, rubber, chemicals, paper, oil refining, the service, public and health care sectors and higher education. For more information: www.usw.org.