U.S. President Joe Biden puts on a t-shirt of the UAW Local 1268 during a United Auto Staff (UAW) union members meeting, in Belvidere, Illinois, U.S., November 9, 2023.
Leah Millis | Reuters
DETROIT – President Joe Biden said Thursday that every one autoworkers deserve contracts like the ones recently won by the United Auto Staff from General Motors, Ford Motor and Chrysler-parent Stellantis.
Biden, wearing a red UAW T-shirt given to him by a neighborhood union leader, said the deals won by UAW negotiators are “game changers” that set a “latest standard” for blue-collar employees.
The deals include 25% wage increases, including 11% upon ratification; reinstatement of cost-of-living adjustments; additional contributions for retirees; billions in latest investments; and other advantages. The tentative deals must still be ratified by union members; voting is ongoing.
“I’m slightly selfish, I would like the sort of contract for all autoworkers,” Biden said during a visit with UAW President Shawn Fain in Belvidere, Illinois. “And I even have a sense the UAW has a plan for that.”
Biden said he personally spoke with Stellantis North America Chief Operating Officer Mark Stewart regarding a plant in Belvidere that the company had indefinitely idled earlier this 12 months and was expected to potentially close.
“I told my team, ‘Make Stellantis know Belvidere is a priority,’ so I got on the phone and let him know personally I believed it was a priority,” Biden said.
President Joe Biden speaks next to Shawn Fain, president of the United Auto Staff, as he joins striking members of the union on the picket line outside GM’s Willow Run Distribution Center in Bellville, Michigan, Sept. 26, 2023.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
Under the UAW’s tentative agreement with Stellantis, the plant is predicted to reopen to supply a midsize pickup truck in 2027, followed by $3.2 billion in latest battery cell operations at or near the plant a 12 months later.
The corporate declined to directly comment on Biden’s visit but said it “stayed true to our commitment to seek out an answer for the Belvidere Assembly Plant.”
“As a part of negotiations with the UAW, we discussed quite a few potential options for the plant, ultimately mutually agreeing on an answer that can secure Stellantis’ future in Belvidere for years to return,” the company said.
Despite this being Biden’s second event with Fain since the UAW launched roughly six weeks of strikes against the firms on Sept.15, the union has not endorsed Biden for reelection. The primary event was Sept. 26 when Biden walked a UAW picket line – making him the first sitting president to accomplish that with the union. Biden’s approval rankings are down, and a number of other polls indicate he would face a difficult reelection bid against former President Donald Trump next 12 months.
Biden’s comments about contracts for all automakers echoed Fain’s recent remarks about how the UAW’s next move is to prepare non-union auto plants, which it has didn’t do for a long time.
Fain has said he plans to make use of the record contracts reached with the Detroit automakers, which must still be ratified by members, to help in the union’s embattled organizing efforts elsewhere.
US President Joe Biden waves after speaking about the economy and the deal between the United Auto Staff (UAW) Union and the big-three automakers, in Belvidere, Illinois, on November 9, 2023.
Olivier Douliery | AFP | Getty Images
“We have created the threat of a very good example, and now we will construct on it,” Fain said Thursday night when discussing Stellantis’ tentative agreement. “We just went on strike like we have never been on strike before and won a historic contract because of this. Now we’re going to prepare like we have never organized before.”
The UAW has previously failed to prepare foreign-based automakers in the U.S. Most recently, plants with Volkswagen and Nissan Motor fell in need of the support needed to unionize. The UAW has previously discussed organizing Tesla’s Fremont plant in California with little to no traction in those efforts.