Dressed in a sweater and shirt, untied, President Joe Biden picked up the megaphone and, like one of the strikers, addressed the others participating in the protest.
“Wall Street didn’t build the country, the middle class built the country,” he proclaimed. “You deserve what you have earned and you have earned much more than what you are being paid,” Biden stressed as he became the first US president to join the picket line. It happened in Wayne, Michigan, at the Ford company plant, one of the three companies, along with General Motors and Stellantis (formerly Chrysler), whose workers, affiliated with the UAW union), are on strike, the first time that workers Employees of Detroit’s big three automotive companies coordinate a protest in unison.
“The truth is that you, those of the UAW, saved the automobile industry in 2008,” he stressed. “You have made many sacrifices, you gave up many things when companies had problems. Now they are working incredibly well. Do you know what? “You should do incredibly well too,” he insisted.
The workers ask that their salaries be updated by 40% in the next four years. That is the amount by which the remuneration of managers has more or less increased, although starting from a much higher initial figure. Biden seemed to endorse that request, which was echoed by the others and he responded with a “yes.”
“The enemy today is not the companies of some foreign country. They are here, among us, that enemy is corporate greed,” said Shawn Fain, president of the union, while Biden listened to him wearing the cap and the slogan “Union Yes.”
“And the weapon that we produce to fight against that enemy are the liberators, the truly liberated, which is the working class, the middle class,” Fain added.
It was a truly extraordinary image that Biden left, there, with the protesters. The White House insisted that the president only wanted to show his solidarity, but that in no case did he try to interfere in the negotiations. However, his mere presence was already interpreted by many of the protesters as support for his demands, and he received condemnation from the businessmen.
Presidents of the United States usually travel around the country and visit companies to further honor their managers, who are praised as creators of jobs and wealth.
The photographs and praise are for the company bosses, while the needy only appear as grateful applauders.
Joe Biden broke all schemes this Tuesday. The expression “historic day” was repeated ad nauseam in this first time that an American president went to a factory to join the picket line of striking workers.
This is the flagship nation of capitalism and capitalists, but in times of electoral difficulties, the votes of “blue collar” workers are worth as much as those of “white collar” executives and are even much more numerous.
Biden, en route to California to meet with the so-called Democratic elites, stopped at the Wayne (Michigan) factory whose workers have been protesting for almost two weeks.
This is not everything. On Tuesday Biden and on Wednesday Donald Trump will arrive in Detroit to make a speech on this same issue. The former president decided to take this step to skip the second debate of the Republican candidates for the 2024 elections that will be held that same night. Trump is the absolute leader in that race and he doesn’t want to expose himself.
So he chose to go do populism in Michigan, a state that he won in 2016, but lost in 2020.
The worker vote was decisive. The auto union, the UAW, with 146,000 members in the state, supported Biden three years ago. Looking ahead to 2024, there is still no official position.
The White House had to come to the defense of Biden’s calendar, who has always been considered the most pro-union president there has ever been. The point is that, on this occasion, Trump won by hand by announcing his visit.
“Absolutely not,” responded Karine Jean-Pierre, government spokesperson, about the former president’s alleged influence on the official agenda.
“This decision to visit the picket line responds to his desire, it is what he wants,” the spokesperson insisted, after receiving the invitation from Shawn Fain, who criticized Trump’s initiative and said he would not be welcome. The former president will not go to any company, but he is expected to attack the union leaders and the Biden administration’s commitment to the electric car, one of the key factors in the origin of the current strike as it requires less labor.
Trump, who only thinks about his personal and immediate benefit and abhors the future as long as it gives him votes, declares himself “pro workers,” although the policies he made during his mandate did not exactly favor them. He knows, however, that his fervent base is made up of uneducated whites, a group that overlaps heavily with the union movement.
If anyone takes more risks with this totally extraordinary move, it is Biden, who plays the tightrope walker’s rope. If the strike is resolved soon, analysts noted, a point could be scored. But if it is prolonged it can cause setbacks. He already predicted that there would be no stoppage and there is.
