Local UAW leader slams Biden for inaction as strike against Detroit automakers enters its

The United Auto Workers strike against the ‘Big Three’ Detroit carmakers entered its second day on Saturday, and some union members are questioning whether President Joe Biden has done enough to back their cause.

The strike involves 13,000 workers so far, less than a tenth of the union’s total membership, but UAW’s strike fund has enough cash to support a full 150,000-member walkout for up to three months. 

The union representing workers at General Motors, Ford and Stellantis is seeking a 40 percent raise for its workers. The walkout is limited for now to three assembly plants: a GM factory in Wentzville, Missouri, a Ford plant near Detroit, and a Jeep plant run by Stellantis in Toledo, Ohio. 

In Kokomo, Indiana, the hometown of UAW boss Shawn Fain, Local 685 President Garry Quirk told Politico that Biden, the self-described ‘most pro-union president in American history,’ had not done enough to prevent a strike.

‘I don’t know what he’s done,’ Quirk said. ‘Ask him. I don’t think he knows what he’s done. Seriously. I’m not trying to be mean.’

Quirk, 60, told the outlet he voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, and then Donald Trump in 2020.

Fellow local member Denny Butler, 52, also expressed frustration at the White House’s perceived lack of action.

‘We haven’t had a president in there for years, with the exception of Trump, that was really for the people, all the way back to the Reagan days,’ he told Politico.

He noted that unions were once tightly aligned with the Democratic Party, but said that was no longer the case.

‘Democrats were for the working people. That s**t has changed. I’m telling you what, the Democratic Party was not what it was 20, 30 years ago.’ 

On Thursday, Biden spoke with Fain and the three auto company CEOs in a futile last-ditch bid to avoid a strike. 

The chair of Biden’s Council of Economic Advisers cited Biden’s record of backing unions and collective bargaining, saying the president had been ‘very much engaged’ in the negotiations. 

The union appeared to be digging in for a potential protracted strike, even as Ford quickly announced that ripple effects from the walkouts meant temporary layoffs of 600 jobs.

UAW President Fain said late Friday that it wasn’t true ‘negotiations have broken down.’

However, he added that ‘our members and allies are standing strong at the picket lines. Anyone who wants to stand with us can grab a sign and hold the line.’

‘Tomorrow, we expect to be at the bargaining table,’ he said. ‘All three companies have received a comprehensive counteroffer from our union, and we await their response.’

For Biden, the strike represents a collision of two of the president’s top goals – fighting climate change and expanding the middle class by supporting unions. 

Biden is trying to turbocharge the market for electric vehicles to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prevent China from solidifying its grip on the growing industry. 

His signature legislation, known as the Inflation Reduction Act, includes billions of dollars in incentives to get more clean cars on the roads.

However, many autoworkers fear the transition away from gas-powered cars will cost jobs, because electric vehicles require fewer people to assemble. 

Although there will be new jobs in the production of high-capacity batteries, there’s no guarantee that those factories will be unionized, and they’re often being planned in states more hostile to organized labor.

‘The president is in a really tough position,’ said Erik Gordon, a professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. ‘What he needs to be the most pro-labor president ever and the greenest president ever is a magic wand.’

The union is demanding steep raises and better benefits, and it’s escalating the pressure with its targeted strike. 

Brittany Eason, who has worked for 11 years at the Ford Assembly Plant in Wayne, Michigan, said workers are worried that they’ll ‘be pushed out by computers and electric vehicles.’

‘How do you expect people to work with ease if they’re in fear of losing their jobs?’ said Eason, who planned to walk the picket line this weekend. 

Electric vehicles may be inevitable, she said, but changes need to be made ‘so everybody can feel secure about their jobs, their homes and everything else.’

Biden on Friday acknowledged the tension in remarks from the White House , saying the transition to clean energy ‘should be fair and a win-win for auto workers and auto companies.’

He dispatched top aides to Detroit to help push negotiations along, and he prodded management to make more generous offers to the union, saying ‘they should go further to ensure record corporate profits mean record contracts.’

As part of its demands, the UAW wants to represent employees at battery plants, which would send ripple effects through an industry that has seen supply chains upended by technological changes.

‘Batteries are the power trains of the future,’ said Dave Green, a regional director for the union in Ohio and Indiana. ‘Our workers in engine and transmission areas need to be able to move into the new generation.’

Executives, however, are keen to keep a lid on labor costs as their companies prepare to compete in a global market. China is the dominant manufacturer of electric vehicles and batteries.

‘The UAW strike and indeed the `summer of strikes´ is the natural result of the Biden administration´s `whole of government´ approach to promoting unionization at all costs,’ said Suzanne Clark, CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Some environmental groups, conscious of how labor remains crucial to securing support for climate programs, have expressed support for the strike.

‘We’re at a really pivotal moment in the history of the auto industry,’ said Sam Gilchrist, deputy national outreach director at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Presidential politics have increased the stakes for the strike, which could damage the economy going into an election year, depending on how long it lasts and whether it spreads. It’s also centered in Michigan, a key part of Biden’s 2020 victory and critical to his chances at a second term.

Former President Donald Trump , the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, sees an opportunity to drive a wedge between Biden and workers. 

He issued a statement saying Biden ‘will murder the US auto industry and kill countless union autoworker jobs forever, especially in Michigan and the Midwest. There is no such thing as a ‘fair transition’ to the destruction of these workers’ livelihoods and the obliteration of this cherished American industry.’

In an interview with NBC’s ‘Meet the Press,’ Trump said that ‘electric cars are going to be made in China,’ not the United States, and he said ‘the auto workers are being sold down the river by their leadership.’

Trump’s comments have not earned him any support from UAW president Fain.

‘That’s not someone that represents working-class people,’ he told MSNBC earlier this month. ‘He’s part of the billionaire class. We need to not forget that. And that´s what our members need to think about when they go to vote.’

Ammar Moussa, a spokesman for Biden’s campaign, said Trump ‘will say literally anything to distract from his long record of breaking promises and failing America’s workers.’ 

He noted that Trump would have let auto companies go bankrupt during the financial crisis rather than bail them out as President Barack Obama did at the time.

But there are also disagreements between Biden and workers.

When the Energy Department announced a $9.2 billion loan for battery plants in Tennessee and Kentucky, part of a joint venture by Ford and a South Korean company, Fain said the federal government was ‘actively funding the race to the bottom with billions in public money.’

Madeline Janis, co-executive director of Jobs to Move America, which works on environmental and worker issues, said the White House needs to do more to alleviate labor challenges.

‘We don’t have enough career pathways for people to see themselves in this future and let go of the jobs in industries that are causing our world to be in crisis,’ she said.