Chicago Tribune
We understand the political reasoning behind President Joe Biden joining the United Auto Workers picket line in Michigan on Tuesday: Michigan will be a key swing state in the next presidential election, as it was in the prior election, and Democrats need to shore up support.
Biden’s poll numbers are not inspiring confidence, and the dispute between the UAW and Detroit’s auto giants clearly represented a golden opportunity for Biden to shore up support among a key yet politically wobbly constituency: blue-collar workers. The Democrats know they have can count on the loyalty of coastal elites, but the folks who work the line in Detroit are a less secure constituency. Donald Trump also is paying them plenty of attention, and even the UAW’s president, Shawn Fain, has not exactly been on Team Biden to date. Tuesday, we suspect, was much about securing his loyalty.
Still, we believe Biden should not have been there.
The main problem when the president of the United States stands on a picket line is that he loses the subsequent ability to act as an honest broker, to be able to pick up the phone and tell both sides to compromise for the sake of the American economy.
If, at this juncture, Biden is standing so visibly with the union, the automakers could hardly be expected to see the president as neutral and acting not for one side or the other but for the good of the nation. And given the centrality of General Motors, Ford and Stellantis to the economic health of the country, the good of the nation may well come into play in the event of a prolonged strike.
By joining picketers, Biden is tacitly supporting the current demands of the union.
What are those UAW demands? Even Fain calls them “audacious.” Among other things, the union is calling for wage increase of about 40% over the length of a four-year contract, an eye-popping pay raise; a return of so-called defined pensions, which very few Americans in the private sector have; and a four-day workweek likely to explode the costs of automakers. In essence, the UAW is proposing that its members work for four days but get paid for five.
The union has zeroed in on the pay given to bosses such as General Motors CEO Mary Barra, the highest-paid chief executive among the Big 3. Barra made nearly $29 million last year. That’s because her pay is almost all performance-based and GM had a banner time coming out of the pandemic.
But the Democrats are gambling that most Americans now see these inequities as egregious, not good for shareholders and workers alike.
Whatever you think about that from a point of view of the redistribution of wealth, it’s hard to argue that the UAW demands are good for Detroit’s EV transition, although Democrats don’t want to have that debate right now.
Plenty of moderate Democrats, though, can see that these demands are potentially catastrophic for a vital American industry, given all of the foreign investment in this sector.
And as Biden headed to the picket lines Tuesday, the White House tried to spin his presence as merely general support for better wages and working conditions for autoworkers and concern about the yawning pay gap between CEOs and workers, now so prevalent.
But all of that could, and should, have been achieved from a podium in the White House briefing room.
We think the workers should do better and get decent pensions, and we think the pay gap is out of hand. But we also think this UAW position clearly is too much for the health of Detroit.
Even the political calculus is far from certain: Plenty of Americans prefer a president who retains more independence and balance.
