Staff Reports
President Biden once again put on a show for the union crowd, this time at a United Auto Workers event in Illinois. The President paraded around a Stellantis plant in Belvidere, Illinois, putting on his best smile for the UAW members. A lot of fuss was made by the media about the UAW not yet endorsing Biden for the next election, but that’s just fake news. They’ll come around eventually, especially after their president, Shawn Fain, turned down a meeting with former President Trump, the likely frontrunner for the 2024 Republican nomination.
Fain went on to trash talk Trump, calling him out-of-touch and a billionaire who doesn’t give a hoot about the working class. But the real kicker here is that the UAW hasn’t exactly been cozying up to Biden, despite his public sympathy for the workers during the recent six-week strike. Sure, Biden likes to boast about being the first sitting president to join a picket line with UAW workers, but actions speak louder than words, and the UAW still hasn’t given him the thumbs up for reelection.
Biden seeks UAW endorsement during visit to Illinois EV-battery plant https://t.co/wFIGqwORHr pic.twitter.com/LSJAxWSN0A
— The Washington Times (@WashTimes) November 10, 2023
Now, here’s where things get interesting. The UAW has some beef with Biden’s push for electric vehicles (EVs). They’re worried that shifting to EVs could cost them 35,000 jobs based on a study from 2018, not to mention that most EVs are made in joint ventures with European companies, not good ol’ American labor unions. And don’t even get them started on Stellantis, a European corporate giant with a fancy headquarters in the Netherlands. It’s not your grandma’s American car company, that’s for sure.
But Biden, of course, had to put on a grand performance, telling reporters how much he supports the UAW’s efforts to unionize workers at Tesla and Toyota plants. He even tried to reassure everyone that EVs and union jobs can coexist, and he’s all about bringing back those high-paying union gigs. He’s a little selfish, he admitted, but he just wants what’s best for all autoworkers. And he made a lot of noise about how the future of the auto industry is all about American union workers, as if that weren’t obvious to everyone already.
In the end, sure, the Belvidere plant is reopening and bringing back jobs making EV batteries, but let’s not forget that it’s a far cry from the 1,200 jobs that were lost when the plant closed down. And sure, the UAW and Stellantis made a deal to bring back those jobs at higher salaries, but let’s see if the hype matches the reality. After all, political theater doesn’t always translate to real change for hardworking Americans.
