President Joe Biden is set to join members of the United Auto Workers union Tuesday in Wayne County, Michigan, walking the picket line on the eve of a visit from former President Donald Trump.
The trip comes as Biden faces consistently low polling numbers on his handling of economic issues, and, back in Washington, the looming threat of a government shutdown this week. Both a prolonged strike and a shutdown could have economic consequences – something the White House is seeking to avoid as Biden tries to convince voters his economic policies are working. He’s also appearing in the battleground state of Michigan just one day before his chief political rival – whom he defeated in the 2020 presidential election – comes to the crucial swing state to make his own appeal to union workers.
Trump, the front-runner in the GOP presidential primary race, is scheduled to skip the second Republican debate to deliver a prime-time speech to an audience of current and former union members, including from the UAW, in Detroit on Wednesday. Trump has slammed the president for the visit, claiming Biden “had no intention” of walking the picket line until Trump said he would make a speech in Michigan.
A far cry from just 10 months ago when he blew up the railway picket line.
I saw that story from a distance but didn’t really follow it. How did Biden negatively impact the workers striking against the railroads?
The railway strike would’ve caused shortages of chlorine for city water supplies, shortages of essential medicines like insulin and antibiotics, severe food insecurity and inflation, and would’ve led to millions of people losing their jobs. Railway freight accounts for 40% of freight transport in the US. Imagine 40% of everything that’s made every day suddenly not getting to where it needs to go. There’s a reason Congress has never refused to block a railway strike every time it’s been threatened over the last 150 years.
The contract was good for the workers but didn’t include paid sick days. Congress imposed the contract on the rail workers when a couple of unions didn’t ratify it (although most of the unions did).
Biden kept working behind the scenes after signing the law Congress passed to block the strike and got the rail workers their sick days without the suffering a rail strike would’ve had on the millions of Americans who were already struggling with high inflation on essentials. The IBEW union explicitly thanked him for it: https://www.ibew.org/media-center/Articles/23Daily/2306/230620_IBEWandPaid
Imagine if more people knew this. They only saw “Biden bad for unions” and parrot the line while it’s more “Biden administration weighs the challenges of a strike that would hurt common people, finds alternate path to satisfy all parties.”
By saying that he would intervene with the national guard if railway workers actually striked.
100 years later, and still willing to gun down workers if profitable.
He actively pushed for, and passed, legislation that effectively forbade rail workers from picketing
I had read that the Biden administration kept pressuring the railways behind the scenes after the strike was averted till the unions got what they had wanted in the first place anyway.
I don’t know where I first read it but this link seems to confirm it.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/may/01/railroad-workers-union-win-sick-leave
“We’re very happy about this. We’ve been trying to get this for decades,” said Artie Maratea, president of the Transportation Communications Union. “It was public pressure and political pressure that got them to come to the table.”
Or from the union themselves at https://www.ibew.org/media-center/Articles/23Daily/2306/230620_IBEWandPaid
We’re thankful that the Biden administration played the long game on sick days and stuck with us for months after Congress imposed our updated national agreement. Without making a big show of it, Joe Biden and members of his administration in the Transportation and Labor departments have been working continuously to get guaranteed paid sick days for all railroad workers.
11/12 of those railway unions had agreed to the newly achieved negotiated terms.
Weird how he both ended the strike and the striking workers got everything they asked for soon after.
It’s almost as if he were a competent president that was working towards the best outcome for Americans in that situation.
Shame that so many on the picket line are MAGAts. Democrats are helping a group who’s members have fallen for Trump.
They need to be won back over, and the way you do that is basically the same way Trump did in the first place: by making them feel seen, supported, and important.
I don’t totally disagree with this, but you don’t flip people with a single gesture. Dems have been out wasting their time for years now on fringe groups who represent a few percentage points when it comes to our total population, all while the masses have felt neglected. When is this going to change? You don’t win elections by pandering to teeny, tiny minority groups. You win elections by listening and communicating with those groups that should be representing your core Base.
You say that but non-hispanic white people make up “only” 60% of the population, and many of those people think that conservativism is insane and also want to support the remaining 40%. Almost any LGBT+ white people will be on that side as well.
That also begs the question that with nearly half the country being visible minorities and huge chunks of the majority being other forms of minority what do you mean by “those groups that should be representing your core base”?
I’ll also agree that a party’s core base should be broader than “just enough to win” and there’s no reason that salt-of-the-earth labourers and such can’t be taken care of too, especially since there’s a fair amount of overlap.
I think they hope that the pandering endears the majority of decent people to their cause. Unfortunately, the majority of people aren’t decent, substantially lack the ability to empathize, and are struggling just as much as the minority groups Dems elevate. It’s shitty identity politics and I understand why a large group of “out of touch” blue collar workers got tired of it. It’s not just they who are out of touch, and it’s certainly not them trying to win national elections.
And lies, don’t forget the lies
And a constant 24/7 opinion news cycle telling them what the party wants them to hear.
That’s the right thing to do. Help people who need help.
“I’m gonna only help people who support me, if you don’t support me I’ll fuck you over” is a Trump way to think.
Democrats are helping people… ideology and morals have to come into play eventually
Shame that so many on the picket line are MAGAts.
That’s wild. Don’t they know unions and organized labor is socialism?! /s
But really I’m surprised there are many Republicans and Trumpers who are unionized. I guess they don’t actually care about their supposed principles if their welfare is on the line.
They never have. Ayn Rand was on welfare for crying out loud.
I it could go either way, but I’m betting on Biden who is great at retail politics.
