WASHINGTON – President Biden is backing a United Auto Workers strike at the manufacturing plants of the “big three” domestic automakers as the union demands a 40% wage increase and a 32-hour work week.
“For the past two years — the past decade, the auto companies have posted high profits, including the last few years, because of the extraordinary skills and sacrifices of UAW workers,” Biden, 80, said at the White House Friday, hours after the strike. started
“The profits of the record were not fairly shared, in my view, with those employees.”
Biden did not specifically recommend terms for a deal, but said Ford, General Motors and Stellantis “should go further to ensure record corporate profits mean record contracts.”
The president also said he was sending White House adviser Gene Sperling and acting Labor Secretary Julie Su as his envoys for the talks.
Biden, who is seeking re-election next year, has taken pains to position himself as a staunch supporter of labor unions.
President Biden supports the United Auto Workers’ strike at the manufacturing plants of the “big three” domestic automakers. AP
His likely challenger in 2024, former President Donald Trump, won the key states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania in 2016 by appealing to working-class voters.
Biden carried those states by slim margins in 2020.
Trump, 77, may need to win the three swing states again to secure a non-consecutive second term, and has asked the UAW to demand the repeal of Biden’s environmental policies, including those in favor of electric vehicles.
The union is demanding a 40% pay rise and a 32-hour work week. Getty Images
“For the past two years — the past decade, auto companies have posted record profits, including the last few years, because of the extraordinary skills and sacrifices of UAW workers,” Biden said.Getty Images
Trump criticized Biden during the last presidential campaign for supporting the North American Free Trade Agreement while a senator in the 1990s. Trump blamed the Clinton-era deal for causing US auto jobs to move to Mexico and other countries.
The 45th president renegotiated trade pacts while in office to raise Mexico’s wage requirements and make US labor more competitive.
Biden previously sought to play the role of chief negotiator of collective bargaining last year in the run-up to a threatened rail workers’ strike.
When most of the unions involved rejected the deal brokered by Biden, the president signed a law forcing them to accept it and keep working.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
