Press Mention E&E News August 25, 2020
Topical Mention
From ads to Twitter: How one group turned Trump on TVA
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The article chronicles how Kevin Lynn of U.S. Tech Workers nonprofit leveraged media campaigns and political connections to pressure the Tennessee Valley Authority over its plan to outsource 200 IT jobs, ultimately gaining President Trump's attention and support through an executive order on federal workforce protections. The story details Lynn's strategic use of TV advertising and social media to shift the narrative from a labor dispute to a federal jobs issue, culminating in a White House appearance with Trump in August 2020.
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From ads to Twitter: How one group turned Trump on TVA
By:
Kristi E. Swartz
,
Jennifer Yachnin
| 08/26/2020 07:27 AM EDT
In this Aug. 3 photo, Mark Meadows, assistant to the president and chief of staff, hands President Trump a note saying that he has just spoken with the Tennessee Valley Authority CEO, who said he would reverse course and suspend plans to outsource 200 information technology jobs. Kevin Lynn, founder of the U.S. Tech Workers nonprofit, is seated in front of Meadows.
ENERGYWIRE | This story was updated at 5:10 p.m. EDT.
Kevin Lynn candidly admits he had no direct links to President Trump earlier this year, when he decided to take on the Tennessee Valley Authority over reports it was preparing to outsource 20% of its federal workforce.
The nonprofit group he founded, U.S. Tech Workers, aims to limit visas given to foreign technology workers and has been dogged by accusations of nativism. By early May, Lynn had found little support among federal lawmakers for fighting TVA over its plan to lay off about 200 workers.
But three months later, Lynn appeared with Trump at the White House as the president signed an executive order aimed at preventing federal agencies from replacing U.S. jobs with foreign labor ( E&E News PM, Aug. 3). Trump bantered with Lynn about a 30-second TV spot that U.S. Tech Workers ran in mid-July in Tennessee, Alabama and Washington media markets — one that bashed TVA for proposing to hand over federal jobs to "companies that use foreign workers."