WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden will be the keynote speaker at a United Auto Workers political convention on Wednesday as he works to rally workers in critical auto manufacturing swing states like Michigan and Wisconsin.
Biden will speak as the union wraps up a three-day meeting in Washington to map out its political priorities, but leaders remained mum ahead of time on whether they will use the moment to back the Democrat’s bid for a second term – or will it last longer to try to make that happen? increase the influence of the UAW.
It will be Biden’s first political event since Tuesday’s primaries in New Hampshire, where former President Donald Trump solidified his hold on core Republican voters with a victory and Biden secured a win.
Biden regularly bills himself as the most labor-friendly leader in American history, even going so far as to show up during a strike with union workers at a GM parts warehouse in the Detroit area last fall.
But as recently as Monday, UAW President Shawn Fain was restrained in his comments, saying at the opening of the conference: “We need to make sure our political leaders have our backs. Support our cause, otherwise you will not get our support.”
At this week’s conference, support for Biden among union members ranged from enthusiastic to uncertainty about whether or not there would be a vote on Election Day.
Caroline Loveless, a resident and retired UAW member from Waterloo, Iowa, said she would enthusiastically vote for Biden, remembering his appearance on a picket line during last fall’s strike. She said his actions should remind union members that Biden is on their side.
“I hope they don’t get amnesia,” Loveless said, “on Election Day.”
William Louis of Groton, Connecticut, another member, said that while he is “tired of politicians,” he will reluctantly vote for Biden, though he said the president had not fully earned the members’ vote given the current state of the economy.
Louis said Biden would get his vote because Trump, the likely Republican nominee, “was a terrible president.”
Leo Carrillo, a member from Kansas City, said Biden’s appearance on the picket line showed that “he was there for us,” and helped him decide to vote for Biden in November.
“To me it meant a lot” that a sitting president would show that level of solidarity with autoworkers, Carrillo said. “But there is still more work to be done,” he said, pointing to the PRO Act — proposed legislation that would make it easier to form unions at the federal level. The legislation has advanced to the U.S. Senate, but does not have enough support to survive a filibuster.
However, Biden could face disagreement over his support for Israel in the war against Hamas in Gaza. Some younger members of the union were less enthusiastic about the president for that reason.
Johannah King-Slutzky, a graduate student at Columbia University and a member of the student worker union within the UAW, was one of several attendees who chanted “ceasefire now” during Fain’s afternoon speech on Monday. The union called for a ceasefire in Gaza in December.
“At this point, he has done nothing to deserve my vote,” King-Slutzky said, because “he has not acted urgently to stop the genocide in Gaza.”
The union has a lengthy process to determine its approval, involving its rank and file, but it is unclear how far along that is.
Fain, the UAW’s first president directly elected by its members, took office after a major bribery and embezzlement scandal that ended with two union presidents serving prison sentences. So he’s making sure he follows union procedures on the endorsement and shows that members made the decision, even though there’s no way the UAW would support Trump, said Brian Rothenberg, a former union spokesman.
The UAW, with about 380,000 members, is normally one of the last unions to back presidential candidates, Rothenberg said. For example, the union did not endorse Biden in 2020 until April 21.
In a November interview with The Associated Press, Fain made clear he personally supports Biden while railing against Trump.
Fain pointed to Biden’s visit to GM’s parts warehouse, which would likely be the first time a sitting president appeared with labor leaders.
Around the same time, Trump held a rally at a non-union auto parts manufacturer near Detroit, which Fain said was strange. The Biden administration also backed the union’s bid to convince Stellantis to reopen a shuttered factory in Belvidere, Illinois, and joined Fain in the city 70 miles (113 kilometers) northwest of Chicago to celebrate the reopening, Fain said.
Trump, Fain said, did not come to Detroit when the UAW went on strike while he was president in 2019, and he talked about moving auto jobs to Southern states where wages are lower.
“Actions speak louder than words,” Fain said. “But this process is owned by the members, and we will make those decisions when the time comes.”
Art Wheaton, director of labor studies at Cornell University, said he would be surprised if the union supported Biden at this point in the campaign. The UAW, he said, could have more influence on legislation and other issues if it waited until closer to the election to announce who it supports.
“There is no great rush when it comes to the UAW and their time frame,” he said.
Rothenberg said union support is important because polls show many UAW members are often undecided in the spring before the presidential election.
Internal UAW polling typically shows that in the spring and early summer, 30% of members support the Republican Party, 30% support Democrats and the remaining 40% switch between parties, he said. On Election Day, UAW members and retirees usually vote 60% Democratic, says Rothenberg, now a public relations consultant in Columbus, Ohio.
The approval could also affect non-union white men, who have voted more for Republicans than in the past, Rothenberg said.
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Krisher reported from Detroit.