A strike by the United Auto Staff union against the Detroit automakers would help President Joe Biden and other politicians pick a side in relation to organized labor, UAW President Shawn Fain said Wednesday night.
“I feel our strike can reaffirm to [Biden] of where the working-class people on this country stand and, you already know, it is time for politicians on this country to choose a side,” he said during CNBC’s “Last Call” with Brian Sullivan. “Either you stand for a billionaire class where everybody else gets left behind, otherwise you stand for the working class, the working-class people vote.”
The outspoken union leader reiterated that striking against General Motors, Ford Motor and/or Stellantis when contracts for roughly 150,000 auto employees expire after 11:59 p.m. Sept. 14 shouldn’t be the goal, but the edges remain far apart in relation to key demands.
UAW President Shawn Fain addresses union members during a Solidarity Sunday rally in Warren, Michigan, Aug. 20, 2023
Michael Wayland / CNBC
“We’re right down to the wire. We now have eight days to go,” Fain said. “We’re pushing. We’re available 24/7 as now we have been for the last seven weeks, so it’s as much as the businesses on where we find yourself and whether we find yourself having to take motion or not on the 14th.”
Fain said the union is about to fulfill Thursday morning with GM, following a Wednesday afternoon meeting with Ford. Stellantis said Wednesday that it “intends to pass the UAW a counter offer to the members’ economic demands by the top of the week.”
Fain’s comments regarding Biden add to an unusual tension between the leader of the historically Democratic union and the commander in chief, who has called himself “essentially the most pro-union president you have ever seen.”
Earlier this week, Fain said he was “shocked” to listen to Biden say he was “not frightened about a strike until it happens” and that he didn’t “think it’ll occur.”
“He must know something we do not know. Perhaps the businesses plan on walking in and giving us our demands on the night before. I do not know but he’s on the within on something I do not learn about,” Fain told reporters during a Labor Day event in Detroit.
The UAW has historically supported Democrats. Nonetheless, former President Donald Trump was in a position to gain notable support from blue-collar autoworkers during his presidential campaigns. Fain has said he believes one other Trump presidency “would be a disaster,” citing the necessity for the union to “get our members organized behind a pro-worker, pro-climate, and pro-democracy political program that may deliver for the working class.”
The UAW is withholding a reelection endorsement for Biden until concerns concerning the auto industry’s transition to all-electric vehicles corresponding to job security, pay and organizing are addressed, Fain has said previously.
“Our endorsements are going to be earned not freely given and the actions are going to dictate who we recommend,” Fain reiterated Wednesday.
Simultaneous strikes against GM, Ford and Stellantis would be unprecedented. It also would mark one among the UAW’s largest strikes in recent history and will quickly have a ripple effect on the automotive supply chain, the U.S. economy and domestic manufacturing.
Speaking in front of a backdrop of American-made vehicles and a UAW sign, President Joe Biden, then a presidential candidate, speaks about recent proposals to guard U.S. jobs during a campaign stop in Warren, Michigan, Sept. 9, 2020.
Leah Millis | Reuters
A strike against GM in 2019 through the last round of contract negotiations lasted 40 days and value the automaker $3.6 billion in earnings that 12 months, GM reported on the time.
The union’s current demands also may very well be costly if tentative deals are reached. Key demands include a 40% hourly pay increase, a reduced 32-hour workweek, a shift back to traditional pensions, elimination of compensation tiers, and restoration of cost-of-living adjustments, amongst other items on the table.