One of the nation’s largest business organizations on Friday squarely blamed President Biden for the historic strike by members of the United Auto Workers union, which is the first time its members walked out simultaneously on all three major Detroit automakers.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce said the strike and its fallout were caused by Mr. Biden who has encouraged unions to flex their muscle, even if it threatens to upend the U.S. economy.
“The UAW strike and indeed ‘the summer of strikes’ is the natural result of the Biden administration’s ‘whole of government’ approach to promoting unionization at all costs,” Suzanne P. Clark, Chamber of Commerce president and CEO, said in a statement.
Mr. Biden is expected to address the strike in remarks from the White House at some point on Friday.
Roughly 13,000 U.S. autoworkers walked off the job after midnight Friday after talks failed to resolve the giant gulf between union demands and what Detroit’s three major automakers are willing to give them.
The UAW is demanding an immediate 20% raise for workers, followed by four annual raises of 5% each. It also asked to shift back pensions, reinstate cost-of-living adjustments, a 32-hour workweek and elimination of compensation tiers.
Automakers have been willing to inch toward workers’ demands, but the two sides remain far apart.
Just after the workers stopped making vehicles, workers began picketing at a General Motors assembly plant in Wentzville, Missouri, a Ford factory in Wayne, Michigan, and a Stellantis Jeep plant in Toledo, Ohio.
Stellantis is an Italian-American conglomerate that also owns Fiat, Chrysler, Dodge, RAM, Peugeot, Citroën and Alfa Romeo.
If the strike stretches on, auto dealers’ vehicle supplies could dwindle, sending prices north even as the U.S. economy is already strained from high inflation.
Anderson Economic Group estimates that a strike against all three companies would be a $5 billion hit to the economy within 10 days. It would also wipe out thousands of part suppliers that depend on business from the three automakers.
That forces Mr. Biden to walk a fine line. He cannot break his support for unions because he’s dependent on them for his reelection in 2024. However, he also can’t risk further economic havoc at a time when the U.S. economy still hasn’t rebounded from the pandemic.
Jared Bernstein, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, on Wednesday stopped just short of saying Mr. Biden would support a strike. Instead, he repeated that the president wants a fair deal for autoworkers.
Complicating matters for the president is that his options to resolve the strike are limited.
The president doesn’t have the legal authority to stop a strike the way he can if freight railroad or airline workers walk off the job.
That leaves him with no alternative but to apply public pressure. Yet his influence with the UAW appears to be waning. The UAW is one of the few unions that have withheld an endorsement for Mr. Biden’s reelection.
The UAW has criticized Mr. Biden’s push to transition from gasoline-powered cars to electric vehicles, which the union says will cost jobs.
That has left the White House with few options beyond holding meetings and taking phone calls with UAW President Shawn Fain.
Mr. Fain visited the White House in July to talk with administration officials about his strategy for the upcoming strike. He spoke with the president on Labor Day.
He also bristled at Mr. Biden’s comments about a potential strike ahead of workers walking off the job.
“I’m not worried about the strike until it happens,” Mr. Biden said last week. “I don’t think it’s going to happen.”
Mr. Fain told a Detroit television station that he was shocked by the president’s reaction.
“I appreciate the president’s optimism and I also hope that the Big Three will come to their senses and start bargaining in good faith, but we are ready to do what is necessary come September 15 if they don’t,” Mr. Fain said on CNN.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
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