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News > U.S.

Shell Union Coerced into Attending Trump Speech, or Lose Pay

  • Shell oil sign, reuters

    Shell oil sign, reuters | Photo: Reuters

Published 17 August 2019
Opinion

A supervisor told union workers at a Royal Dutch Shell plant in western Pennsylvania that only those who went to the president's rally would be paid: 'NO SCAN, NO PAY.'

Union workers at a Royal Dutch Shell manufacturing plant were put between a rock and a hard place, threatened with loss of pay if they refused to attend U.S. President Donald Trump’s speech on Tuesday at the company's Shell Pennsylvania Petrochemicals Complex in Monaca, Pennsylvania.

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According to the Pittsburgh Gazette, union leaders received a letter from their contractor at first informing them their attendance at the event was voluntary. However, a supervisor later revised the memo, saying only those who sat through the lengthy event would be paid, writing explicitly, “NO SCAN, NO PAY.”

Shell contractors testified to the new attendance policy at the president's speech, saying they would have lost their overtime pay already built in to their 56-hour workweek.

“No yelling, shouting, protesting or anything viewed as resistance will be tolerated at the event. An underlying theme of the event is to promote good will from the unions. Your building trades leaders and jobs stewards have agreed to this,” the employees were instructed, according to the Pennsylvania newspaper.

Although “America’s Energy Dominance and Manufacturing Revival” was listed as Trump’s main talking point, the president instead focused on criticizing his Democratic competitors campaigning for a bid in the 2020 elections. He took credit for the US$6 billion plant’s construction, though the Obama administration was the one responsible for approving the structure in 2016.

“I’m going to speak to some of your union leaders to say, ’I hope you’re going to support Trump.' If they don’t, vote them the hell out of office because they’re not doing their job,” the U.S. head of state told Shell employees.

“It was the Trump administration that made it possible. No one else. Without us, you would never have been able to do this,” claimed Trump.

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