President Joe Biden will travel to Michigan on Tuesday and walk the picket line with members of the United Auto Workers union, he announced Friday, a trip that comes after the president faced political pressure to ramp up his public support for the union members.

“Tuesday, I’ll go to Michigan to join the picket line and stand in solidarity with the men and women of UAW as they fight for a fair share of the value they helped create. It’s time for a win-win agreement that keeps American auto manufacturing thriving with well-paid UAW jobs,” Biden said in a post to X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

Biden’s trip, and the historic presidential appearance on a picket line, underscores the political opportunity as the strike against the nation’s three largest automakers – General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis – enters its second week. It will come one day before former President Donald Trump, currently the front-runner in the GOP presidential race, is scheduled to deliver a primetime speech to an audience of current and former union members, including from UAW, in Detroit. Earlier in the week, Trump’s team confirmed he would be skipping the second Republican primary debate for the Michigan speech.

    • Chetzemoka@startrek.website
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      1 year ago

      Source is one of the unions themselves:

      https://www.ibew.org/media-center/Articles/23Daily/2306/230620_IBEWandPaid

      "Since then, several other railroad-related unions have also seen success in negotiating for similar sick-day benefits. These 12 unions represent more than 105,000 railroad workers.

      “Biden deserves a lot of the credit for achieving this goal for us,” Russo said. “He and his team continued to work behind the scenes to get all of rail labor a fair agreement for paid sick leave.”

      • Zaktor
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        1 year ago

        This is a union that voted for the original contract without sick days. They didn’t want to strike in the first place.

        And there were more demands that what they ended up getting.