Biden, Trump to woo union workers in Michigan as auto strikes grow
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Striking auto workers picket outside Ford's Michigan assembly plant to seek wage rises to match CEO pay jumps.
PHOTO: REUTERS
WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden and Donald Trump will speak to striking auto workers
Mr Biden is joining striking United Auto Workers (UAW) members on a picket line
Republican rival Trump, the front-runner to be his party’s 2024 presidential candidate, will address hundreds of workers at a gathering at an auto supplier in a Detroit suburb on Wednesday. The supplier, Drake Enterprises, is a non-union manufacturer, according to a spokesman at the AFL-CIO.
Mr Biden said on Monday that the UAW gave up “an incredible amount” when the auto industry was struggling and the union “saved the automobile industry”, an apparent reference to a 2009 government bailout that included wage cuts.
“Now that the industry is roaring back, they should participate in the benefits,” he said.
UAW president Shawn Fain was expected to join Mr Biden at the picket line on Tuesday, said a source familiar with the matter. The union is not involved with Trump’s visit, and Mr Fain does not plan to attend that event, the source added.
To date, the UAW has declined to support either 2024 presidential candidate, making it the only major union not to back Mr Biden.
“We are a long way from the general election, but it sure feels like the general election,” said Mr Dave Urban, a Republican strategist who previously worked for Trump.
UAW workers in September began targeted strikes against General Motors, Ford and Chrysler parent Stellantis to seek wage rises to match CEO pay jumps, shorter work weeks and job security as the industry moves toward electric vehicles.
The White House is having discussions about ways to blunt any economic fallout from a full walkout.
Only 10.1 per cent of US workers were union members in 2022, but they have outsized political influence because the states where they are strong often swing from Democrat to Republican, and they have grassroots networks that are powerful.
Striking auto workers say they would like to see more support from elected officials as they push to get companies to share more of the profits.
“There definitely needs to be more of a light shined on the auto industry,” said Mr Brandon Cappelletty, 25, who was on a picket line in Toledo, Ohio, last week.
“The politicians need to back us a lot more.”
Rust Belt in the balance?
The auto industry and its labour movement are deeply intertwined with Michigan’s politics and that of other Mid-western US states.
Mr Biden has made support for unions a cornerstone of his economic policies.
As president, he has emphasised reinvestment in US manufacturing, union jobs and workers’ rights, even though he is struggling to impress voters with his economic stewardship as he campaigns for a second term.
Trump, who sometimes fought with unions as a real estate developer, slashed corporate taxes as president and generally backed the interests of businesses over labour.
The Trump administration’s stance on labour issues was “unconditionally anti-union”, said Professor Robert Bruno, who teaches labour and employment relations at the University of Illinois.
In 2016, Trump earned a level of support from union members that no Republican had reached since Mr Ronald Reagan, helping him narrowly capture critical states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.
Mr Biden rebounded with unions in 2020, with a roughly 16 percentage point advantage as he reclaimed those so-called Rust Belt states, which have been scarred by decades of job losses as companies moved jobs to lower-cost, often non-union locations. He won Michigan in 2020 by some 154,000 votes.
Republicans believe Mr Biden’s push to electrify America’s vehicle fleet, by pumping billions of dollars of tax rebates into EV manufacturing, is unpopular with auto workers.
“Bidenflation and Biden’s insane EV mandate have put the state of Michigan and the critical constituency of working middle class voters in Michigan in play,” said Mr Jason Miller, a senior Trump adviser.
In Michigan, Trump will criticise Mr Biden’s economic policies and incentives promoting EVs and say he would do a better job of protecting blue-collar workers if elected to a second term, Mr Miller added.
Trump is banking on driving a wedge between union members and their leaders, who criticised the former president’s labour policies during his term.
Ms Karen Finney, a Democratic strategist, said it is critical for Mr Biden to make the trip to Michigan to ensure that Trump does not rewrite history.
“Biden is saying that we are not just going to let you go there and lie to people and try to change the conversation,” Ms Finney said.
Mr Biden’s Michigan visit represents the most support a sitting president has shown striking workers since Theodore Roosevelt invited striking coal workers to the White House in 1902, historians said.
As a presidential candidate, then former vice-president Biden joined multiple picket lines, including a UAW picket in Kansas City in 2019. REUTERS
