- The Washington Times - Wednesday, January 31, 2018

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said Wednesday that working people aren’t seeing the America that President Trump described in his State of the Union address.

“I really appreciated the president’s optimism, and I’m sure that his friends, that’s the America they live in. But the people that I deal with, working people, aren’t seeing that same America,” Mr. Trumka said on Fox Business.

The head of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations said the issue with the president’s speech is that he doesn’t follow through on his words with action. He said the tax law, for example, was supposed to be primarily for working-class people, but argued that those people aren’t feeling the results of that policy.

“What he says doesn’t match with what he does a lot of times. And what he did in that tax policy was encourage people to outsource jobs,” Mr. Trumka explained.

He said some of the regulations the president has rolled back have also created more opportunity for workplace hazards and safety problems in labor industries, despite promising to help those sectors thrive.

Mr. Trumka has been a critic of Mr. Trump and gave a speech last week saying that the president’s policies have “actively hurt” workers, despite once sitting on the president’s business council.

• Sally Persons can be reached at spersons@washingtontimes.com.

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