The United Auto Workers strike has exposed tensions between President Joe Biden’s goals of fighting climate change and supporting unions.
The strike involves 13,000 workers so far, less than a tenth of the union's total membership, but it's a sharp test of Biden's ability to hold together an expansive and discordant political coalition while running for reelection.
“The president is in a really tough position,” said Erik Gordon, a professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. “What he needs to be the most pro-labor president ever and the greenest president ever is a magic wand.”and it's escalating the pressure with its targeted strike. Brittany Eason, who has worked for 11 years at the Ford Assembly Plant in Wayne, Mich., said workers are worried that they'll “be pushed out by computers and electric vehicles.
As part of its demands, the UAW wants to represent employees at battery plants, which would send ripple effects through an industry that has seen supply chains upended by technological changes. “The UAW strike and indeed the ‘summer of strikes’ is the natural result of the Biden administration’s ‘whole of government’ approach to promoting unionization at all costs,” said Suzanne Clark, CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Presidential politics have increased the stakes for the strike, which could damage the economy going into an election year, depending on how long it lasts and whether it spreads. It's also centered in Michigan, a key part of Biden's 2020 victory and critical to his chances at a second term.the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, sees an opportunity to drive a wedge between Biden and workers. He issued a statement saying Biden “will murder the U.S.
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