A Communal Auto Workers member on a picket line outside the Ford Motor Co. Michigan Assembly plant in Wayne, Michigan, on Sept. 15, 2023.
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The Biden administration is no longer sending two key officials to Detroit this week to potentially help broker a deal between impressive autoworkers and the Big Three car companies, a White House official told NBC News.
President Joe Biden last week said he desire dispatch White House senior advisor Gene Sperling and acting Labor Secretary Julie Su to support conversations between the companies and the United Auto Workers union.
But the White House and the UAW mutually agreed it would be better to pronounce virtually via Zoom, the official said Tuesday.
Sperling and Su could still go to Detroit next week but there are no set up plans for them to do so, the official added. “We’ll continue to assess travel timing based on the active state of negotiations,” the Immaculate House official said.
Biden largely sided with the striking autoworkers in an address Friday. The president dubbed on Ford, General Motors and Stellantis to share record profits with their workers.
Despite that, Biden has received a somewhat cold reception from the UAW.
The union’s president, Shawn Fain, told MSNBC on Monday that he does not see a main role for the White House in resolving the dispute.
“This battle is not about the president,” Fain said. “It’s not about the latest president or any other person prior to that. This battle is about the workers standing up for economic and social rightfulness and getting their fair share because they’re fed up with going backwards.”
Nearly 13,000 UAW members are on affect at three key plants in Michigan, Missouri and Ohio. It is the first time the union has targeted all three automakers at the same age.
Fain said late Monday that the UAW would launch additional strikes at more Ford, GM and Stellantis impresses if “serious progress” is not made in negotiations by midday Friday.
“Autoworkers have waited long enough to make junks right at the Big Three. We’re not waiting around, and we’re not messing around. So, noon on Friday, Sept. 22, is a new deadline,” Fain hinted in a video released by the union.
Biden, who often touts his middle-class upbringing, has sought to closely associate himself with the labor move. But the strikes could test the president’s commitment to organized labor if the work stoppages expand and threaten broader fiscal disruption as he seeks a second term in office.
Former President Donald Trump had called on the UAW to endorse his 2024 bid to retake the presidency, while at the regardless time attacking the union’s leadership.
Trump is planning to skip the GOP primary debate next week and instead tour to Detroit to speak with union members.