Senator and Vice President worked to be seen as a union guy….
As President?
He continues at that…..
President Biden on Friday sided with members of the United Auto Workers, who have walked out of three plants in the Midwest amid a contract dispute over pay, pensions and work hours at the three Detroit automakers.
“Let’s be clear, no one wants a strike. Say it again. No one wants a strike,” Mr. Biden said in remarks from the White House. “But I respect the workers right to use their options on in the collective bargaining system, and I understand the workers’ frustration.”
The strike of each of the three Detroit automakers is not a full-scale walkout by the union’s roughly 150,000 members, but a “limited and targeted” work stoppage by about 12,700 workers that could expand if talks remain bogged down.
The workers’ four-year contracts with General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis — which owns Chrysler, Jeep and Ram — expired at midnight Thursday, with the two sides far apart. The union, which is negotiating separate deals with each automaker, has never before staged a strike against all three companies at once.
Shawn Fain, the U.A.W. president, said the union would not hold talks with automakers on Friday, and it wasn’t clear when negotiations would resume. Mr. Biden said he had asked two top aides — the acting labor secretary, Julie Su, and a top economic adviser, Gene Sperling — to head to Detroit to help the parties return to the bargaining table.
Here’s what to know:
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The U.A.W. is demanding 40 percent wage increases over four years, which the union says is in line with how much the salaries of the companies’ chief executives have grown. The companies’ counterproposals would raise wages by roughly half what the union is seeking, saying that the billions of dollars they’re investing in electric vehicles make it harder to pay substantially higher wages. Read about the union’s demands and the companies’ offers.
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Roughly 12,700 workers at plants in Michigan, Missouri and Ohio halted work on Friday. The tactic is a departure from the union’s usual strategy of staging an all-out strike against a single automaker and is intended to give the U.A.W. negotiators leverage. Here’s an explanation of targeted strikes.
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The union targeted facilities responsible for some of the automakers’ most profitable trucks: a G.M. plant in Wentzville, Mo., that makes the GMC Canyon and the Colorado; a Stellantis complex in Toledo, Ohio, that makes the Jeep Gladiator and Wrangler; and a Ford assembly plant in Wayne, Mich., that makes the Bronco alongside the Ranger pickup.
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The auto industry is dealing with the lingering effects of the pandemic, which halted production and sharply reduced the supply of vehicles. Domestic car inventories still haven’t fully recovered. They are at about a quarter of where they were at the end of 2019 — the last time the U.A.W. staged a strike. Read about the potential economic consequences of a strike.
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An extended strike could complicate the Federal Reserve’s efforts to fight inflation by crimping the availability of new cars and driving up prices. A long and broad strike would ripple through the automakers’ supply chain and hurt other businesses while workers live off $500 a week in strike pay from the union.
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The walkout is a test of the President’s economic agenda: his call for higher wages for the middle class; his unapologetic pro-union stand; his climate-driven push to reimagine an electric vehicle future for car companies centered in Michigan, a state that he must win in 2024 to remain in the Oval Office…..
Pressure Ramps Up on Automakers
Associated Press: “Now, roughly 13,000 of 146,000 workers at the three companies are on strike, making life complicated for automakers’ operations, while limiting the drain on the union’s $825 million strike fund.”
“If the contract negotiations drag on — and the strikes expand to affect more plants — the costs will grow for workers and the companies. Auto dealers could run short of vehicles, raising prices and pushing customers to buy from foreign automakers with nonunionized workers. It could also put fresh stress on an economy that’s been benefiting from easing inflation.”
Playbook: “While union workers seek general wage increases, cost-of-living pay raises, and more sick days, the walkout also comes as the domestic auto industry makes a historic shift from producing internal combustion cars to electric ones, which could mean an uncertain future for autoworkers. The UAW has been decidedly chilly on Biden’s push to effectuate that transition.”
Props to Biden for providing a consistent pro Union voice.
Joe Biden would say thanks SE