Joe Biden holds himself out as the most union-friendly president in U.S. history. His NLRB does everything possible to back that reputation up with anti-business rulings galore. However, he finds himself in an awkward situation with unions.
Biden’s actions could even cost him a coveted UAW endorsement. Indeed, those union members did notice when Biden brokered a 2022 railway worker deal that a major union swiftly rejected. The president responded by forcing the deal to avert a strike. This prevented railway workers from settling a core grievance: a lack of sick pay.
Subsequently, the UAW has been playing hard to get by making Biden work for their 2024 endorsement. Union president Shawn Fain, who is new on the job and must quickly prove his worth to members, holds a vested interest in appearing to be, to put it bluntly, a hardass who will not tolerate a repeat of what happened to railway workers.
The most significant wrinkle: Biden cannot reconcile his pro-labor and pro-environment stances, and the latter does not jibe with staying on the UAW’s good side regarding EVs. Those cars are cheaper to produce than gas-powered autos. This also means that EV jobs pay less and are not as plentiful.
The wage differences are stark: EV factory hourly wages land between $16.50 and $20.00 per hour, with traditional auto plants paying anywhere from $32 to $60 per hour.
The UAW endorsed Biden in 2020, but could he lose such a tried-and-true ally? Ex-President Trump hopes so, and he recently aligned himself with Fain’s criticism, arguing that EVs will bring the “decimation” of jobs. However, Fain outwardly stressed, “Another Donald Trump presidency would be a disaster.”
So, will the UAW endorse no candidate? Stranger things have happened.
What lies ahead: UAW contract negotiations with the Detroit Big Three are the top priority for Fain, with current deals set to expire on Sept. 14. Fain has preemptively declared war on the companies. The EV issue will loom over negotiations, and one wonders if Biden will end up forcing another union deal. The UAW has declared other issues to be top priorities as well, including the restoration of their long-lost COLA benefits. The path to a settlement will not be simple in 2023.
Already, two significant developments do not bode well for smoothing over the ire:
- Fain unloaded on Biden after his Energy Department planned to lend $9.2 billion to three EV plants in Kentucky and Tennessee that will be “a joint venture of Ford Motor (F.N) and South Korea’s SK.” Fain also accused Biden of not considering the effect on auto worker wages.
- The Energy Department announced $2 billion in grants toward retooling existing auto factories into EV plants to fast-track shifting two-thirds of new auto production into the EV market by 2032. The UAW argues that this aggressive timeline will cost the swift loss of thousands of auto jobs.
No winners here: The White House still insists that Biden prioritizes “good-paying, union jobs” for the auto industry. The UAW still accuses Biden of “actively funding the race to the bottom” for workers.
Update: Biden is putting long-time Democratic adviser Gene Sperling in charge of helping smooth the upcoming labor contract talks between the auto workers’ union and Big Three automakers, a White House official confirmed Monday.
