President Joe Biden urged Detroit’s top automakers to provide more to striking employees on Friday, accusing them of making record profits without sharing them properly.
The UAW walkout at three General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis factories began the largest U.S. industrial labor action in decades.
Biden remarked, “No one wants a strike, but I respect workers’ right to use their options under collective bargaining.” Understand their frustration.” Biden said automakers had made major offers in negotiations.
“But I believe they should go further to ensure record corporate profits mean record UAW contracts,” he said, echoing union officials.
Biden’s 2024 reelection strategy relies on labor organizations like the UAW, which represents 146,000 workers. He needs their backing to win Pennsylvania and Michigan again, which will bear the brunt of any large automaker strikes.
The UAW is the only big union not to endorse Biden. Analysts say a lengthy strike could slow a better-than-expected U.S. economy but not cause a recession.
Biden sent Gene Sperling and Labor Secretary Julie Su to Detroit to facilitate talks and reach a “win-win agreement.”On Thursday, Biden addressed union and carmaker executives after predicting no strike over Labor Day weekend.
On Thursday, a source indicated the Biden administration is considering emergency aid for smaller car suppliers.
Former U.S. President Trump, Biden’s leading Republican contender for 2024, called Biden’s electric vehicle campaign a “total disaster” on social media and attacked UAW officials in a Sunday interview.
“The auto workers are being sold down the river by their leadership,” Trump told Meet the Press.
“Auto businesses “would undoubtedly have gone bankrupt,” the Biden campaign warned under Trump. “Trump will say anything to distract from his long history of broken promises and failing Americans.”
PROMOTING UNION‘
On Friday, one of the main business lobby groups, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, blamed Biden for the strikes, saying they would raise expenses for non-union workers and hurt other businesses.
“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,” stated Suzanne Clark, the group’s CEO, asking both factions to return to the bargaining table and end the conflict
Biden, 80, is positioning his 2024 reelection effort on economic development, including job creation, rising pay, and diminishing recession fears. A prolonged strike might endanger all.
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