Washington DC - Ford has refused to fire the factory worker who heckled President Donald Trump in January, and has left no mark against his personnel file.

As Trump was touring a Ford F-150 factory in Dearborn, Michigan last month, Thomas "TJ" Sabula loudly shouted "pedophile protector," a reference to the president's association with infamous sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein.

In response, the Republican shouted something and flipped off Sabula, before walked away.

Ford initially suspended Sabula over the incident, a move that was widely criticized as a violation of his freedom of speech rights. A fundraising effort reached nearly $800,000.

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United Auto Workers Vice President Laura Dickerson confirmed on Monday that Sabula – a union member – had not only kept his job, but the incident was not even marked in his personnel file.

According to Dickerson, who was speaking at a conference in Washington, Trump had explicitly demanded that Sabula be fired.

"This ain't 'The Apprentice,'" Dickerson said, per Reuters. "There was a worker at that plant that day who famously told Mr. Trump exactly what he thought of him."

"Unfortunately, in that moment, we saw what the current president really thinks about working people in the way he responded – he gave us the middle finger," she added.