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.
Remember rail strike?
Yeah wouldn’t trust him on this. He definitely not on the side of workers.
What are you talking about? Yes, they ended the strike without getting paid go leave, but the WH continued to work on it after and they did get what they were asking for. Just media didn’t bother reporting on that little detail as it wasn’t “newsworthy”.
Edit: https://www.ibew.org/media-center/Articles/23Daily/2306/230620_IBEWandPaid
That’s still not great. The point of strikes is to be disruptive. This undermines the power of unions. Sure the union got what they wanted, but next time they might not. This whole thing is just the usual Dems playing both sides
Not doubting you, but got any links? Like you said, there wasn’t any real coverage to speak of, so I was completely unaware of this.
Like Bill Clinton at McDonald’s.
You mean when he in the three months afterwards helped the workers and the union to make sure they got their demands, while also not causing an actual rail shutdown that would cause massive harm to multiple areas?
Wow he ended Precision Scheduled Railroading? Didn’t hear that /s
He got them some sick days, but definitely not the whole of their demands.
Plus the original demand was 15 days of sick leave, and then a tepid 7-day sick leave proposal was sent to die in congress. It’s not a miracle that Biden was able to get 5 days. Breaking the strike with state power and then casting crumbs in our direction was a flex on the working class saying “nah you’ll only get what we allow you to have. You don’t deserve to demand shit.”
I’m not holding out any hope that this is anything more than a PR campaign like kneeling cops and kente scarves.
It’s a complete failure of his administration that he said absolutely nothing about this and just allowed everyone to believe that he was against those workers for months.
I found this out a week or so ago and it baffled me that he just said nothing.
It’s been a general thing that his administration has just done the positive things without hyping them up or crowing about them on the news.
Maybe I’m uninformed, but how are rail strikes, which are common in my country, massive harm that a government of half a continent feels the need to step in?
It was going to be a massive rail strike in a situation where logistics were already strained. The US is run by rail, despite how little we invest into it. It’s an absolutely massive amount of land area, and the only reasonable way to transport things across it is rail. It would have crippled almost every business.
That said, if the workers are that important they should get everything they demand. The Biden administration did get them some of their demands, which is better than I expected, they should get more.
Are you talking about passenger rail strikes or freight? Because in the States, we have no meaningful passenger rail, but our geographical area is SO enormous that freight rail is critical. It makes up like 40% of all freight transport. So shutting the entire thing down would have been more than an inconvenience. It could have cost a lot of other people in other industries their jobs. Also, it could have caused shortages of food, gasoline, chemicals for purifying water, etc.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/looming-rail-strike-would-take-a-major-toll-on-u-s-economy
https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/3644798-how-bad-would-a-rail-strike-have-been/
See if that’s true that’s sad because that is the best possible outcome and I haven’t heard a damn thing about it.
Here’s about rail: https://www.ibew.org/media-center/Articles/23Daily/2306/230620_IBEWandPaid
Biden seems to do a lot of things that don’t get much attention or unfairly get bad attention. For example he drastically reduced number of drone strikes (trump actually increased them after Obama, but blocked reporting).
When he lifted sanctions on NS2 he got a lot of bad flak, some even from democrats. Only months later we learned that Russia was planning attack on Ukraine and he was doing it to repair our relationship with Germany. He managed to persuade them to drop it themselves which is how we supposed to deal with allies.
Here’s an article on it: https://www.axios.com/2023/02/09/white-house-biden-administration-railroad-companies-paid-sick-leave
Didn’t biden just sign anti labor legislation to stop the rail worker strike?
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-signs-bill-block-us-railroad-strike-2022-12-02/
Not sure if we should start lining up to blow him quite yet about this kind of issue. But I’m not familiar enough to fully comment. I’m sure lemmings will line up to tell me why I’m wrong about this…
Supposedly he signed that, then turned around and demanded the sick days:
https://www.ibew.org/media-center/Articles/23Daily/2306/230620_IBEWandPaid
I’m sure lemmings will line up to tell me why I’m wrong about this…
Is this a bad thing? If you’re wrong, it’s good to be corrected.
I’ve found lemmy to be the single most toxic malicious place on the internet I’ve ever been and every time I post I literally cringe waiting for the horde to attack. I’m probably closing my account soon tbh because I can’t take it anymore. For the record I like being wrong because it means I’m about to learn something new. But around here I was expecting fifty downvotes and a bunch of replies saying FUCK YOU CORPORATE BOOTLICKER SCUM, words to that effect.
