On Tuesday, President Joe Biden went to Michigan to join the United Auto Workers auto workers on the picket line after the union expanded striking to 38 additional GM and Stellantis facilities. While Ford has made significant headway with the UAW, even stalling construction of a Michigan battery plant as talks progress, it’s likewise still subject to strikes.
Considering UAW leadership has been extremely clear that it doesn’t want politicians interfering with negotiations since day one, it’s unclear what Biden will be doing during his trip. Thus far, he’s given a few speeches and pledged his support for unionized labor. But his position on electric vehicles has left the UAW with a lukewarm attitude.
Mimicking what we’ve seen from Germany’s IG Metall, the UAW has grown increasingly skeptical of all-electric vehicles. While the president has assured Americans that aggressively pushing for EVs will result in high-paying jobs, they also require fewer hands on the assembly line and the lion’s share of battery components still stem from outside of the country. Included in the union’s demands ( which we’ve covered before) is the request for manufacturers to guarantee jobs as they pivot toward EVs to adhere to government regulations.
By contrast, Donald Trump has repeatedly suggested softening those regulations under the assumption it will result in more domestic jobs, a varied automotive lineup, and lower prices for the typical consumer. He also announced that he was planning to visit the UAW with speeches scheduled for Wednesday.
While the union may have asked for the strike not to turn into a political circus, the situation was probably unavoidable. Trump has accused Biden of heading to Michigan for little more than photo opportunities while he himself already planned to go there to sway union members ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
It is what it is and the union can pretend not to like the attention. But it’s being presented with golden opportunities here. The UAW’s relationship with the Democratic party has been relatively consistent until recently, with members starting to gravitate toward Republican candidates since 2012. More recent changes in the union’s leadership has also made it much more hesitant to openly engage with party members from either side. They claim not to be interested in help from any politicians they cannot reliably count on.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump remains the Republican front runner by a wide margin and has made a concerted effort to inquire about what members hope to achieve. The UAW now has both parties hoping to gain its favor and that’s an enviable place to be — assuming the union has managed to put its history of corruption in the past.
This all bodes well for striking UAW members. But the interjection of politics can also serve as a distraction from the union achieving its goals if the political support is anything less than earnest.
From CNN:
While Biden has repeatedly touted his status as the most pro-labor president, the UAW has yet to offer an endorsement of his reelection bid. Union members, once a reliable Democratic voting bloc, have gradually gravitated to Republican candidates, according to CNN polls and the AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest labor federation. The historic presidential picket line appearance will reaffirm his commitment to the critical voting and organizing group ahead of the 2024 election.
Biden said Tuesday that he is “not worried about that” when he was asked about the UAW not endorsing him yet.
That background of union support and the withheld endorsement has piled the pressure on Biden to do more to support the workers, but White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre would not explicitly say that the president backs the UAW’s specific demands.
“He is standing with the workers,” Jean-Pierre told reporters at a press briefing Monday. “We are not involved in negotiations. That is something for them to decide what is going to work for the parties that are involved, but he is standing with the autoworkers. That’s what the president is doing.”
Jean-Pierre said Biden had accepted an invitation from United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain, who will walk the picket lines with the president on Tuesday. Asked whether the visit and declarations of support for the workers meant that Biden was taking their side in negotiations, the press secretary said she was “not going to get into negotiations from here.”
“This is for the parties to negotiate,” she said. “We’re not going to speak to what’s being put at the table. What we have said over and over again is that we believe there’s an opportunity here for a win-win agreement.”
For what it’s worth, Biden has at least issued verbal support of the UAW.
“I think the UAW gave up an incredible amount back when the automobile industry was going under,” Biden said Monday during a meeting with his HBCU advisory board. “They gave everything, from their pensions on. And they saved the automobile industry. And I think that now that the industry is roaring back, they should participate in the benefit of that.
“If you take a look at the significant increase in salaries for executives, growth in the industry, they should benefit from it. So, yes, I support — I’ve always supported the UAW.”
Trump has said much less on the matter beyond suggesting the union should oppose EVs if it hopes to retain domestic jobs, though he has said that he’s interested in learning more about what kind of policies union members would like to see implemented. Realistically speaking, that’s all a president can do without getting directly involved in negotiations.
UAW President Shawn Fain had some unkind thoughts to share about Trump’s forthcoming speeches, however.
"Every fiber of our union is being poured into fighting the billionaire class and an economy that enriches people like Donald Trump at the expense of workers," said Fain in a statement shared by the Detroit Free Press. "We can’t keep electing billionaires and millionaires that don’t have any understanding what it is like to live paycheck to paycheck and struggle to get by and expecting them to solve the problems of the working class.”
Considering union leadership (including Fain) has already appeared in a several photos opportunities with Joe Biden, it seems like it may still have a soft spot for Democrats. Though one could likewise view Fain’s words as generally skeptical of the status quo of politics.
Whatever the case, the union was never going to fully avoid politicking. It never does. We’ll just have to hope that leadership keeps its eyes on the prize and doesn’t once again end up burning members in exchange for influence.
[Image: UAW]
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