WASHINGTON—While accepting the Auto Workers’ endorsement for re-election to the presidency, Democrat Joe Biden had a scathing and succinct description of his likely Republican former and coming foe, and he brought down the house with it:
“Donald Trump is a scab.”
The union’s decision for Biden, though expected, was full-throated—sore-throated is a better description —from Auto Workers President Shawn Fain, who shouted himself hoarse. The union’s new, reformist, popularly elected board and officers OK’d the move.
“Elections are about power,” Fain explained. “There’s a bigger boss here in Washington, D.C.” than the shop floor boss or even the company CEO. “It’s the billionaire class.”
And Biden is the workers’ candidate in 2024, while Trump is their candidate, Fain said. That’s a contrast between the two. “We need to know who’s going to put up and who’s going to shut up.”
The UAW’s endorsement was a combination of praise for Biden’s pro-worker policies and actions, highlighted by becoming the first-ever president to walk a union picket line, and blasts at the corrupt corporate class whom Fain said have stolen wages and the country from the rest of us—and who back Trump.
“This November, we can stand up and elect someone who wants to stand with us and support our cause. Or we can elect someone who will divide us and fight us every step of the way. That’s what this choice is about.
“The question is, who do we want in that office to give us the best shot of winning? Of organizing. Of negotiating strong contracts. Of uniting the working class and winning our fair share once again…We need to know who’s going to sit in the most powerful seat in the world and help us win as a united working class.”
Valuable in “purple” states
The UAW’s endorsement could prove very valuable in “purple” swing states, notably Michigan, but also including Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and—if it returns to the purple column–Ohio.
Neither Biden nor Fain discussed two key issues on voters’ minds, one of which they disagree about: The war against the Palestinian people. Fain led a group of unionists earlier this month who added UAW and others to a demand for a cease-fire in the conflict.
Israel’s military is waging a “scorched earth” war against Gaza, killing 25,000 civilians and injuring at least 52,000..
But Israel’s massive, uncontrolled and Biden-funded and backed bombing and attacks on Gazans has alienated young voters, Moslem-Americans and many other union members. UAW and its District 9, the Postal Workers, the Service Employees, the National Writers Guild and National Nurses United have all endorsed a cease-fire in the war.
Several District 9 members from the Graduate Student Union-UAW at Northeastern University in Boston had unfurled a large Palestinian flag and chanted “Free Palestine!” at the end of prior speeches at the conference. They attended Biden’s speech, but said nothing. No flag either.
The other unmentioned issue by Biden and Fain was Trump’s crimes: Against women as a serial sex abuser, in committing massive financial fraud, and in ordering, aiding and abetting seven attempts to unconstitutionally keep himself in power after he lost to Biden in 2020.
Trump’s been indicted on 91 counts, most having to do with that last crime, especially dealing with the Jan. 6, 2021, Trumpite invasion and insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, complete with Confederate flag in the corridors and a noose on the lawn for hanging Vice President Mike Pence, who defied Trump.
Instead, both Fain and Biden stuck to the economy. Biden said he plans to do even more for workers, but did not offer specific ideas.
In just one of many examples the president cited of how he’s helped workers, Biden declared he “appointed an historic NLRB–because I believe no company threats” or repression “should stand in the way of the right to organize.”
“Rarely has a union had so clear a choice between two candidates. In our 2019 national strike, Trump said nothing, and did nothing—not a damned thing, because he doesn’t care for the American worker,” Fain commented beforehand.
Fain also noted that in the 2008 financier-caused Great Recession, Trump blamed car company financial troubles on the union. He conveniently omitted the solution the Obama-Biden administration imposed on UAW members: Huge givebacks, such as the two-tier system, abolition of COLAs and in health care and pension benefits for new hires. All were in return for federal loan guarantees to keep bankrupt GM and FiatChrysler going.
Biden walked the picket line
By contrast in 2023, Biden walked UAW’s picket line during its “Stand Up! strike against Detroit’s Big 3 car companies, a point Fain made amid chants of “Joe! Joe! Joe!” Meanwhile, Trump flew to non-union parts plant, also in Michigan, “and trashed the union,” Fain said.
And Biden said on national TV that record corporate profits should mean record contracts. After all, the Detroit 3 had cleared $250 billion in profits over the prior decade while cutting workers’ real wages, and starting pay.
“You know who’s afraid? The billionaire class! Because we’re comin’ and we’re comin’ for our fair share!” Fain declared.
UAW got that fair share for its members in its Stand Up! strike, the one Biden joined. It kept the three Detroit-based car companies—Ford, GM and Stellantis, formerly FiatChrysler—off balance, not knowing which big and profitable plant UAW would close next.
The result, which both Biden and Fain cited, was to regain 22 years of wage concessions, readopt cost of living increases lost in the financier-caused 2008 economic crash, win better health care and pensions for retirees, end the hated two-tier wage system, restore benefits and reopen a closed Stellantis plant in Belvidere, Ill., with even more workers than before, among other gains.
And the firms capitulated on the future of the industry, which Biden noted. The Ford, GM and Stellantis electric vehicle plants will be all-UAW and on the union’s master contract and with full union-scale wages, not the lesser wages the auto firms impose on parts plants.
And Biden noted that foreign “transplant” auto firms had to scramble to catch up to UAW’s first-year wage hikes, though not the rest. That’s the union and UAW advantage, the president said. And those increases haven’t stopped thousands of calls from “transplant” workers to UAW, asking how they can organize, too, Fain said.
“The talking heads dismissed our demands as unrealistic. They said we couldn’t bring COLAs back, but we did. They said we couldn’t bring back closed plants, but we did,” he added, referring to Belvidere.
“They said we couldn’t get electric vehicles under our master agreement, but we did. They said we couldn’t end two-tier, but we did…Together we moved mountains.’
And the union did all this as, simultaneously, Biden carried out his promise to be the most pro-union president in history. He also touted a start to revitalizing U.S. manufacturing through the CHIPS Act.
“But we have a big fight in front of us to fundamentally change the economy, taking it from one that gives to the people at the top to one that gives back to people like my Dad,” a worker and sometime small business owner. “That’s what the UAW is about,” he said.
“This is a fundamental break from our history and our culture. Trickle-down economics was supercharged for the wealthy. It hollowed out communities and closed factories. Donald Trump closed 65 auto factories” or, to be precise, let the car companies close them, moving many to low-wage nations. “During my term, we’ve opened 20.”
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