As of: January 25, 2024, 9:55 a.m
Comments
Press
Split
The UAW is supporting Biden in this year's US election campaign.
The union's interests could decide the election campaign.
Can Trump catch up?
Washington, DC – The United Auto Workers (UAW) of the United States endorsed President Biden at its annual legislative conference in Washington on Wednesday.
In doing so, they signal the support of the unions in the automobile producing swing states, where former President Donald Trump is also popular.
The endorsement is a political victory for the self-proclaimed “most pro-union president,” who has gone to great lengths to appeal to union members, including auto workers.
“Rarely do you as a union have such a clear choice between two candidates,” said UAW President Shawn Fain, explaining the UAW's support.
“Donald Trump is a scab.
Donald Trump is a billionaire and that's what he represents." What Fain added next earned him a standing ovation from the audience: "If our support has to be earned, then Joe Biden has earned it!"
Biden addresses UAW union: 'You built these companies'
Biden later addressed UAW members at his first campaign rally since Tuesday's New Hampshire primary, in which Trump won a decisive victory with Republican voters and Biden won a write-in victory.
Biden speaks at the United Auto Workers Conference - Washington US President Joe Biden, right, shakes the hand of Shawn Fain, President of the United Auto Workers (UAW), at the United Auto Workers Conference in Washington, DC, USA, on Wednesday, January 24, 2024. © Pool/ABACA/Imago
“You built these companies,” Biden told hundreds of cheering UAW members in a Washington hotel ballroom.
“You made sacrifices to save them, and you deserve to benefit when these companies thrive,” he continued.
Biden pointed to the losses suffered by UAW members during the Great Recession and the strong recovery of auto companies in recent years.
Read The Washington Post for free for four weeks
Your quality ticket from washingtonpost.com: Get exclusive research and 200+ stories free for four weeks.
Tracie Collins, who has worked at Ford for 24 years, traveled from Livonia, Michigan, to attend the UAW conference in Washington.
“The UAW loves and supports Biden because he loves and supports us,” Collins said after union leadership announced its endorsement of Biden.
“He gets what we deserve.
[During the strike] we didn't demand everything.
We demanded enough to support our families”.
Not all UAW union members back Biden: Israel-Gaza war is divisive
A group of UAW members interrupted Biden's speech at one point and criticized the president for his support of Israel in the war in Israel.
They were dragged out by security personnel a day after protesters with similar concerns disrupted another Biden campaign event.
The union is one of the few that have called for a ceasefire in the war.
My news
Putin's shambles: Russia's army is “cannibalizing refrigerators” to repair tanks
'Played video games': Ukraine soldier explains stunning coup against Putin's T90M tanks
“Longer downtime”: Leopard tanks are struggling in the Ukraine war
Ukraine under “total control of the United States” – Slovak Prime Minister Fico provoked reading
Walked 600 kilometers through Russia: Ukraine celebrates partisan attack on Russian air force
New survey hammer: Wagenknecht party swallows the traffic lights in the east
Josh Saunders, a union welder at John Deere who traveled from Iowa, reluctantly voted for Biden in 2020 and for a third candidate in 2016. After Biden's speech on Wednesday, Saunders said he was not yet ready to throw his weight behind Biden deliver.
“I think a ceasefire needs to be called in Gaza,” Saunders said.
“I'm not saying I won't vote for Biden, but I feel like there's a genocide going on there and he has the power to do more than what he's doing.”
Trump and Biden compete for union: UAW important for swing states in the USA
After a high-profile strike in 2023 that won record wage increases for auto workers, the UAW had refrained from endorsing the candidacy, even though Biden made several trips this fall.
He wanted to support auto workers and became the first sitting president to visit a picket line.
The walkout also brought Trump to Michigan to woo auto workers.
The auto workers union's support has a big impact on key election races in Michigan and Wisconsin;
Biden narrowly won both states in 2020.
Fain, the enthusiastic and relatively new chairman of the UAW, has been an outspoken critic of Trump.
At Monday's conference, he accused Republican policies of dividing the working class through "racism, sexism and xenophobia."
The UAW, which represents about 400,000 members, used the specter of support as leverage in last year's auto workers' strike, which spotlighted workers' concerns over the transition to electric vehicles, a key priority of the Biden administration.
Labor Protection Law Against Election Support: A Deal for UAW and Biden
The union pushed for new protections for workers at electric vehicle battery plants and pushed Jeep owner Stellantis to reopen a shuttered auto factory in Belvidere, Illinois, with support from the Biden administration.
“You have to earn our support.
They are not simply given as they have been in the past,” Fain told The Washington Post last summer.
Biden has received a range of union endorsements above and beyond the norm this election cycle, including support in June from the AFL-CIO, the nation's largest union federation, as well as more than a dozen other unions.
But a handful of influential unions, including the Teamsters, the American Postal Workers Union and the International Association of Fire Fighters, have chosen to continue using their support as influence in Washington.
Labor movement reason for Trump's presidency in 2016 - now Biden is fighting for share in blue wall states
“The union share of the electorate is incredibly important,” said Steve Rosenthal, a decades-long Democratic political strategist in the labor movement.
“In the key battleground states, the so-called blue wall states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, which President Biden must win to be re-elected and which were the reason Trump was elected in 2016, a large share of the vote comes from union households .”
Even though the primaries are still ongoing, everyone is preparing for a duel between Biden and Trump.
© picture alliance/dpa/Pool Reuters/AP |
Jonathan Ernst/Stefan Jeremiah
Brian Rothenberg, a former UAW spokesman and public relations consultant, said internal polls early in the election season typically show about a third of UAW members supporting Democratic presidential candidates.
A third support Republicans and the remaining third are swing voters.
However, internal post-election polls showed that about 60 percent of active and retired members voted for the Democratic presidential candidates in November.
Biden and Trump appear to be close to the unions - but only one candidate receives support
Biden has often highlighted his ties to unions, even as he has sometimes struggled to gain traction with working-class union members.
Among his biggest achievements for the union movement is approving trillions of dollars in infrastructure, semiconductor and climate packages that incentivize companies to hire union members.
Biden is also credited with appointing a union representative at the head of the National Labor Relations Board, which has made it easier for workers to join unions.
Trump has also described himself as "pro-worker" and positioned himself as an ally of the working class, while as president he supported numerous measures that limited the power of unions.
He has received little union support outside of law enforcement unions.
During his visit to Michigan during the UAW strike, a rally was held with auto workers at a non-union plant while union leaders warned the former president to stay away.
About the author
Lauren Kaori Gurley
is a labor reporter for The Washington Post.
She previously covered work and tech for Vice's Motherboard.
We are currently testing machine translations. This article was automatically translated from English into German.
This article was first published in English on January 25, 2024 at the “Washingtonpost.com” - as part of a cooperation, it is now also available in translation to readers of the IPPEN.MEDIA portals.