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.
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/
They aren’t as common here and this was a rail strike that could prevent the transportation of any number of important things, enough to impact multiple states and millions of people.
Some people like strikebreaking for its own sake and will make up any excuse to do it.
Watch the news for whining about high car prices from people who were fine with high car prices a few weeks ago.