President Joe Biden on Tuesday joined a picket line with striking autoworkers in Michigan, supporting their call for a 40% pay raise and saying they deserve a "lot more" than they are getting.

President Joe Biden on Tuesday joined a picket line with striking autoworkers in Michigan, supporting their call for a 40% pay raise and saying they deserve a “lot more” than they are getting.

Biden’s appearance, the first visit by a U.S. president to striking workers in modern history, comes a day before Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner for president, will speak to auto workers in Michigan. The rare back-to-back events highlight the importance of union support in the 2024 presidential election, even though unions represent a tiny fraction of U.S. workers.

Democrat Biden traveled to a Belleville, Michigan, parts distribution center owned by General Motors (GM.N), and joined dozens of picketers outside. “Companies were in trouble, now they’re doing incredibly well. And guess what? You should be doing incredibly well, too,” Biden said through a bullhorn. “Stick with it.”

  • danc4498@lemmy.worldEnglish
    7063·
    1 jaar geleden

    I think this would mean more if he actually stood up for the railway workers during their strike.

      • Wahots@pawb.social
        192·
        1 jaar geleden

        Gotta give the president props for that, as well as democrats. Didn’t realize they got that through. I’d like them to keep pushing for a least 12 national sick days for all mid to major companies.

        Would love to see some universal protections.

      • bdonvr@thelemmy.club
        2323·
        1 jaar geleden

        Far less than they asked for, and did nothing towards meeting their other major demands such as Precision Scheduled Railroading.

        If Biden was incapable or unwilling to force the rail companies to give better terms, he should have stayed out of it.

        • paultimate14@lemmy.world
          256·
          1 jaar geleden

          Far less than they asked for

          Have you ever heard of the word “negotiation”? Why aren’t you talking about how the result was “far less than what the rail companies asked for”?

          • bdonvr@thelemmy.club
            612·
            1 jaar geleden

            They got like 5 sick days out of the 15 they wanted. And zero of their other demands.

        • SeedyOne@lemmy.ca
          1614·
          1 jaar geleden

          Then perhaps they shouldn’t have accepted it and striked as planned? The fact that it wasn’t “enough” for the workers isn’t on the POTUS and doesn’t negate his actions.

          • BarrelAgedBoredom@lemm.ee
            152·
            1 jaar geleden

            They kind of kick-started this years huge labor push. Sure, it was bubbling up for a while before the rail unions decided to take action but they were the first “big” players to threaten a strike in a while. It’s easy to say that from the sidelines after the fact but they were being vilified by national media 24/7 for weeks, getting a bunch of pressure from Congress and being threatened to have the book thrown at them if they decided to strike. They were early to the party and didn’t have all of it’s completely understandable.

            It’s also completely valid to criticize Biden for not doing enough when it really mattered, he could’ve put more pressure on Congress, he could’ve visited the workers and given his approval. He’s clearly capable of these things when it suits his interests, why didn’t he do any of that for the rail unions? Surely they could’ve used the help. Why was “working in the background” good enough for them but all of a sudden it’s insufficient for the UAW?

            • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
              141·
              1 jaar geleden

              The labor movement is a positive feedback loop of direct action. I’m still contending with the fact that I’m a major player in the labor movement within tech, but I can trace the labor action of the last few months directly to CODE-CWA forming to help organize Google workers in 2020. Labor action fuels labor action. The ABK Workers Alliance were inspired by Paizo, who inspired Vodeo Workers United, who inspired ABKWA members to unionize at Raven into GWA, who inspired more tech unions to form, who inspired SBWU to perform militant labor actions, who inspired WGA and SAG-AFTRA (they work in the games industry).

              Edit: I feel like downvotes are coming from my claim about being a major player in the labor movement. Without revealing who I am or where I work, my workplace will be the largest union in tech when we file, beating ZWU by approximately 160 people. I’m the lead organizer of this campaign, and we have approximately 40% card saturation (the campaign started very abnormally). There is almost 0% chance anyone has seen my name outside of my home town, except my labor actions have placed me on an obscure games media podcast talking about GDC, in a picture of a CWA newsletter, and I was quoted on an article from WSJ regarding my activism.

