President Donald Trump on Friday rapped General Motors after a new report detailing the shrinking domestic workforce of the auto giant.
“General Motors, which was once the Giant of Detroit, is now one of the smallest auto manufacturers there,” Trump said in a tweet. “They moved major plants to China, BEFORE I CAME INTO OFFICE. This was done despite the saving help given them by the USA. Now they should start moving back to America again?”
The president appears to be referring to a Bloomberg report that shows GM now employs fewer union-represented workers in the U.S. than its counterparts Ford and Fiat Chrysler for the first time in its 80-year history of working with the United Autoworkers Union.
According to Bloomberg, the number of UAW-covered workers for GM has remained somewhat steady over the last decade. But in 2014 it was surpassed by Ford and then by Fiat Chrysler this year.
GM has become a frequent target of the president after he campaigned on reviving the auto manufacturing industry in the U.S. But the company has continued to trim down its domestic production and shift operations to countries like Mexico and China. Trump lashed out at CEO Mary Barra earlier this year when the company announced it would shutter several plants in the U.S. and Canada, citing a shift in demand. That announcement also prompted threats from Trump to yank electric vehicle subsidies the company had been receiving.
The auto giant’s 46,000 UAW workers is a drastic reduction from its peak of more than 618,000 four decades ago. But the industry was decimated during the last recession, and GM let thousands of workers go when it filed for bankruptcy in 2009.
Still, according to Bloomberg, GM has poured $23 billion into U.S. operations, almost five times as much as it’s spent in Mexico, where the company’s workforce is only a third of the size of its U.S. workforce.
Source: politico.com
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