Talking trade.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, a Southwestern Pennsylvania native, will hold a town hall in Pittsburgh on Monday, June 17 alongside local labor leaders discussing their demand for improvements in the ongoing renegotiations for NAFTA.
“For more than 25 years, workers have been devastated by NAFTA and trade rules that benefit corporations at our expense,” the release said from the AFL-CIO promoting the event.
The Trump administration has been promoting the USMCA proposal in recent weeks as an alternative to NAFTA. Vice President Mike Pence promoted the trade deal in Pennsylvania last week while visiting a manufacturing facility in York County and headlining a Pennsylvania Republican Party dinner.
Trumka has not endorsed the revised trade agreement proposal, but said in recent weeks that the group is trying to get there, but can’t support it yet.
The AFL-CIO endorsed Sec. Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election against President Donald Trump, but steered clear of endorsing in the Democratic primary between Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).
The AFL-CIO has yet to endorse a candidate in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary and a spokesperson from the group told The Atlantic in late April that they were “in no rush to settle” and are hoping for a candidate to be an “unapologetic advocate for the labor movement.”
The stop in Pittsburgh is a part of a three city swing with stops in Ohio and Michigan discussing trade deals.