UAW Endorses Joe Biden for ‘Betting on the American Worker’

Shawn Fain, United Auto Workers (UAW) international president, testifies before the Senate Committee on Health, Labor, and Pensions in Washington on Nov. 14, 2023. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

The United Auto Workers (UAW) union has officially endorsed President Joe Biden’s 2024 reelection campaign months after he visited a Michigan picket line in September 2023 in support of striking workers.

UAW President Shawn Fain had resisted endorsing President Biden and other politicians, arguing that they would need to earn the labor union’s endorsement. But Mr. Fain told the union conference crowd in Washington on Jan. 24 that President Biden “stood with us in our fights.”

“This choice is clear,” he said in his announcement. “We need to know who’s going to sit in the most powerful seat in the world and help us win as the united working class.

“Today, I’m proud to stand up here with your International Executive Board and announce that the UAW is endorsing Joe Biden for President of the United States.

“We will reelect Joe Biden.”

President Biden told those at the union event that he had kept his commitment to being “the most pro-union president ever.”

“I’ve always believed Wall Street didn’t build America. Americans built the middle class,” he said. “Let me just say I’m honored to have your back, and you have mine. That’s the deal.

“You are the heroes in the story.”

The union leader and the president both took shots at former President Donald Trump.

The UAW chief accused the Republican front-runner of standing “against everything we stand for as a union, as a society.”

“Joe Biden bet on the American worker, while Donald Trump blamed the American worker,” Mr. Fain said.

President Biden asserted that “many people around America lost their sense of pride” during the Trump administration.

“Corporate America found the cheapest labor in the world, and they sent the jobs to those laborers and sent the product back to us,” he said. “But not anymore.”

The endorsement comes months after the Big Three automakers—Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis—agreed to new contracts with approximately 150,000 auto workers that included significant pay raises, cost-of-living adjustments, the right to strike over future plant closures, and bolstered terms for temporary employees.

In November 2023, 64 percent of UAW members voted in favor of the tentative agreements.

Following the deals, Mr. Fain promised to extend the UAW’s work to other nonunion workers “ready to stand up and fight for a better way of life.” Reports have suggested that the union will next target Tesla Motors and Toyota.

Biden and Trump Court Auto Workers

In September 2023, President Biden traveled to General Motors’ Willow Run Redistribution Center in Wayne County, Michigan, telling the dozens of picketing auto workers that they deserved a “significant raise.”

“You deserve what you’ve earned, and you’ve earned ... a lot more than you get paid now,” the president said, while standing alongside Mr. Fain.

President Joe Biden (C) is welcomed by United Auto Workers (UAW) President Shawn Fain (L) and Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) (2nd L) on arrival at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport in Romulus, Mich., on Sept. 26, 2023. Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images

President Trump spoke at a nonunionized car parts maker in the same month, encouraging UAW members to vote for him.

“Your leadership should endorse me, and I will not say a bad thing about them again,” he said.

“Just get your union guys, your leaders, to endorse me, and I will take care of the rest.

“Under a Trump presidency, gasoline engines will be allowed, and sex changes for children will be banned. Is that OK?”

Taking to his website, the GOP front-runner denounced President Biden and Mr. Fain, warning that the push for electric vehicles would decimate the auto industry and ship jobs to China.

“If that disastrous Biden policy is allowed to stand, the U.S. auto industry will cease to exist, and all your jobs will be sent to China,” President Trump said. “That’s why there’s no such thing as a ‘fair transition’ to all-electric cars. ... Nothing is more important than terminating this job-crushing mandate.”

The UAW has repeatedly confirmed that it wouldn’t support his 2024 presidential campaign.

While labor analysts note that the latest arrangements with the Big Three include protections for workers who manufacture gas-powered cars and electric vehicles, the future is a bit more uncertain.

In recent years, many of the major car brands, including Ford, have signaled that EV manufacturing requires “fewer moving parts” as “it takes 40 percent less labor to make an electric car.”

A September 2021 study by the Economic Policy Institute suggested that without even more government policy interventions in the EV market, the auto industry could lose 75,000 jobs by 2030. That said, if EV sales soar by 50 percent in the next six years, the sector could add 150,000 positions.

Manufacturing electric automobiles requires only a little less labor than a gas-powered automobile, according to Boston Consulting Group researchers.

In the first 11 months of 2023, electric cars accounted for an estimated 7.5 percent of total U.S. sales. EV sales have been slowing, leading to car makers trimming electric car production estimates and car rental companies, such as Hertz, reducing their fleets.

Michigan: Biden Versus Trump

It remains to be seen if the UAW’s endorsement of President Biden will translate to an improvement in the Michigan polls.

According to a Detroit News survey earlier this month, President Trump maintained an eight-point lead over the incumbent. Additionally, two Bloomberg-Morning Consult and CNN polls late last year showed the Republican front-runner with a lead of 4 and 10 points, respectively.

In 2020, then-candidate Joe Biden carried Michigan, defeating his opponent by nearly 3 percent.