We know many of you are motivated by matters that the IBEW does not and will not take a position on.

But on your income, your safety, and your power as a citizen and working man or woman, the IBEW does take a position.

Donald Trump isn't a mystery like he was eight years ago.

He has a record, as a developer and as president.

He has a comprehensive and specific plan for a second term known as Project 2025.

On this page of The Electrical Worker are just part of the record he built for himself, what he plans to do if he is given power again and what some of his allies have already done to hurt the IBEW.

All of the information is public, including Project 2025, which was written by more than a hundred members of his administration.

We put this record before you and leave it to you to decide.

The DEATH OF Local 1205's Ocala Unit

It's no exaggeration to say the Republican plan is to kill unions.

They are already doing it, and it's hit IBEW workers.

For more than a decade, a unit inside Gainesville, Fla., Local 1205 has represented 400 municipal workers, including crime scene technicians, electric system operators, park workers and code enforcement workers in Ocala.

That unit is gone, along with the unions of tens of thousands of other Floridians because they fell afoul of a Republican law designed to kill unions in Florida.

The state passed a one-two punch against state workers' unions.

First, they made paycheck deduction illegal, making it harder to pay dues.

Then the state decertified any unit of state workers if it had less than 60% of the membership fully paid up at the end of the year.

Even if a majority of workers wanted the union and are paid in full, their union was taken away.

The state says the contract is still valid, but who enforces it? If the contract isn't followed, who can file a grievance? Does each worker have to put up the money for arbitration?

No one knows.

And there is nothing to stop the state from raising the bar from 60%. Until 2023, the number was 50%, but not enough locals were decertified. It was only then that Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Republican Legislature raised the bar to 60%.

And there is nothing to keep this law from going after your union next.

Trump Can't Wash His Hands of Project 2025

Donald Trump praised Project 2025 and its authors at the Heritage Foundation for months before it gained wider notice and then ridicule.

In 2022, Trump spoke at Heritage and said, "This is a great group, and they're going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do … when the American people give us a colossal mandate to save America."

Once it became clear how radical — and unpopular — the playbook was, Trump backtracked furiously, insisting it all had nothing to do with him.

But here are the facts.

Thirty-one of the project's 38 section editors had roles in his administration, including six former Cabinet secretaries. The editor overseeing the section on labor policy, Jonathan Berry, was Trump's regulatory director at the Department of Labor.

Trump's director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, wrote the section on executive power.

When he finished his work on 2025, he then headed the committee that wrote the Republican platform for this year.

In a video released in mid-August, Vought waved away Trump's rejection of Project 2025.

"I see what he's doing is just very, very conscious distancing himself from a brand," Vought said. "It's interesting, he's in fact not even opposing himself to a particular policy."

As Democratic vice presidential nominee Gov. Tim Walz said, "If you're going to take the time to draw up a playbook, you're damn sure going to use it."

Developer Donald Trump Stiffed, Sued,
Fought and Avoided Unions

Before Donald Trump became a reality TV star and then a professional politician, he built stuff.

When he built where unions were strong in the '80s and '90s, he hired union workers, though he often had to be taken to court to pay up.

But for the last 30 years, Trump has mostly built where laws keep unions weak, and there he almost always built nonunion.

Outside of New York and Atlantic City, N.J., for every union-built development, Trump built about two nonunion.

Even his famous home in New York City, Trump Tower, was built using 200 undocumented workers. He fought in court for 20 years to avoid paying the back wages and benefits he owed.

Whether he built union or not, not paying workers was a constant.

Trump faced at least 60 lawsuits for not paying contractors and was sued 24 times for violating the Fair Labor Standards Act.

It was so common, people inside the Trump Organization called it the "Trump discount."

"This is not complicated," said Miami Local 349 Business Manager and International Executive Committee member Bill Riley, who watched Trump project after Trump project go nonunion. "Trump supports policies that are most common in those places where unions are weak, and where unions are weak, he hires nonunion."

But then he has always been clear what he thinks, telling a South Carolina radio station in 2015, "I am 100% right to work."

Trump's Anti-Worker Record as President, in Brief

A selection of 10 of the worst policies and feats:

1. There never was an Infrastructure Week.

2. Oversaw the loss of 2.7 million jobs.

3. Blocked extended unemployment benefits during the pandemic shutdown.

4. Passed a $2.3 trillion tax cut for the bosses while raising taxes on the union members who work for them through the elimination of tax deductions for dues and work expenses.

5. Ended the ban on companies that cheat workers and bust unions winning government contracts.

6. Ended the requirement that companies report on-the-job injuries and deaths.

7. Barred 8 million workers from being eligible for overtime, stealing over $700 million per year from their wallets.

8. Gutted OSHA so it had fewer inspectors than any time in recent history and did 5,000 fewer inspections per year than under the Obama or Bush administrations.

9. Made it easier for employers to fire or punish workers protesting unsafe working conditions.

10. Exiled the tally of worker deaths from OSHA's homepage.