The President of United Auto Workers local 5285, Ricky McDowell, said that organized labor supports President Barack Obama because he saved their jobs.
“With the help of President Obama saving the Big Three, with the stimulus money, it saved the GM and Chrysler brothers and sisters. So without the support of the international union from Detroit, and if we had let Chrysler and Chevrolet and GM go down, there wouldn’t be a Big Three, there wouldn’t be an international union,” he told PBS during a Labor Day parade in Charlotte, North Carolina. “So he did save our jobs.”
Several hundred union members, drummers and step teams marched in the parade while chanting pro-union and pro-Obama slogans, hoping to draw attention to the fact that North Carolina is the nation’s least unionized state.
The Democratic National Convention is being held in Charlotte this year, beginning Tuesday, September 4th, and UAW president Bob King and AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka are both scheduled to speakers.
