It will be a day at the beach for President Trump’s re-election campaign on Labor Day.
The campaign is taking to the skies on Labor Day to fly banners over beach-goers to show its thanks for workers fueling the economy.
“Labor Day is the perfect time to thank American workers for everything they do for our country,” said Tim Murtaugh, Trump campaign communications director.
“Under President Trump’s policies, the economy is strong and growing, and more Americans are working than ever before. The American economy is the envy of the world and our American workers are the best on the planet.”
Airplanes will fly banners over beaches in five cities in critical swing states — Detroit, Michigan; Cleveland, Ohio; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Erie, Pennsylvania; and Virginia Beach, Virginia — on Labor Day afternoon that say “Trump-Pence thanks our great American workers” and “Text ‘Jobs’ to 88022.”
Plans to advertise to beachgoers in Fort Lauderdale and Miami Beach, Florida, were canceled because of Hurricane Dorian.
Campaign manager Brad Parscale tweeted last week they are “reaching into our bag of tricks” for the advertising effort.
“It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s @TeamTrump!,” he posted last Thursday.
While his re-election campaign was lauding the contribution of American workers, Trump was blasting the head of the largest trade union in the country.
The president said he watched AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka’s Sunday interview on Fox News in which the labor leader criticized Trump’s USMCA plan to replace NAFTA and his trade war with China.
“We got robbed on Trade and everything else while his Dems just sat back and watched. NAFTA is the worst Trade Deal ever made – terrible for labor – and Richard let it stand. No wonder unions are losing so much,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “The workers will vote for me in 2020 (lowest unemployment, most jobs ever), and should stop paying exorbitant $Dues, not worth it!”
The Trump campaign’s outreach comes as a report shows that the number of workers who are union members has plummeted by half in the last 35 years — falling from 20.1 percent in 1983 to 10.5 percent in 2018, Axios reported.
It also found that union membership fell the most in states Trump won in 2016 but where manufacturing has been in decline — Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
The analysis showed that New York — with 22.3 percent of its workforce union members — is second only to Hawaii at 23.1 percent.
The national average is 10.5 percent.
The Empire State’s numbers are bolstered by worker participation in public-sector and construction trade unions.