DETROIT – U.S. President Joe Biden was expected to visit Michigan on Tuesday to speak with autoworkers striking against Detroit’s Big Three automakers. It could be the first time a sitting U.S. president has ever joined the picket lines of a labor strike.
The Democratic president is reportedly coming to Michigan on Tuesday, Sept. 26, to meet with members of the United Auto Workers union who are currently on strike at General Motors, Stellantis and Ford Motor Company. The UAW chose to simultaneously strike at all three companies for the first time ever after failing to reach a deal with the automakers by their Sept. 14 contract deadline.
As the union enters its second week of the national auto strike, President Biden is planning to visit with striking autoworkers in Wayne County to “stand in solidarity with the men and women of UAW as they fight for a fair share of the value they helped create,” the president’s itinerary reads. He is expected to arrive at the picket lines in Wayne County around noon on Tuesday.
Biden’s decision to visit actual picket lines amid the labor strike is something that a sitting president has likely never done before.
U.S. presidents don’t have much of a history of visiting active picket lines, or of showing more support for labor workers than the industry itself. Even the more pro-union presidents like Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry Truman never joined an ongoing strike, historians say. Theodore Roosevelt did invite labor leaders and mine operators to visit the White House during the coal strike in 1902.
Biden, who has been working to establish himself as a pro-union leader, will become the first sitting president to ever knowingly join a labor strike by visiting picket lines on Tuesday.
As the tense talks and subsequent strike unfolded between the UAW and the Big Three, Biden has walked a fine line on the issue, though he has shown a bit more sympathy for the laborers. While campaigning for reelection amid a time when union members are being more active and vocal than they have in recent years, the president has repeated the UAW’s sentiment that automakers’ recent “record profits” should translate to “record contracts” with better pay and benefits for workers.
“I think the UAW gave up an incredible amount back when the automobile industry was going under. They gave everything from their pensions on, and they saved the automobile industry,” Biden said Monday at the White House. Now that the “industry is roaring back,” according to Biden, he stressed that autoworkers should also benefit.
Completely taking the UAW’s side could be risky for the president, who has recently been working with companies like the Big Three to help support and encourage a massive transition to electric vehicle production. EVs fall under the Biden administration’s efforts to shift toward clean energy initiatives.
Two of Biden’s top aides were asked to come to Detroit to help out with negotiations wherever they were needed. Labor Secretary Julie Su and senior aide Gene Sperling were initially expected to arrive in the Motor City last week, but changed their plans and were instead expected sometime this week.
Former President Donald Trump is also expected to visit Michigan this week on Wednesday to speak with striking autoworkers. Though the former president hopes to appear sympathetic to the union, he has been working to chip away at union support in critical swing states, such as Michigan and Pennsylvania.
UAW President Shawn Fain didn’t show any interest in Trump’s expected appearance, and completely dismissed the 2024 presidential candidate’s attempts to appear supportive of the union.
“Every fiber of our union is being poured into fighting the billionaire class and an economy that enriches people like Donald Trump at the expense of workers,” Fain said. “We can’t keep electing billionaires and millionaires that don’t have any understanding what it is like to live paycheck to paycheck and struggle to get by and expecting them to solve the problems of the working class.”
More: UAW president slams Trump ahead of planned trip to meet with Michigan picketers