WASHINGTON - President Joe Biden will travel to Michigan on Tuesday to join United Auto Workers on the picket line in one of the most extraordinary displays of support a president has ever taken in the middle of a labor dispute.
Biden’s trip comes after United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain invited Biden to the picket line in remarks Friday as the UAW ratchets up its strike against the nation’s three largest automakers.
“Tuesday, I’ll go to Michigan to join the picket line and stand in solidarity with the men and women of UAW as they fight for a fair share of the value they helped create,” Biden said in a statement. “It’s time for a win-win agreement that keeps American auto manufacturing thriving with well-paid UAW jobs.”
Further details about Biden’s trip, including which striking site he will visit, remain unclear.
Former President Donald Trump, the frontrunner to capture the 2024 Republican nomination, has said he plans to meet with striking auto workers in the Detroit area Wednesday in a push to court rank-and-file union members and other blue-collar workers for his 2024 run.
Biden faced pressure from progressives to join UAW workers on the picket line after Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Sen. Bernie Sanders and others each traveled to striking sites this week.
For the first time Friday, Fain publicly invited Biden to the picket line.
“We invite and encourage everyone who supports our cause to join us on the picket line − from our friends and families, all the way up to the president of the United States,” Fain said.
Biden faces a political tightrope with the UAW strike. He has decades of close ties with organized labor and said he wants to be known as the “most pro-union president” in U.S history. But Biden also wants to avoid national economic repercussions that could result from a prolonged strike.
Biden has endorsed UAW’s demands for higher pay, saying last week that “record corporate profits, which they have, should be shared by record contracts for the UAW.” But at the request of the UAW, Biden has stayed out of negotiations with Ford Motor Co., General Motors and Stellantis.
Fain extended the invitation after announcing plans to expand UAW’s strike to 38 new sites across 20 states. He said the union has made good progress with Ford Motor Co. this week, but General Motors and Stellantis “will need some pushing.”
White House press secretary Jean-Pierre said the White House “will do everything that we possibly can to help in any way that the parties would like us to.”
A White House team led by Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su and White House adviser Gene Sperling was originally scheduled to visit Detroit this week. But the trip was scrapped after UAW’s leadership made it clear they did not want help at the negotiating table.
The rail strike affected the supply chain, it wasn’t just a straight up workers vs. the company kind of thing. A lot of collateral damage to consider downstream. And he hardly fucked them over. He forced a deal that was likely how it would’ve worked out anyway.
Biden has done more for unions than any President in history. That just doesn’t fit with the doomer narrative though.
The damage is the fucking point.
Yes, that’s the doomer philosophy. But you understand there are people that aren’t doomers that like having groceries on the shelves at the store?
What should have happened here is that Biden should have pressured the companies to resolve the strike as quickly as possible.
Workers generally don’t like striking. Not getting paid sucks. It’s really the only lever of power they have in a lot of cases though.
Banning their ability to strike means that the only options they have left are to suck up whatever awful conditions they have or quit. Quitting en mass would do the same damage you’re talking about, but far more permanently.
He did. The companies were forced to accept Biden’s deal just as much as the union was forced to accept the deal. It’s just being characterized as Biden forcing the union to accept in the narratives you’re consuming.
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And? The point of strikes are to put pressure on the employers because they haven’t responded to workers demands. If they aren’t going to pay a wage worth the work or benefits like employees being able to spend time with their families or take sick leave, they aren’t entitled to the workers time, or labors.
And the knock on effects like let’s say… not being able to get your groceries sucks for you in the here and now, the benefits of not having LITERAL TOXIC WASTE DUMPED ONTO SMALL TOWNS AND CATCH ON FUCKING FIRE because the railworkers aren’t well rested, or inspections/maintenance haven’t been being properly done kind outweighs you being able to get your bag of Doritos and two liter of Mountain Dew. Oh and it also adds more pressure to the rail companies to come back to the negotiating table.
I find hope and inspiration in workers striking, not doom.
I find hope in workers being treated well and not needing to strike. I also find hope in there being food on the shelves at my grocery stores.
Wanting things to be bad enough to necessitate labor actions like striking is doomer thinking.
Starting with the assumption that things are so bad everything needs to be destroyed so everything can be rebuilt is doomer thinking. Sure there are times that strikes are necessary and we should support them when they are, but making the assumption that everything is bad isn’t all that healthy.