JC Reindl

Detroit Free Press

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton struck a hard populist tone on economic matters during a factory visit today in northwest Detroit, bashing Wall Street, tax-avoiding inversion deals, executive pay, Chinese trade practices and also lamenting the decline of labor unions.

"Companies have to start treating workers as assets to be invested in -- not costs to be cut," Clinton told a crowd of several hundred supporters and factory employees at auto supplier Detroit Manufacturing Systems.

Clinton is visiting Michigan ahead of Tuesday's primary and Sunday's debate in Flint with her Democratic primary opponent Sen. Bernie Sanders, whom she leads in most Michigan polls and in the number of delegates already awarded.

Meanwhile Sanders, speaking Friday night at a rally in western Michigan, repeated his charge that Clinton has backed trade deals that have had “disastrous” consequences for workers. He has sought to diminish her standing by implying she waffled when she initially called the Trans Pacific Partnership trade the “gold standard” as secretary of state but later opposed the deal.

“It’s not just the loss of jobs that resulted from these trade agreements,” Sanders said. “Right now in manufacturing plants in Michigan, many of the new jobs that are being created are paying substantially less than the older jobs because companies are saying, ‘If you do not accept these low wages, we are going to move to China or Mexico.’”

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Clinton, during her 36-minute speech on the factory floor, hammered on many themes that have also been hallmarks of her Democratic opponent's campaign: income inequality and misbehavior by Wall Street and corporate elites. She lamented the gap in recent decades between higher workforce productivity in the U.S. yet slower rising wages, which she attributed in part to the diminishing strength of labor unions.

"Instead of good-paying jobs, millions of Americans are stuck with low-paying work," Clinton said. "Now corporate profits and CEO pay are rising, but paychecks for working families have barely budged."

She said that "too many" corporations undervalue their workers. She blasted a "casino culture on Wall Street" that has come to lean on taxpayers stepping in during times of trouble. "We need to make sure Wall Street never wrecks Main Street again," she said.

The former Secretary of State spoke of her proposed "New Bargain" for U.S. workers that would contain clawback provisions of tax relief or development incentives offered to businesses that later decide to move jobs or production abroad.

She denounced as unpatriotic so-called tax inversion deals when U.S. companies shift headquarters overseas either through a merger or by being acquired -- oftentimes by a smaller company -- to save money on taxes.

"I call it perversion but the tax code calls it inversion," she said.

Clinton was given a tour of Detroit Manufacturing Systems' massive, airline hangar-like factory by its Vice President of Operations Eddie Martin. She made small talk with company employees, who showed the former U.S. Senator and First Lady their workstations and answered questions about their work and backgrounds.

During her speech, Clinton gave shout outs to Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan and the Democrats in Michigan's Congressional delegation who were in attendance, including former U.S. Rep. John Dingell, whom she praised for his lively social media presence. "He is the king of Twitter," she quipped.

But she was less flattering in her remarks about Thursday's Republican presidential candidate debate in downtown Detroit. She said it was hard to keep track of the many insults lobbed that night in the Fox Theatre, "but the biggest insult of all" was the scant airtime devoted to the economy.

"Maybe that's because all of the Republican candidates support the same failing policies: cut taxes for the rich, get out of the way of corporations, don't raise the minimum wage."

Clinton went on to attack China, which she called "by far the worst rule breaker in the world" on trade matters for unfairly subsidizing state-owned businesses, manipulating its currency and dumping cheap exports.

She warned how "now that China's economy is slowing down we can expect even more bad acts from them."

Clinton also singled out for criticism Milwaukee-based auto supplier Johnson Controls, which has multiple Michigan sites and earlier this year announced a merger with Tyco International in a tax inversion deal. The deal would relocate Johnson Controls' headquarters to Ireland and potentially save both companies a combined $150 million annually in taxes.

Clinton said it was cavalier for the company to pursue such a strategy after having once urged passage of the auto bailout, which ultimately helped save the company's business.

"So everybody here, all of us taxpayers, we helped save Johnson Controls," Clinton said.

In response to Clinton's remarks, a Johnson Controls spokesman emphasized that the company did not request or take any bailout money and never sought bankruptcy. Johnson Controls has had a vital role in the U.S. economy's recovery and growth, the spokesman said, and its planned merger with Tyco will lead to more investment and long-term value for shareholders and customers.

Contact JC Reindl: 313-222-6631 or jcreindl@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter@JCReindl. Associated Press contributed.