For the First Time in Over 100 Years, a Sitting President Will Join a Picket Line

For the first time in over 100 years, a sitting president will visit a picket line as President Joe Biden visits striking UAW members today, as Republicans inch closer to a shutdown.

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On Tuesday, for the first time in over 100 years, a sitting president will visit a picket line, a White House official told us on Monday evening. Having a president who supports labor is a big deal because it’s actually not that common.

President Biden has accepted UAW President Shawn Fain’s invitation to join strikers on the picket line, and by doing so, will throw the weight of the presidency behind their cause, and the cause of fair labor contracts, decent wages, safe working conditions, and good benefits.

“On Tuesday, President Biden will punctuate his vocal support for auto workers by joining UAW members on the picket line in Wayne County, Michigan. President Biden’s Investing in America agenda is helping ensure that the cars of the future will be built in America by unionized American workers, and is strengthening unions again after decades of politicians trying to crush them. Since President Biden took office, the U.S. economy has added 235,000 auto jobs—over four times as many auto jobs per month (and over 5 times as many auto manufacturing jobs per month) as under the previous administration, pre-Covid,” a White House official told The Daily.

Meanwhile: Republicans are trying to shut down the government

If the government shuts down, Republican lawmakers behind the shutdown will keep getting paid, but 1.3 million active-duty troops won’t. And if that doesn’t make your national security alarms start to buzz, well, neither will the hundreds of thousands of Department of Defense civilians be paid.

Republicans are very busy these days between trying to shut down the government and impeaching President Biden for something fictional that they are super busy trying to find or make up or whatever you call it when you’re projecting really hard but your dreams still aren’t manifesting, so you can understand why we can’t count on them to think about workers right now. Drama takes a lot of resources.

About the EV demands

One of the sticking points for the UAW in their negotiations is that they want the EV plants to be union plants.

This is something Biden has been criticized for missing, but the White House pointed out that actually, and I had forgotten this, while they pushed for American-made electric vehicles and the IRA gives a tax credit up to $7,500 for consumers provided the vehicle is assembled in North America, Biden’s Build Back Better Act “would have further conditioned bonus credits on union-made electric vehicles and domestically produced batteries.”

Oh. So even the criticism of Biden needing to step up on this issue missed the fact that they did try to protect workers.