Biden Administration Treads Carefully as United Auto Workers Threaten a Strike

Talks to avert a United Auto Workers strike, posing risks for the US economy and President Joe Biden, are hitting roadblocks two weeks before a contract deadline. The union president, Shawn Fain, held up a trash can during a livestream for his members this week and said it was “overflowing with the bullshit that the Big Three continue to peddle.”

But although Biden says he’s “concerned” about a possible strike, his acting Labor Secretary says her department doesn’t want to interfere in UAW negotiations with Detroit’s Big Three automakers and that the administration has not been asked to intervene.

“They have to sit down together, they have to grapple with hard issues,” Julie Su told The Messenger in an interview Thursday. “Sometimes they make public statements about what they're doing and sometimes those, you know, match exactly what’s happening at the bargaining table, and sometimes they don't. That's the reality for anybody who understands the process. And we respect that process, as an administration.”

Much is riding on UAW’s contract negotiations with General Motors, Ford and Stellantis, automakers known as the Big Three. A 10-day strike could result in more than $5.6 billion in financial losses, experts say. The union’s current contract expires on Sept. 14.

Biden often says he intends to be “the most pro-union president” ever, but he has to walk a fine line. While he’ll want to avoid a strike, pushing too hard against one could anger UAW members, whose support he needs in the 2024 election – and whose endorsement he has yet to win. 

Getting involved with negotiations is a gamble for the Biden administration because if things go wrong, Biden specifically would be blamed for the strike, said Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of labor education research at Cornell School of Industrial and Labor Relations.

“Biden is facing an election and he needs labor support, maybe more than he realizes,” Bronfenbrenner said. “A lot of those UAW members did not vote for him. They're more likely to vote for him now than they were before. But if they feel betrayed, then that's a problem for Biden.”

Biden met with UAW President Shawn Fain at the White House in July as negotiations began. The Labor Department and administration remain in touch with the parties “and are closely monitoring the status of talks at the bargaining table," a Labor Department spokesperson said.

UAW on Thursday filed an unfair labor practice complaint to the National Labor Relations Board against GM and Stellantis for not bargaining a new contract in good faith, a charge both companies rejected. Fain, on Facebook Live, also criticized a counter proposal from Ford.

“Our goal is not to strike,” Fain said. “Our goal is to bargain a fair contract. But if we have to strike to win economic and social justice, then we will.”

A ‘fair agreement’

Three quarters of respondents to a Gallop poll published Wednesday said they sympathize with the UAW in their labor negotiations as members seek better pay and benefits and a shortened work week. 

The Big Three companies declined to comment on whether they would like the Biden administration to get involved in negotiations with UAW.

In his most detailed statement on negotiations, Biden on August 14 said he is asking all sides to “work together to forge a fair agreement.”

Companies, he said, should use the process to enlist workers in a “fair transition” to a clean energy economy by “offering them good paying jobs and a say in the future of their workplace.”

The statement won him appreciation from Fain, who had blasted the administration just two months earlier for giving Ford a $9.2 billion loan without union protections. 

UAW has withheld its endorsement of Biden, even as the AFL-CIO – a broader federation of unions that includes UAW – moved forward with theirs. AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler, while addressing her members on Tuesday, pledged “the most historic labor mobilization of our time” for Biden in 2024. She later praised Biden’s support for UAW in an interview with The Messenger.

“The President has said, ‘Get back to the table, Let's negotiate a fair deal,” Shuler told The Messenger. “And that will be what we need to get people motivated and excited about the support for their elected officials who are standing there with them.”

‘We never want to interfere’

There have been other labor negotiations in which the parties have asked for support or the Labor Department has determined its involvement could be beneficial, Su said.

She helped the parties in West Coast port contract negotiations reach an agreement in June after a long negotiation. Biden then credited her with keeping the parties talking.

“It's really more of an art than a science,” Su said. “But we never want to interfere.” 

Biden previously got involved with union negotiations involving the railway industry to avoid what he said would be an “economic catastrophe.” He also expressed his support earlier this summer for a tentative contract deal between UPS and its Teamsters union.

Su said similar questions, about whether there would be a strike and whether it would harm the economy or the president’s vision, came up during the UPS and Teamsters negotiations.

“Our answer to that is that, we believe in worker power, we believe in unions making demands, we believe in employers sitting down with their unions to figure out the right path forward,” she said. “And as long as the parties are doing that, it is up to us to trust the process and to trust the parties.”