United Auto Staff from Louisville Kentucky rally in support of striking UAW members, in Detroit, Michigan, September 15, 2023.
Rebecca Cook | Reuters
DETROIT – Strikes by the United Auto Staff union against General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis will get the presidential treatment this week in Michigan. Twice, in actual fact.
President Joe Biden is anticipated to go to a picket line Tuesday within the Great Lake State following a public invitation Friday from UAW President Shawn Fain. Former President Donald Trump, the frontrunner amongst Republicans within the 2024 presidential race, is scheduled to carry a rally Wednesday night at an auto supplier in Clinton Township, Michigan.
Biden and Trump are effectively tied within the polls over a yr out from the election. Each 2024 presidential candidate is attempting to win over blue-collar voters akin to Darius Collier, one in every of roughly 18,300 autoworkers currently on strike who’s “indifferent” in regards to the candidates themselves.
“It might be good in the event that they actually show the support that we’d like to get through this,” said Collier, whose Mopar facility in Centerline, Michigan, is one in every of 10 parts and distribution centers set for potential closure under a recent contract proposal by Stellantis to consolidate facilities.
Michigan voters helped each Biden and Trump in winning the White House throughout the past two presidential elections in 2020 and 2016, respectively. They’ve each gained union support, but in alternative ways.
Biden endorsement withheld
While the UAW has historically supported Democrats, including Biden in 2020, Fain is withholding the union’s reendorsement of the president, who has touted himself because the “most pro-union president in American history.” Trump has won support of many rank-and-file union members.
“Each President Trump and President Biden understand the importance that Michigan has electorally and there is a realization that elections may be very close, so that they need to be seen regularly, and the UAW strike is a superb, high-publicity moment to deploy their message and be seen once more,” said Mark Burton, a partner at Honigan law firm and a former of chief strategist of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat.
UAW members Niko Shinn (front) and Darius Collier (back) walk a picket line on Sept. 25, 2023 outside a Mopar facility owned by automaker Stellantis in Centerline. Michigan.
Michael Wayland / CNBC
Michigan Democrats akin to Whitmer and U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell have attended UAW rallies because the UAW’s Sept. 15 strikes began. Nevertheless, Fain’s politician of alternative has been Sen. Bernie Sanders, who ran against Biden in 2020.
Fain has appeared with the independent senator from Vermont in Washington, D.C., and through a recent UAW rally in Detroit. He also has echoed Sanders’ messages of fighting “corporate greed” and has positioned the UAW’s collective bargaining with the Detroit automakers as a “war” between the billionaire and blue-collar classes.
Fain invited Biden to affix the UAW picket lines days after Trump announced he would skip the second GOP debate to carry a rally in Macomb County, Michigan, where a big contingent of blue-collar auto employees live.
“We invite and encourage everyone who supports our cause to affix us on the picket line from our friends and families all the way in which as much as the president of the USA,” Fain said Friday during a Facebook Live stream.
Fain has not expressed much support for Biden, repeatedly saying he needs to raised prove his claim of being the “most pro-union president.” Nevertheless, Fain’s made clear his position on Trump.
“Every fiber of our union is being poured into fighting the billionaire class and an economy that enriches people like Donald Trump on the expense of employees,” Fain said last week in an announcement. “We won’t keep electing billionaires and millionaires that have no understanding what it’s wish to live paycheck to paycheck and struggle to get by and expecting them to unravel the issues of the working class.”
The UAW on Tuesday issued a largely generic press release ahead of Biden’s visit, saying it would “mark the primary time a sitting U.S. President has joined striking employees on a picket line,” followed by several paragraphs in regards to the union’s strike and no statement from Fain.
UAW will not be affiliated with Trump’s Wednesday rally at Drake Enterprises, which is reportedly a non-union supplier of engine, transmission and other components for heavy truck, agriculture and automotive markets. But UAW members have previously attended and took part in Trump’s events in Michigan.
Trump stokes EV anxieties
Fain has previously said a second Trump term within the White House can be a “disaster.” Nevertheless, Trump, as he has up to now, is gaining blue-collar support.
“I like Trump,” said Niko Shinn, one other autoworker who’s currently on strike on the Mopar plant. “He’s a superb businessman and looks as if he knows more about, not politics, but negotiating and stuff like that.”
Trump’s support amongst union members has increased as Biden’s fallen in recent months, in accordance with Michigan polling company EPIC·MRA. Trump led Biden 46% to 43% amongst union members in an August survey, after Biden led Trump 51 % to 42% in June, in accordance with Bernie Porn, president of EPIC·MRA.
“With union members, he has been so supportive of nearly all the things that union members want. The one thing that they are concerned about is the push towards electric vehicles because they’re concerned in regards to the fewer numbers of employees it takes to construct an electrical vehicle,” Porn said.
Electric vehicles, or EVs, are expected to require less labor and parts than the standard vehicles equipped with internal combustion engines. They’re expected to be one in every of several talking points Trump discusses during his Wednesday rally.
“President Trump’s rhetoric in his position stances, I believe, stands clearly with the overwhelming majority of the rank-and-file of the UAW who’re concerned about their jobs being eliminated by this Biden administration forced transition to electric vehicles,” said Jamie Roe, a Republican strategist based in Macomb County, Michigan, where Trump’s rally is being held.
Fain has said the union is withholding a reelection endorsement for Biden until the union’s concerns in regards to the auto industry’s transition to all-electric vehicles are addressed.
Biden’s visit could also be an olive branch to help within the UAW’s eventual endorsement in addition to potential leverage for the union in its ongoing negotiations with the Detroit automakers.
“I believe the president’s visit, particularly if Shawn Fain is joining [Biden] on a picket line, I believe it’s one other stroke of strategy that increases the pressure and increases the general strength of the union in terms of the actual negotiations with the autos,” Burton said.
