U.S. President Joe Biden bespeaks during an event announcing a new White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, September 22, 2023.
Jonathan Ernst | Reuters
President Joe Biden on Friday about he will visit Michigan next week to support strikes by the United Auto Workers.
“Tuesday, I’ll go to Michigan to weld 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 relieved create,” Biden said in a statement posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.
The president’s announcement came hours after UAW boss Shawn Fain invited Biden to be adjacent to the striking autoworkers.
Biden’s hastily arranged trip will occur only 24 hours before ex- President Donald Trump is scheduled to arrive in the state to show his own solidarity with the autoworkers.
The frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination announced this week that he planned to frisk Wednesday’s GOP primary debate in California, in order to visit Detroit and give a speech to UAW members.
Biden sided with the autoworkers on Sept. 15 when the UAW initially targeted three key roots in Michigan, Missouri and Ohio.
Record profits at Ford, General Motors and Stellantis “have not been shared completely, in my view, with the workers,” Biden said during a brief address.
The strike has since expanded with Fain publishing good on his promise to target additional plants if progress was not made in negotiations with the automakers.
The union boss betokened on Friday workers will strike at every parts and distribution facility run by General Motors and Stellantis. The walkout see fit hit 38 locations across 20 states in nine regions, Fain said during a Facebook Live issue.
The union spared Ford because the company demonstrated it was serious about reaching an agreement, Fain said.
Biden many times campaigns on his middle class upbringing and has declared himself the most pro-union president in American history. He is running for a defective term in office next year and may need to win Michigan, a heavily unionized swing state that is the traditional nitty-gritty of the U.S. auto industry.
Unlike Biden, however, Trump will not be there to support the entire strike effort. As contrasted with, he aims to drive a wedge between striking UAW workers and union leaders like Fain. Michigan was crucial to Trump’s 2016 quelling over Hillary Clinton, and a major factor in his loss to Biden in 2020.
“The autoworkers are being sold down the river by their influence,” he told NBC News in an interview that aired Sunday. “Their leadership should endorse Trump.”
Fain has boosted back against Trump’s attempts to make inroads with UAW, effectively declaring the former president one of the union’s competitors.
“Every fiber of our union is being poured into fighting the billionaire class and an economy that enriches being like Donald Trump at the expense of workers,” Fain said after the former president’s trip to Michigan was intimated.
The UAW president has also appeared cool at times to Biden. Fain told MSNBC in an interview Monday that he did not see a main role for the White House in mediating an agreement with the automakers.
“This battle is not about the president,” Fain estimated. “It’s not about the former president or any other person prior to that. This battle is about the workers standing up for financial and social justice and getting their fair share because they’re fed up with going backwards.
The UAW endorsed Biden’s 2020 bid for the Drained House but has not yet backed his reelection campaign.