From the Morning Memo:
Members of Western New York’s Area Labor Federation rallied in front of Republican Congressman Chris Collins’s office Tuesday evening. In response to Trump’s comments about women late last week, the union members are calling on Collins to withdraw his support for Trump.
Local AFL-CIO President Richard Lipsitz said the recording of Trump was not the only reason they were rallying – just the latest.
“It was a pretty egregious example of what we’ve been saying about him from the very beginning. He has a mean streak in him. He’s a bigot of all kinds. He obviously has a strong misogynist streak,” he said.
Collins has been steadfast in his support of the Republican nominee. He said he doesn’t plan to back away from his role as a top surrogate for Trump.
“It’s not surprising to us but we’re here to appeal to his better nature, none-the-less,” Lipsitz said.
The congressman said while he respects the union members’ right to protest he believes their support for Hillary Clinton is misguided. Collins said it was Clinton-endorsed trade policies that sent union jobs out of Western New York.
“How was NAFTA? That’s Hillary Clinton’s plan. Trans-Pacific Partnership, we’ll lose more of our jobs. If you want jobs in infrastructure, if you want jobs in manufacturing, Donald Trump is the only candidate who has a plan to bring those jobs back to the United States,” he said.
Lipsitz said that’s not the experience he’s had with the Democratic nominee. He said when Clinton was a U.S. Senator for New York, she stood up for area labor.
Meanwhile, he said Trump’s record in the private sector has been clearly anti-union.
“He has a track record. In New York he was notorious for short-changing contractors who worked for him, many of whom had union workers on the job. We know he hired immigrant labor that was not legal in this country to undercut wages. We know he’s against increasing the minimum wage,” Lipsitz said.