Joe Biden was the first US president to join a picket in support of union workers. He joined UAW members during their strike on Tuesday against the Big Three Automakers. Biden said […]: “The truth is that you guys, the UAW, saved the automobile industry in 2008 and even before,” Biden said.
On Tuesday, UAW President Shawn Fain and President Joe Biden spoke. AP Evan Vucci
Fight misinformation by subscribing to Mother Jones Daily’s completely newsletter and keeping up with important news. When Joe Biden joined UAW members on Tuesday during their strike against the Big Three automakers, he became the second president in US history to visit a picket line in support of union workers.
Biden told Michigan workers,” The fact of the matter is that you guys– the UAW– you saved the automobile industry up in 2008 and before.” ” Made a great deal of sacrifices.” sacrificed a lot. Additionally, the businesses were in trouble. They’re currently doing very well. What do you think? You ought to be doing fantastically as effectively. It’s an easy proposition, really.
” People, persevere with it.” While donning a UAW baseball cap, he said,” It’s time you deserve to get paid significantly and get another benefits.” Let’s recover what we lost.
In support of striking autoworkers, President Biden joins the UAW picket line in Detroit:
You merit the sizable pay raise you require as well as other advantages. pic. LPKBTpSWtw on Twitter
— September 26, 2023, The Recount(@ therecount )
UAW President Shawn Fain, a reformer who has steered the union more militantly since being elected earlier this year, joined Biden. The second time in our nation’s history that a US president who is currently in office has come out and stood on the picket line, according to Fain, is” a traditional moment.” ” In our fight for economic and social justice, our president has chosen to stand up with workers.”
According to Fain, the picket site in Van Buren Township previously contributed significantly to the” arsenal of democracy” by producing B-24 bombers during World War II. He described how a novel kind of war is being fought today. The enemy isn’t a foreign nation miles apart today, Fain said. It’s business greed, ideal here in our own neighborhood.
” The businesses were in trouble. They are currently performing extremely well. And what do you think? You ought to be doing fantastically as effectively. It’s a straightforward idea, Biden said. One day prior to Donald Trump’s speech at Drake Enterprises, a non-union parts manufacturer northwest of Detroit, the visit is made. Despite the fact that his administration has continuously violated the rights of union workers, Trump is attempting to portray himself as a supporter of autoworkers. He contends that by preventing the switch to electric vehicles, which he claims will” automatically” be produced in China, the auto industry will be preserved. Although it isn’t a long-term strategy, workers who are worried that the Biden administration’s EV push will harm union labor may find it appealing. Fain has criticized Trump’s visit, claiming that” every fiber of our union is being poured into fighting the philanthropist class and an economy that enriches people like Donald Trump at the expense of workers.”
Since the strike started earlier this month, Biden has reaffirmed the UAW’s demands, arguing that the record profits should” mean record contracts” for the organization. Fain criticized the Biden administration this summer for giving Ford and its South Korean partner, SK On, more than$ 9 billion in loans to build battery plants in the South without including provisions to protect union jobs, which led to the president’s support. The administration is attempting to demonstrate its commitment to a” just transition” to electric vehicles to the UAW, which has not yet endorsed Biden.
Biden vowed to be the” most pro-union” president in history before taking office. He broke with tradition on his second day in office by dismissing Peter Robb, the National Labor Relations Board’s public counsel during the Trump administration. In what is regarded as possibly his most significant action in support of organized labor, Biden replaced Robb with NLRB veteran Jennifer Abruzzo.
Biden vowed to be the” most pro-union” president in history before taking office. Later, he helped workers in Bessemer, Alabama, who were attempting to unionize an Amazon warehouse. At the time, Nelson Lichtenstein, a labor historian who oversees the University of California-Santa Barbara’s Center for the Study of Work, Labor, and Democracy, claimed that Biden had never supported an continued union drive.
However, Biden infuriated union supporters late next year by intervening to stop a rail worker strike. Lichtenstein wrote via email last week that” Biden’s rhetoric about being the most pro-union president since FDR is great, but not so critical, certainly not after his action on the rail strike.” ” If the UAW wins something significant in the coming weeks, he might actually seal the deal.”
Following the Obama administration’s bailout of Chrysler( now Stellantis ) and General Motors during the Great Recession, the UAW is attempting to reclaim the pay and benefits it forfeited in order to aid the recovery of the Big Three. A four-day work week, the right to strike over plant closures, key pay increases, a restoration of cost-of-living adjustments and defined-benefit pension plans, and an end to tiered wages that divide union members are all demands made by the union. Over the past ten years, the businesses have made$ 250 billion in profits, and the first half of this year saw an additional$ 21 billion profit.
When the Big Three and the UAW were able to come to an agreement before their four-year agreements expired on September 15, the strike started. At three Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis-owned plants, there were immediately about 13, 000 UAW members on strike.
According to UAW President Shawn Fain,” I see these CEOs try to justify a system where they take all the profit and the workers are left to fight for the scraps and survive paycheck to paycheck.” Ford has now made substantial concessions, such as agreeing to restore cost-of-living adjustments that protect workers from inflation, according to Fain, who said next week,” That’s got to end.” The UAW expanded the strike to 38 parts distribution centers owned by the two companies on Friday in response to the lack of progress at GM and Stellantis. About 5,500 UAW members work at the facilities, which are dispersed across 20 states from coast to coast.
In the past, the UAW has pushed the various two Big Three members to accept the first agreement after focusing on one of them. The union has never before targeted all three at once. Union leaders can increase the strike as necessary, save money, and keep executives guessing which plants will shut down next thanks to the new targeted strategy. Just about 18, 000 of the almost 150, 000 UAW members at the Big Three have so much struck. The factories that produce the pickup trucks that are crucial to the Big Three’s middle lines have not yet been targeted by the union.
Fain has made it evident that he sees the strike as a component of an even bigger conflict. ” I observe these CEOs attempting to defend a system in which they keep all the money while leaving the workers to struggle for scraps and live paycheck to paycheck.” That must come to an end. They assert that their uniqueness makes them deserving of the entire profit. What do you know? They are unique ,” he remarked as Biden observed. These CEOs are seated in workplaces. They participate in meetings and decide what to do. However, we produce the product.
When Joe Biden joined UAW members on Tuesday during their strike against the Big Three automakers, he became the second president in US history to visit a picket line in support of union workers. ” The fact of the matter is that you guys– the UAW– you saved the automotive industry up in 2008 and when ,” Biden said.
Joe Biden was the first US president to join a picket in support of union workers. He joined UAW members during their strike on Tuesday against the Big Three Automakers. Biden said […]: “The truth is that you guys, the UAW, saved the automobile industry in 2008 and even before,” Biden said.
