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On Labor Day, Critics Say It's Clear What Side Trump Is On: 'Not the Working Class. Just the Ruling Class'

Despite President Donald Trump’s claims that he has delivered on his campaign promise, made to families at rallies across the country ahead of the 2016 election, to prioritize the needs of working Americans over the profits of billionaires like himself, workers’ advocates on Labor Day railed against the president’s clear loyalty to corporations and the one percent—as evidenced by his $1.5 trillion tax cut package and a number of other policies.

In addition to pushing the anti-worker Republican tax law which passed last year over the objections of 55 percent of Americans, Trump has presided over an economy in which real wages have fallen in the last year while repeatedly insisting that exactly the opposite is happening. The president has also celebrated the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to weaken unions in Janus vs. AFSCME and pushed steel tariffs which are expected to lead to the loss of 146,000 jobs. Just last week, Trump canceled a planned raise for federal employees and proposed rules that will hurt workers ability to save for retirement while simultaneously moving to lavish another tax benefit on the nation’s richest with another $100 billion giveaway.

While the president is now regularly campaigning for Republican candidates running in the midterm elections on the slogan, “Promises Made, Promises Kept,” AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka predicted over the weekend that voters would likely not buy Trump’s latest sales pitch—having lived with the consequences of his party’s initiatives over the last 19 months.

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