Donald Trump promised to create a working-class Republican Party when he won the election in 2016. This is still more aspiration than reality. Too often, the party’s record on labour has been identical to what preceded Trump. But as Republicans head to their convention in Milwaukee in July, they have an opportunity to set a better tone: by siding with hospitality workers struggling to win recognition for their union at the Trade hotel, one of the city’s marquee venues.
“There’s nothing that would make me better off as a worker than having a union,” William, one of the activist workers, told me (he declined to use his real name for fear of retaliation from management). “I would ask the GOP to say to the hotel, ‘I’m not going to patronise your business if I hear that you are taking any kind of action against these workers and their right to have a union.’”
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