Beto O'Rourke: UAW is fighting for our future

LORDSTOWN — After spending time on the picket line in front of the idled General Motors complex, Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke said the striking United Auto Workers are not just fighting for themselves, but for the future of America.

“Without unions, these UAW members willing to strike, without the concessions that they must win, there’s a real chance we lose the middle class in a country that is already economically divided as it’s ever been,” O’Rourke said. “The wealth inequality in America is unprecedented at least in our lifetime. You’d have to go back to the last gilded age in this country to see anything close to that — so they’re really fighting for us.”

O’Rourke, a former Texas congressman, spent more than two hours Wednesday in Lordstown — first at a labor roundtable with a dozen people and then a visit to the main gate at the idled GM plant where about 30 people greeted him. O’Rourke carried five boxes of pizza to the picket line while a campaign worker carried another seven.

It was part of a two-day swing through Ohio for O’Rourke, who is struggling in the polls, that began Tuesday with stops at a UAW picket line in West Chester, and meeting voters in Dayton and Columbus. On Wednesday, he was in Lordstown and Kent (and started his day in Pittsburgh).

Read more: https://www.tribtoday.com/news/local-news/2019/09/beto-orourke%E2%80%88uaw-is-fighting-for-our-future/
(Warren, Ohio Tribune Chronicle)