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UAW PRESIDENT DENOUNCES TRUMP-GOP BUDGET LAW AS ‘TOTAL BETRAYAL’
OF AMERICAN WORKING CLASS  
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Jake Johnson
July 9, 2025
Common Dreams
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_ "This bill isn't governance," said United Auto Workers president
Shawn Fain. "This is a class war waged from Capitol Hill." _

UAW president Shawn Fain speaks during a rally outside of the UAW
Local 51 office in Detroit in October 2024., Ryan Garza, Detroit Free
Press

 

After Republicans pushed their unpopular reconciliation package
through Congress last week, U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson hailed the
legislation as a step toward "a future where working Americans can
feel relief."

But Shawn Fain, the president of the United Auto Workers (UAW), argued
in an op-ed
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for _The Detroit News_ that such "hollow promises" are an attempt to
obscure "a brutal agenda: stripping working-class people of security,
dignity, and power while lining the pockets of billionaires" with
trillions of dollars in tax breaks.

"The budget reconciliation bill that the Republicans just passed isn't
just bad policy—it's a full-blown attack on America's working
class," wrote Fain. "For the UAW and the millions of workers we
represent, four core issues define what it means to live and work with
dignity: a livable wage, affordable healthcare, retirement security,
and time to enjoy life beyond the job. On every one of those fronts,
this bill delivers nothing but setbacks."

Fain pointed specifically to the GOP law's more than $1 trillion in
cuts to Medicaid. Those cuts, combined with Republicans' refusal to
extend Affordable Care Act subsidies that are set to lapse at the end
of the year, are expected to strip health coverage from around 17
million Americans over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan
Congressional Budget Office.

The UAW president also points to the Republican law's lesser-known
attack on Medicare recipients. The legislation, which
President Donald Trump
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last week, would restrict enrollment
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Medicare Savings Programs—potentially causing more than a million
low-income seniors
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lose access—and force more than $500 billion
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to Medicare.

"These aren't numbers on a spreadsheet," Fain wrote. "These are real
people losing access to lifesaving care."

While the Trump White House and congressional Republicans have tried
to cast the budget law's tax provisions as worker-friendly—in some
cases
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lying
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what's in the legislation—Fain noted that the law's limited
deductions for tips and overtime will only benefit a small sliver of
Americans, and only until 2028.

"On the other hand, many of the tax benefits in this bill for the
wealthy are indefinite and have no expiration date," Fain wrote. "This
is the same bait-and-switch the Trump administration used to sell its
2017 billionaire tax giveaway to the American people: small, temporary
tax breaks for working people, with massive, long-term benefits for
the wealthy and corporate America."

"This bill isn't governance. This is a class war waged from Capitol
Hill," Fain continued. "It shifts the balance of power even further
toward the billionaire class and hollows out the rights and dignity of
labor. By passing this legislation, the government is telling
working-class families they're on their own while billionaires get
even more tax breaks."

"It's a total betrayal," he added.

Fain is among many prominent labor leaders who spoke out forcefully
against the Republican budget measure and warned about its potentially
catastrophic impact on millions of workers.

National Nurses United, the nation's largest nurses union, called
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day of the bill's final passage one of "the darkest days in the
history of U.S. healthcare."

"People will suffer and die because of the cuts in this legislation to
fund tax cuts for billionaires—certainly in the short term and
potentially for decades to come if nothing is done," the union said.
"Lawmakers have effectively signed the death warrants for millions."

Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, said
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"every member of Congress who voted for this devastating bill picked
the pockets of working people to hand billionaires a $5 trillion
gift."

"But if the politicians who rammed through this shameful bill think
they can sneak away without anyone knowing the damage they've done and
the chaos they've created," said Shuler, "they don't know anything
about the labor movement."

_Jake Johnson is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams._

* Big Beautiful Bill
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* Worker's Betrayal
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* UAW President Shawn Fain
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