2023-09-26 22:27:42
US President Joe Biden addresses striking members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) union on a picket line outside a General Motors Service Parts Operations plant in Belleville, Michigan.
Photo: AFP – JIM WATSON
US President Joe Biden made history this Tuesday by becoming the country’s first active president to join pickets in defense of better working conditions for workers in the automotive sector.
The Democratic president, who boasts of being the most pro-union of all the leaders who have occupied the White House, went to Detroit (Michigan) at the invitation of the president of the United Auto Workers (UAW) union, Shawn Fain.
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His trip precedes the one that his predecessor, Republican Donald Trump (2017-2021), will also make to Michigan this Wednesday, who with his presence there skips the debate held at the same time (01:00 GMT on Thursday) in California by the conservative candidates. to the presidential elections of 2024.
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This second displacement, however, has not been supported by the union movement.
Biden arrived in Detroit around 12:00 local time (16:00 GMT) and was received at the airport by Fain himself, who took over the leadership of the union at the beginning of the year and who for the first time in the history of the American automotive industry called a meeting. simultaneous strike at Ford, Stellantis and General Motors (GM) plants, known as the Big Three of Detroit.
With a megaphone, cap and casual clothes, Biden addressed the strikers: “You saved the auto industry. They made a lot of sacrifices. Companies were in trouble. Now they are doing incredibly well and, you know what, you should too,” he said to applause.
About 5,600 UAW members walked out of 38 General Motors and Stellantis parts and distribution centers in the U.S. at noon on Sept. 22, 2023, adding to last week’s dramatic workers’ strike. According to the White House, Biden is the first sitting president to join a picket line.
Photo: AFP – JIM WATSON
“Wall Street did not build this country. The middle class did it. The unions did it. That is a fact. Let’s continue. They deserve what they have earned. And they have earned much more than they are being paid,” Biden added.
In previous statements, he had already stressed that he was hopeful that the respective negotiations would reach a successful conclusion and had stressed that employees deserve a “fair” share of the benefits they helped create.
“Today the enemy is not a foreign country thousands of miles away. He is right here in our own zone. It is corporate greed,” stressed Fain, for whom the way to defeat that greed is to stay united.
“Managers believe that the future belongs to them. It belongs to automobile workers. We do the real work. “We have the power,” added the union leader.
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The UAW began its strike on September 15 at a plant at each of those manufacturers and last week expanded it to another 38 Stellantis and General Motors production centers due to the lack of progress in negotiations with the latter.
“We will close the GM and Stellantis distribution centers until those two companies come to their senses and come to the table with a serious offer,” a combative Fain, whose union represents some 400,000 workers in the United States, declared last week. that about 145,000 are part of GM, Stellantis and Ford.
The UAW demands salary increases of 40% distributed over the next four years, the elimination of salary differences between plant workers of the same companies, greater guarantees of job security and recovering the aid they had until 2009 to compensate for the increase in the cost of living.
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