President

Joe

Biden picked up a bullhorn on the picket line on Tuesday and urged a car stop

workers to hold on to it in an unprecedented show of support for organized labor by a modern president.

Wearing a union ball cap and exchanging fists, Biden told the United Auto Workers strikers: “You deserve the significant raise you need as he stopped in the Detroit area a day before a planned visit by former President Trump, who is leading the Republican polls. nomination in next year’s elections.

No deal, no wheels! Workers sang as Biden arrived at a General Motors parts distribution warehouse, one of several facilities now in its 12th day of a widening strike. No pay, no parts!

Despite concerns that a prolonged strike could undermine the economy, especially in the crucial state of Michigan, the Democratic president encouraged workers to keep fighting for better wages at a time when auto companies are seeing rising profits.

Asked whether UAW members deserved a 40% pay increase, one of their demands during the negotiations, Biden said: Yes. I think they should be able to negotiate for that.

He has repeatedly argued that auto companies have not gone far enough to meet union demands, especially after making concessions in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

The fact is that you, the UAW, saved the auto industry in 2008… you made a lot of sacrifices. You’ve given up a lot. And the companies got into trouble. Now they’re doing incredibly well, and guess what? You should do incredibly well.

The White House said Biden was the first modern president to visit a picket line. The move signals how far he is willing to go to cultivate union support as he runs for re-election.

Lawmakers often appear during strikes to show solidarity with unions, and Biden joined picket lines with casino workers in Las Vegas and auto workers in Kansas City as he seeks the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

But sitting presidents, who must balance workers’ rights with the health of the economy, supply chains and other facets of daily life, have so far stayed out of strike action.

Unimpressed, Trump called that Biden’s visit was nothing but a PR stunt by Crooked Joe Biden to distract and highlight the American people from his disastrous Bidenomics policies that have led to so much economic misery across the country.

The president spent less than half an hour at the Willow Run Redistribution Center with UAW President Shawn Fain.

Thank you, Mr. President, for standing with us at this generation-defining moment,” said Fain, who described the union as engaged in a kind of war against corporate greed.

We do the hard work. We do the real work,” Fain said. “Not the CEOs.

Labor historians said they could not recall an instance in which a sitting president had joined a sustained strike, even during the terms of staunch union presidents like Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman. Theodore Roosevelt invited union leaders along with mine operators to the White House amid a historic coal strike in 1902, a decision seen at the time as a rare embrace of the unions as he tried to resolve the dispute.

Biden’s visit to the picket line was perhaps the most significant demonstration of his pro-union bona fides, a record that includes vocal support for unionization efforts at Amazon.com facilities and executive actions to promote worker organizing. He also won the concerted support of major unions earlier this year and has shunned Southern California for high-dollar fundraising amid Hollywood’s writers and actors strikes.

United Farm Workers announced Tuesday its support for Biden, calling him an authentic champion for workers and their families regardless of their race or national origin. Biden’s campaign manager, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, is the granddaughter of Cesar Chavez, the union’s co-founder.

The UAW has not endorsed the presidency. When Biden was asked about that after landing in Michigan, he said: I’m not worried about that.

Fain later said that expressions of support were not a priority for the union at this time.

We have to win good contracts first and work those things out properly later, he said.

At least one warehouse worker on the picket line was unaffected by the president’s visit. Curtis Cranford, who has been with GM for 38 years, was glad Biden was visiting but said it wouldn’t necessarily stop him from voting Republican in 2024.

I think it means a lot. Hopefully this will put some pressure on the company. The White House has our backs, Cranford said.

Still, he said he and many union members disagree with Democrats on securing the borders, abortion and other issues. And he said both Trump and Biden are too old for the job.

Biden and other Democrats are aggressively promoting the president’s pro-labor credentials as Trump tries to make inroads in crucial swing states where unions continue to exert influence, including Michigan and Pennsylvania. Biden is banking on his union support at a time when labor enjoys broad public support, with 67% of Americans saying they approve of unions in an August Gallup poll.

But the UAW strike, which expanded to 20 states last week, creates a dilemma for the Biden administration as workers’ grievances include concerns about its support for the increasing shift to electric vehicles.

a key part of the White House’s clean energy agenda

. Electric vehicles require fewer people to produce than gas-powered vehicles, and there is no guarantee that the factories that produce them will be unionized.

Adrian Mitchell, who works in GM’s parts warehouse, said Biden would be better for the middle class than Trump.

He supports people coming here and shows solidarity with UAW workers, Mitchell said. He has always been for the middle class. I can’t talk about Trump.”

As for electric vehicles, Mitchell said workers are concerned that the transition from combustion engine vehicles could cost them jobs.

We haven’t really gotten to that point yet of seeing job losses, he said. “So we can’t look into the future to see what will actually happen. But we were all a little worried about that at this point.

Trump will skip the second Republican presidential primary debate on Wednesday and meet with striking auto workers in Michigan, seeking to capitalize on dissatisfaction with the state of the economy and anger over the Biden administration’s push for more electric vehicles .

White House officials dismissed any idea that Trump had forced their hand, noting that Biden had gone to Michigan after Fain invited the sitting president to join the strikers last week.

The Biden administration has no formal role in negotiations between automakers and the UAW. The White House earlier this month reversed a decision to send two key delegates to Michigan after determining it would be more productive if the advisers, Gene Sperling and acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su, followed the talks from Washington.

Fain said Tuesday that negotiations were moving slowly and that the union would escalate the strike to more factories if necessary.