Fox host: Auto workers strike is just “four or five guys in shorts”
Charles Payne also lies about the pay for striking workers
Written by Eric Kleefeld
Published
Fox News has been promoting a pro-management line on the United Auto Workers strike against General Motors. After first warning that the auto companies could get “squeezed” by the demands of a well-paid workforce, on Tuesday, Fox figures rolled out a new angle: There are barely any strikers at all.
Fox Business host Charles Payne appeared on Fox News’ America’s Newsroom to discuss the financial pressures on both the company and the union: “Well, it's a battle of wills, right?” he said. “The GM losing $100 million a day and striking workers making 200 bucks a day. Who can hold out the longest?” In fact, the UAW’s strike pay is only $250 per week — as acknowledged on Fox Business’ own website — only slightly above the federal poverty line on an annualized basis, and even below the minimum wage.
Payne then declared that the strike would be “really a tough one for the UAW leadership to continue to get its workers riled up about.”
“Listen, let's be honest. We've seen videos in front of these plants and — four or five guys in shorts. Look at this. I mean, that's not — that's probably a plant that has thousands of workers. You know, this is not like a strike, or you know, the kind of historic strikes that we've known or used to be accustomed to. And it's going to be a tough one.”
Fox News’s allegedly “hard news” co-anchor Bill Hemmer agreed with Payne, adding: “You’re not wrong.”
But even just a quick search on Twitter would’ve shown these supposed journalists videos and photos from local reporters of some genuine picket lines: