WASHINGTON, D.C. (NBCNC) – On a day celebrating labor, some mixed messages from the president for America’s workers.
Just days after announcing a freeze on federal employee wages, President Trump tweeting the American worker is doing better than ever before and attacking the head of the AFL-CIO, Richard Trumka, who disagrees. “Unfortunately, to date, the things that he’s done to hurt workers outpace what he’s done to help workers,” Trumka said.
On Sunday, Trumka told FOX News that despite unemployment rates, workers are suffering. “wages have been down since the first of the year,” he explained. Gas prices have been up since the first of the year. So, overall, workers aren’t doing as well.”
At Labor Day events around the country, some workers also voiced concern over the president’s policies.
Iron Workers Local 8 member Tony Mayrhofer said, “If manufacturers aren’t ready to go out and produce products our members aren’t going to work.”
President Trump, who calls this the strongest economy in history, signaled Friday he was rethinking his decision on a raise for federal workers. “People don’t want to give them any increase,” he said. “They haven’t had one in a long time. I said I’m going to study that over the weekend. It’s a good time to study that Labor Day. Let’s see how they do next week. But a lot of people were against it. I’m going to take a good hard look over the weekend.”
Congress can still add those wage increases into the budget on its own.
Federal workers will also have to worry about a government shutdown if Congress doesn’t pass a budget by the end of this month.
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