As the negotiating deadline approaches, the issues at stake go beyond wages and benefits to whether the union’s members will benefit or suffer from the transition to electric vehicles.
plants. The U.A.W., whose many members work in factories that make vehicles powered by internal-combustion engines, is demanding assurances that the Big Three won’t exploit the transition to E.V.s to eliminate union jobs and union contracts. It is also asking, who proudly calls himself “the most pro-union President in American history,” to support its cause. “I think our strike can reaffirm to him where the working-class people in this country stand,” Fain told CNBC last week.
Under pressure from the U.A.W., Biden issued a statement last month on the contract negotiations, in which he said that the auto industry must provide “good jobs that can support a family,” and insure that existing workers are given “the first shot” to fill new jobs. At the end of August, the Administration announced $15.5 billion in funding and loans, most of which will be used to support the conversion of existing auto factories to E.V.s and retraining workers.
Fain’s argument is that, taken over all, the Biden Administration’s hefty tax credits for the purchase of E.V.s are encouraging the Big Three to invest in E.V. joint ventures that are nonunionized and pay lower wages.
When Congress was drawing up the I.R.A. tax credits for E.V. plants, some Democrats tried to include a bonus credit of forty-five hundred dollars for vehicles produced at union plants, but they were unable to get fifty-one Democratic votes for it in the Senate. Toyota has a large nonunion plant in West Virginia, and Senatoropposed the provision. “This obviously would have been helpful in supporting union plants paying higher wages,” a senior White House official said.
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