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
    6059·
    1 year ago

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

      • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
        1344·
        1 year ago

        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.

          • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
            734·
            1 year ago
            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
                123·
                1 year ago

                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
                310·
                1 year ago

                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
      263·
      1 year ago

      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.