WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden finds himself in a tricky spot between his “Union Joe” persona and his aggressive climate goals because the United Auto Staff prepare to strike.
The UAW, which represents 146,000 employees at General Motors, Ford and Stellantis NV‘s North America branch, is able to strike if their demands aren’t met by the point their contract expires on Sept. 14. The union is asking for a 46% increase in pay, a 32-hour workweek with 40 hours of pay and the return to a standard pension system.
Negotiations aren’t going well. When General Motors on Thursday proposed its largest four-year wage increase in a long time, the UAW’s president called the offer “insulting.”
The demands are partially a response to Biden’s electric vehicle policies, which the union says will cost jobs. Proposed Environmental Protection Agency standards for 2027-2032 call for 67% of latest vehicles to be electric by the tip of the timeframe, partially leading to a 56% emissions cut.
Biden incessantly calls himself “essentially the most pro-union president in American history” and his administration has played a task in resolving several union disputes. Biden on Wednesday had representatives from the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the Pacific Maritime Association on the White House to have a good time the recent signing of a recent contract, which the administration played a task in facilitating.
The UAW is the one major union yet to endorse Biden for re-election. The union has historically supported Democrats and endorsed Biden in 2020.
Speaking on CNBC’s “Last Call” Wednesday, UAW President Shawn Fain said, “Endorsements are earned, not freely given. And actions are going to dictate what we recommend.” No matter endorsement, a strike would heavily impact states key to a Biden re-election, like Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Biden irked UAW members on Monday when speaking after a Labor Day event in Philadelphia, Pa. saying he didn’t think a strike was on the horizon. Biden said he was “not apprehensive a couple of strike until it happens. I do not think it should occur.”
Fain responded by telling The Detroit News he was “shocked” by Biden’s comments.
“He must know something we do not know,” Fain said Monday. “As we get right down to the wire here, there’s three firms to bargain with and there is 10 days left to do it. So I do know what it looks prefer to me.”
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Tuesday said Biden’s comments on the strike were him being “an optimistic person.” She added that Biden believes the UAW is on the “heart of an electrical vehicle future that’s made in America with union jobs.”
Still, Fain in his interview with “Last Call” went on to tamp down any hopes by former President Donald Trump that an endorsement was on the horizon.
“He was on the air the opposite day encouraging people to stop paying union dues,” Fain said referring to Trump. “That is not someone who stands for lifestyle.”
Fain within the interview also chastised Trump for comments he made through the 2016 election that he said would hurt auto employees.
But Trump continues to be courting auto employees’ votes. In an announcement released Thursday, Trump’s campaign criticized Biden’s electric vehicle policies.
“There isn’t any such thing as a ‘fair transition’ to the destruction of those employees’ livelihoods and the obliteration of this cherished American industry,” the statement said. “Union leadership must determine whether they’ll stand with Biden and other far-left political cronies in Washington, or whether they’ll stand with front-line autoworkers and President Trump.”
A strike, Fain told CNBC, would force politicians to “pick a side” within the labor dispute.
“I feel a strike can reaffirm to him where the working-class people on this country stand,” Fain said Wednesday. “And it is time for politicians on this country to choose a side. Either you stand for a billionaire class where everybody else gets left behind, otherwise you stand for the working class. The working-class people vote.”
