President Biden is heading to Michigan on Thursday to meet with members of the United Auto Workers (UAW), following his support for his re-election campaign.
According to his campaign, Mr. Biden plans to participate in a debate with rank-and-file workers at UAW Hall near Detroit. UAW President Sean Fein will also be in attendance, and the event will focus on issues in the November election.
“Everything we do as a union, including this election, is about building working class power,” Fein said in a statement provided by the Biden campaign. “You can elect a president who represents workers, or you can elect a billionaire who stands with billionaires. Right now, tens of thousands of autoworkers across this country are fighting for a better life. What we need is a president who supports them, not one who attacks them every step of the way. The UAW stands up for where we stand and who will support us. I mean, I know Joe Biden.”
The UAW endorsed Biden last week. Fein said the president had won the group’s support for his commitment to America’s working class and accused former President Trump of being a “scab” that “stands against everything we stand for as a labor union.” .
Mr. Biden, who has frequently declared himself the most pro-union president in history, has been involved in a UAW strike in Michigan since last September amid contract disputes with Ford, Stellantis and General Motors. During this time, he met with workers on the picket line. He became the first sitting president to walk the picket line.
One of the issues in the negotiations is the production of electric vehicles, which Mr. Biden has embraced as his administration seeks to promote the use of climate-friendly vehicles.
President Trump sought to use the UAW strike to gain support from working-class voters, visiting Michigan last September and speaking during the strike. But he visited non-union stores and denounced Fein as a “drug guy” in support of Biden.
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Nevertheless, Mr. Trump is trying to eat into Mr. Biden’s support from organized labor, insisting that rank-and-file members also support Mr. Biden and will meet with the Teamsters in Washington, D.C., this week.
In the 2020 election, Mr. Trump lost union members by 14 percentage points to Mr. Biden, compared to the 8 percentage point difference he lost to Hillary Clinton in 2016. It increased from 2015.
Biden has received support from the AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest union federation, as well as the American Federation of Teachers, the United Farm Workers of America and the North American Workers International Union.
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