When former President Donald Trump released a campaign video outlining plans to boost the auto industry last Thursday, he took the opportunity to court the United Auto Workers (UAW), which has notably withheld its endorsement of President Joe Biden as contract negotiations continue and the threat of yet another strike looms.
While Mr. Trump’s appeal might have interested a few rank-and-file workers, it certainly wouldn’t have swayed union leadership.
Unions routinely vote to authorize a strike ahead of negotiations, just to have it as a chip on the bargaining table, but the language union leaders have been using this summer has become “militant,” Mr. Mix said.
The UAW, which began negotiations with the Big Three automakers last week as the current contract expires Sept. 14, has likewise made a lot of noise about its willingness to strike before talks even began.
“There is a new environment. These union officials feel empowered,” Mr. Mix said. “And I think one of the reasons that is the fact and why we’re seeing more of this saber-rattling is because the Biden administration ... basically has created an environment where the union officials think the Department of Labor, and the Department of Justice, and the National Labor Relations Board—which are the three agencies that would be involved and interested in in violence, intimidation, or violation of individual workers rights—that they’re controlled by the Biden administration.”
“Union officials feel like they’re emboldened by this White House and this administration to do basically whatever it takes to get what they’re demanding,” he said.
“They are absolutely destroying your business,” Mr. Trump said of the government subsidies for electric vehicles at the expense of the market. “That’s why I’m going to terminate these Green New Deal atrocities on day one.”
He touted his track records on trade, including the NAFTA renegotiation, and how that benefited the auto industry. “I saved the auto industry once, and now I will save it again,” he said.
Where Are the Union Jobs?
Experts say that while the Biden administration benefits union leadership and is pro-unionization, it has a mixed record when it comes to rank-and-file workers.“Everyone who has been working for UPS and was on the job was saying, ‘Wait a minute, how can somebody who has just started today make the same amount that I’m making?’ So that caused the demand for these wage increases, for the part-timers in particular,” Mr. Mix said.
F. Vincent Vernuccio, senior fellow at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy and the Center’s director of labor policy between 2012 and 2017, said that some of the UAW jobs could be going away because of the president’s push for electric vehicles.
Of the jobs that are left, Mr. Mix says you can be sure the union leadership is demanding the Biden administration guarantee they will be union jobs.
“That’s what they’re demanding now, more privilege and more power,” Mr. Mix said.