            • SeedyOne@lemmy.ca
              4·
              1 jaar geleden

              Criticism is totally fine and often deserved, I’m just saying using the rail strike (or any past Biden ball-drops) as a measuring stick for this one servers little purpose and detracts from the core issue. He should be held to task for those things when it comes election time, not fielding “but what about XYZ?” statements.

          • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
            1510·
            1 jaar geleden

            Launching an illegal strike is far different from launching a legally protected strike. They’d have to accept the possibility that everyone loses their jobs and some people might even get taken to court. Things just aren’t that bad yet.

      • Ech@lemm.eeEnglish
        37·
        1 jaar geleden

        4 days out of the desired 15, and no addressing of the myriad of other issues. Wow, such good. Much work. Good Biden.

      • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
        1646·
        1 jaar geleden

        Did he though? His Congress pushed through a bill with a smaller compensation package, 1(one) day of sick time, no removal of advance notice for sick time, none of the OT protections, and no acknowledgement of safety concerns.

          • bobman@unilem.org
            17·
            1 jaar geleden

            I mean, just because they’re cool with a shitty deal doesn’t mean it wasn’t a shitty deal.

            It’s easier to fool someone than to convince them they’ve been fooled, after all.

              • bobman@unilem.org
                17·
                1 jaar geleden

                No, but just because they’re cool with a shitty deal doesn’t mean it wasn’t a shitty deal.

                It’s easier to fool someone than to convince them they’ve been fooled, after all.

                  • bobman@unilem.org
                    12·
                    1 jaar geleden

                    Err… what? I copied and pasted what I wrote before because it was a sufficient response to your comment.

                    You seem to have this weird idea that just because they accepted the deal, that it was a good deal. I said that’s not necessarily true. Then you replied saying “yes it is, they know more than you” which completely ignores my point, so I re-iterated it.

          • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
            939·
            1 jaar geleden
            1. Fuck you for assuming I’m any kind of liberal. Especially fuck you for insinuating I’m a Republican.
            2. Regardless of the RLA holding a gun to their Union’s head, they did vote to approve the Senate’s contract. I’m personally very dissatisfied with the agreement, but ultimately, their union voted to ratify the agreement. As NPR notes, the deal falls significantly short of the goals rail workers were fighting for. They decided to accept it, in the face of a repeat of PATCO.
              • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
                163·
                1 jaar geleden

                I got a bit upset about you saying I was fueling right-wing talking points, so my bad. I’ll always fight on the side of labor, even if the Republican party is trying to make them the ball in political games.

                Personally I think it would have turned out much better for their union after even a day on strike, but I guess we’ll never know. My point is not “they didn’t get what they wanted but got something good”, it’s that the deal was forcibly imposed on them without any other options. I was not aware of the aftermath of the deal so I appreciate you highlighting it, but it still falls short in my eyes. Were I in their union, I’d be a minority opposed to the outcome. But that’s the thing, I’m just a guy on the Internet, not a member of IBEW, SMART-MD, or IBT (CWA guy in the tech industry, actually).

                I trust you to do the right thing, I don’t need a screen shot. Thank you for putting up.

              • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
                412·
                1 jaar geleden

                I didn’t say anything about your personal politics - I have far too little to go off to make that kind of claim.

                You accused them of listening to Hannity, so uh

    • Kichae@kbin.social
      313·
      1 jaar geleden

      It would, absolutely, but it still means a whole lot.

      It’s a recognition by a slick, seasoned, career politician in the highest office in his country that the winds are shifting with respect to the labour movement.

      Don’t think of this as Biden expressing any deeply held belief. Don’t think of anything he does in those terms. The Democrats in general, and Biden especially, are a mirror that reflects something meaningful about the socio-political environment. Just as Trump and the Republicans are.

      He and his team believe that something in that environment has shifted, and that labour is poised to be ok the winning side of that shift.