This is an unprecedented image, “historic” even according to the White House. By joining auto workers on a strike picket this Tuesday, September 26, in the key state of Michigan, Joe Biden wanted to show his support for the unprecedented social movement which is shaking the sector.
Speaking with a megaphone to members of the auto workers union (UAW), the organization’s cap screwed on their heads, the American president recalled the “sacrifices” made by them in order to “save the industry ” during the 2008 crisis. They now deserve a “significant increase” in salary, he said. He is the first sitting American president to go on a picket line.
Proximity with workers’ unions
Such presidential support in a social conflict, which pits the UAW against three giants of the sector – General Motors, Ford and Stellantis – is a reminder of the closeness that Joe Biden cultivated during his career with workers’ unions.
It also underlines the importance that Michigan represents while the Democrat, campaigning for his re-election in 2024, could once again find himself facing his predecessor Donald Trump.
For this historic first, Joe Biden went to meet strikers in front of a GM site in Belleville. “I hope his coming and his support will help us, it shows businesses that we have the support of the president and with a little luck they will accept an agreement quickly,” said Kristy Zometsky, 44 years old, nine of whom worked in this factory, after greeting the 80-year-old Democrat.
“That he takes a public stand and says he supports our cause is very important,” added Curtis Cranford, 66, who is nevertheless running as a Republican voter, “because of immigration and abortion.”
Biden steals the spotlight from Trump
By going there on Tuesday, Joe Biden steals the limelight from his Republican rival, who plans to go to the same state on Wednesday to court blue-collar workers, on whom he intends to base his reconquest of the White House. Enough to make this already historic strike a subject of political battle.
Donald Trump, who announced his trip before that of Joe Biden, also accused the Democratic president of copying him. And his adviser Jason Miller called Joe Biden’s visit “nothing more than a poor photo op.”
For Joe Biden, the challenge is to prove that he is, on the contrary, the president of the working classes, defender of the unions and architect of the industrial renewal of the United States. But the octogenarian, struggling in the polls and now gauged at each trip on his physical condition, is walking on eggshells: the current social conflict could prove very damaging for the American economy.
And the strike spread to the car manufacturers General Motors and Stellantis, due to lack of progress in union negotiations, unlike Ford where “real progress” has been made. Asked whether the president was taking sides in the social conflict, the White House spokesperson preferred to avoid the questions, insisting that Joe Biden wanted above all a “win-win” agreement.
“Take your jobs”
Joe Biden has made his support for unions a hallmark of his term, and the UAW’s support of his candidacy in 2020 helped him swing Michigan in his favor, when the state had voted for Donald Trump in 2016.
However, the Democrat’s government is one of the driving forces behind the historic upheaval that the automobile industry is experiencing, towards more, more ecological vehicles. “When he walks slowly pretending to be on a picket line, remember he wants to take your jobs and send them to China,” Donald Trump accused on Truth Social.
The subsidies for electric vehicles provided for in President Biden’s major climate plan (IRA) only apply to cars manufactured in North America. On Wednesday, Donald Trump will speak in front of a factory that manufactures spare parts in Clinton Township in Michigan, according to his campaign team, a little more than 60 km from where Joe Biden went on Tuesday.