And of course, you got called out through no fault of your own, right? If you don’t want to be called a bootlicker, stop licking boots…
He broke the rail strike, then made a big song and dance about sick days as if that was the only thing rail workers needed to strike over.
Fucked over workers and pissed all over their broad set of grievances and demands.
I don’t think he should be welcomed.
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.
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?
Well I am glad he didn’t stop fighting along side them and get them what they wanted.
No other politician has learned and evolved like President Joe Biden (Dark Brandon FTW) has. He’s cool AF
He didn’t do well with the rail strikers but I guess he’s trying to redeem himself. But I prefer that over a President who’s consistently against labor, like any Republican one would be.
I guess he’s trying to redeem himself
I mean that’s one way to put it, but at the end of the day, he isn’t some manga anti-hero, he is a politician and politicians want to be elected.
I am pretty sure this is about the UAW’s change of attitude that puts immense pressure on Biden, especially that they are withholding their endorsment for Biden until he “earned it”. And of course Trump is also trying to suck up to the unions, so Biden has to step up his game.
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2023/09/17/uaw-auto-strike-joe-biden-union/70884657007/
The IBEW itself applauds Biden’s handling of the rail strikes https://www.ibew.org/media-center/Articles/23Daily/2306/230620_IBEWandPaid#:~:text=The IBEW and BNSF Railway,personal days to sick days.
Some other union member mentioned either in here or another thread that the IBEW is only one of 13 rail unions, and they’re one of the most conservative ones, preferring lobbying Democrats over striking or using actual worker power. Their union officials also tried making deals earlier that the rest of their members rejected and didn’t like, which they hinted at but seem to be down playing a lot in this statement naturally. That commenter said the Rail Workers United statement, which is a coalition of rank-and-file workers from among all the unions, has been a lot more scathing towards the White House’s interference in the strike and negotiations even after they helped get them some sick leave.
Separately, it’s not good that we set the precedent that power comes not from workers, but from up on high to be doled out at our rulers’ whim. What happens when we get a conservative President next? They’ll destroy the strike and we all just collectively shrug? People need to learn that power comes from numbers, a popular mandate, and withholding labor, not from back room deals secretly negotiated by higher up union officials, CEOs, and the President. Letting these actions continue builds relationships, trust, and solidarity among the workers that is important for future labor action.
There were a lot of external concerns with a strike too. The delays would have left some municipalities without water purification supplies. Delays in coal and gas would mean no electricity or heating in the middle of December
If he broke the strike just to make sure Christmas deliveries were made on time that would be unconscionable. Concerns over power and heating are more understandable.
Really this just shows this sector is so critical to the economy and our lives that it needs to be nationalized, and the workers deserve their demands as a minimum.
They never mentioned any of that stuff. They would always just gesture broadly at the “economy” which hints at Christmas deliveries.
Really this just shows this sector is so critical to the economy and our lives that it needs to be nationalized, and the workers deserve their demands as a minimum.
Exactly.
This is good for him but I feel like his secret sevice detail will be stressed to the gills by this.
I feel like I voted for Bernie instead of Biden. Wtf is going on. This is amazing.
Cringe. I’m no berniestan but he’s been out there protesting for decades. Biden was in the senate approving rapist supreme court justices.
A justice he helped put on the bench of the supreme court who just recently was revealed to be taking off the books gifts and bribes from billionaires.
Perhaps the man’s turned a new leaf in his old age. He ain’t perfect, sure, but I’d be lying if I said he wasn’t far better than I (or most others) had expected.
I fear the politician who has never changed their mind more than the one who has. It’s a really important skill to be able to accept your beliefs were wrong and adapt with new information.
Biden has been the most progressive president in my lifetime, and that’s because the party has moved leftward too.
This is less about Biden coming to his senses, at the end of the day, Biden does what is politically viable and smart for him. Sure, maybe he has become more progressive, but I think this has more to do with the UAW new militant approach.
And one important thing, which puts a lot of pressure on Biden, is that the UAW has recently always endorsed the democrats, but they now have withheld endorsment for Biden until “he has earned it” and “prooves his solidarity with the working class, not the billionaire class”.
And Trump is also trying to pander to the union, so Biden is in a lot of pressure to gain the union’s endorsment.
I think that whatever the reason is, though, we can accept this as a very good thing. The power of the presidency extends beyond the strict executive authority provisions, and we should support whenever that power is used to advance the interests of middle and working class people.
