Biden and Trump battle for blue collar votes in must-win state

Biden, the first sitting president to join a picket line, told strikers they deserve ‘a hell of a lot more than you’re paid now’.

US President Joe Biden addresses striking members of the United Auto Workers union at a picket line outside a General Motors plant in Belleville, Michigan, on Tuesday. Picture: AFP

Joe Biden urged striking carmakers on the picket line in Detroit to “stick with it” as Donald Trump blamed the president’s green energy goals for destroying traditional jobs, in the opening salvos of the 2024 election.

Biden, 80, the first sitting president to join a picket line, told strikers they deserve “a hell of a lot more than you’re paid now” but carefully avoided backing United Auto Workers’ (UAW) demands for a 40 per cent pay rise, a four-day week and better pensions.

Trump, 77, will tonight (Wednesday) speak at a non-unionised components plant, also in Detroit, about his pledge to scrap Biden’s target that half of all new vehicles sold by 2030 are electric vehicles, which require fewer workers to produce. Trump says the green goals will “annihilate” manufacturing jobs.

The strike by the UAW is the first simultaneous action against all of the traditional Detroit Three manufacturers – Ford, General Motors and Stellantis, the owner of Chrysler – and has become the battlefield for the rival presidential campaigns for the votes of working-class Americans. Biden is promising solidarity with unions for better pay and conditions while Trump is focusing on his commitment to fossil fuels to cut prices for consumers and maintain traditional jobs.

The strike by the UAW is the first simultaneous action against all of the traditional Detroit Three manufacturers – Ford, General Motors and Stellantis, the owner of Chrysler. Picture: Getty Images

Biden was greeted at Detroit’s airport by Shawn Fain, the firebrand UAW leader, who drove with the president to a nearby picket line at a General Motors parts facility where he spoke briefly through a handheld megaphone to cheering strikers. “You guys, the UAW, you saved the automobile industry back in 2008 … made a lot of sacrifices, gave up a lot and the companies were in trouble but now they’re doing incredibly well,” Biden said, while standing on a platform in front of two dozen strikers. “Guess what, you should be doing incredibly well too. Stick with it. You deserve a significant raise and other benefits. Let’s get back what we lost, OK?”

Biden, wearing a UAW cap, introduced Fain, who recalled that they were at a site that built B-24 bombers during the Second World War. “Today … it’s a different kind of war we’re fighting. Today the enemy isn’t some foreign country miles away, it is right here in our own area. It’s corporate greed.” The president pumped his fist when Fain added: “The weapon we produce to fight that enemy … is by standing together.”

Biden put his arm around a female striker for a few minutes as he listened, before taking the microphone at the end of Fain’s speech to urge them to continue their strike until the three companies increased their offer. They have so far suggested raises of about 20 per cent over four years but rejected the calls for better pensions with healthcare and for a return to inflation-linked pay rises.

“Let’s keep going. You deserve what you’ve earned and you’ve earned a hell of a lot more than you’re getting paid now,” Biden said.

The UAW demands include the right to represent workers at ten new battery plants, nine of which are being built by joint ventures with South Korean batterymakers. Pay at one recently opened battery plant in Ohio is much lower than at the unionised factories of the Rust Belt.

Trump posted on his Truth Social site that Biden’s electric vehicle plans would cost “countless thousands” their jobs.

“The only thing Biden could say today that would help the striking autoworkers is to announce the immediate termination of his ridiculous mandate. Anything else is just a feeble and insulting attempt to distract American labour from this vicious Biden betrayal,” Trump wrote. “Crooked Joe should be ashamed to show his face before these hardworking Americans he is stabbing in the back. With Biden, it doesn’t matter what hourly wages they get, in three years there will be no autoworker jobs as they will all come out of China and other countries. With me, there will be jobs and wages like you’ve never seen before. Our economy will grow!”

Fain, 54, was narrowly elected UAW leader in March and declared his intent for the biggest strike in a generation by throwing the first pay offer from Stellantis straight in the bin.

The UAW endorsed Biden in the 2020 election but has yet to do so this time, with Fain saying last week that “our endorsements are going to be earned. We’ve been very clear about that, no matter what politician”. He is no fan of Trump, though, and has said: “Every fibre of our union is being poured into fighting the billionaire class and an economy that enriches people like Donald Trump at the expense of workers.”

The strike’s threat to the precarious US economy is just the start of a challenging week for Biden. Tomorrow (Thursday) Republicans will hold the first hearing of their impeachment inquiry. James Comer, the Republican chairman of the House oversight committee, said he would “present evidence uncovered to date and hear from legal and financial experts about crimes the Bidens may have committed as they brought in millions at the expense of US interests”.

Analysis

Joe Biden’s dash to the picket line highlights a tussle with Donald Trump for a demographic that has decided numerous recent presidential elections: the Reagan Democrats (David Charter writes).

These are mainly white but increasingly diverse working-class Americans at the mercy of seismic economic change, most recently wrought by the recession of 2008-09 and the rise of globalisation, offshoring and now the transition to a green economy.

The last single-term Democrat, Jimmy Carter, was undone by the appeal of Ronald Reagan to blue-collar voters after years of economic malaise and high unemployment in the 1970s.

Reagan also stoked resentment of liberal policies on feminism, law and order, gun control and gay rights that struck a chord with the cultural conservatism of working-class voters. Today’s Republicans attack “wokeism” to appeal to the same constituency.

Reagan’s landslides in 1980 and 1984 included the capture of key Rust Belt states such as Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, which were all later won twice by the Democrats Bill Clinton and Barack Obama but reclaimed by Trump for his own blue-collar-fuelled victory in 2016.

Biden owed his success to swinging three of those four states but the Trump campaign believes it can repeat Reagan’s feat and win in 2024.

Trump’s campaign strategy echoes Reagan with a “culture wars” attack on Democratic liberalism but has a much more aggressive “America First” protection of traditional domestic industries than his predecessor.

Trump is not fighting Biden directly for trade union backing, partly because Biden has it all but sewn up after decades of collaboration with the Democrats and partly because just 11.3 per cent of US workers are represented by a union.

Instead Trump is going to a non-union plant today (Wednesday) to appeal to workers who feel let down by union leaders or by job insecurity.

The Trump effect on white working-class voters was shown by the trend in NBC News polls: 45 per cent considered themselves Republicans in 2010, rising to 47 per cent in 2016 and 57 per cent in 2020.

This has turned the carworkers’ strike into a proving ground for the next president – Trump will paint Biden as a socialist making excessive demands and imposing green energy changes that will destroy jobs, while the Democrats will say that Trump is really on the side of the billionaire class, offering nothing for job security and no improvement in pay and conditions.

The Times