President Joe Biden on Tuesday joined a picket line with striking autoworkers in Michigan, supporting their call for a 40% pay raise and saying they deserve a “lot more” than they are getting.
Biden’s appearance, the first visit by a U.S. president to striking workers in modern history, comes a day before Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner for president, will speak to auto workers in Michigan. The rare back-to-back events highlight the importance of union support in the 2024 presidential election, even though unions represent a tiny fraction of U.S. workers.
Democrat Biden traveled to a Belleville, Michigan, parts distribution center owned by General Motors (GM.N), and joined dozens of picketers outside. “Companies were in trouble, now they’re doing incredibly well. And guess what? You should be doing incredibly well, too,” Biden said through a bullhorn. “Stick with it.”
Biden: “You should get paid more.”
Trump: indicted for 91 crimes and found liable for decades of tax fraud
Michigan Republicans: ¯\(ツ)/¯
“Both sides are the same!”
They are when it comes to wages.
The federal minimum wage has been 7 bucks for fifteen years. Both sides have had a total majority with the presidency in that time frame.
Literally the same.
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I’m sorry guaranteeing healthcare for tens of millions of Americans with the 2 years they had government control wasn’t enough for you.
… is it enough for you?
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The HCA is a private for profit insurance company.
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You’re moving the goalpost. Is it enough? No. But there’s one party where it happened and another party that literally did everything they could against it. Both parties are definitely not the same.
I don’t think both parties are the same. I think they’re both bad and we’re fucked no matter who wins, but I can admit America will collapse slower under Democrats. I guess that’s preferable.
I’m still voting for Cornell West. Nyaa nyaa~
Just going to ignore how Biden has asked Congress to legislate a higher minimum wage and issues an executive order requiring a higher minimum wage for Federal contractors?
The Democrats have only controlled Congress and the presidency at the same time for about 4 months in the past 4 decades, beginning in September 2009. Before then… idk it would have been before Reagan. When was the last time the minimum wage increased? 2009.
“Both sides are the same” is a Republican talking point.
“Both sides are the same” is a Republican talking point.
Can’t be said enough.
Find someone telling you how both sides suck, and then look what it’s in reply to. It’s always, ALWAYS to deflect from Republican shortcomings or to deflect from positive news about Democrats.
A-L-W-A-Y-S.
Whew, good thing we are able to make such broad sweeping generalized comparisons based on a single issue.
Biden had a majority for two years and did jack shit on pay.
Can’t really blame them for being angry.
You can’t pass a minimum wage increase with a 50-50 senate. It’s literally not possible.
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You can’t do it without 60 votes in the senate. There’s nothing to try. Hence why the last time was ‘09 when democrats had a super majority in the senate. 0 republicans will vote for it, right now he’d need 9.
Democrats have seen far more success raising the minimum wage at state and municipal levels. I would rather federal as well, but ultimately as long as people are getting a higher minimum wage, it’s the same effect.
Do you guys not get any civil education on how bills get passed? Why are you commenting on political threads without a foundational understanding of how legislation works?
I’m writing my reps with a proposal for a new law:
One day out of every year all streaming, OTA TV, and cable companies run a 12 hour Schoolhouse Rock marathon from 8am to 8pm.
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Thats not how laws work. Here’s a video explaining how bills become laws in the US. Educate yourself friend.
A 50-50 split Senate is not a majority, jackass.
I guess that should have been the only focus. All I remember is that before he took office we couldn’t leave our houses and people were dying from COVID like crazy. It’s not Biden’s fault that wages haven’t increased with inflation since before I was born. Sure he could probably do more but I don’t see anyone else jumping up to help in any meaningful way either. No one will even primary him and his major opponent is just litigating things from 3 years ago to save his ego and or freedom. I don’t see anyone else stepping up from a position of power.
Our state GOP was totally hijacked by MAGA radicals and now answers to Karamo, who’s an utter nut job and die-hard Trump loyalist.
But they’ve gone so far a lot of moderate Republicans feel alienated and with our new balanced voting districts Democrats will probably secure victory for the foreseeable future. It still will be a tight race, but I would not be surprised if Biden’s margin in 2024 is bigger in Michigan than it was in 2020.
I think this would mean more if he actually stood up for the railway workers during their strike.
Far less than they asked for, and did nothing towards meeting their other major demands such as Precision Scheduled Railroading.
If Biden was incapable or unwilling to force the rail companies to give better terms, he should have stayed out of it.
Far less than they asked for
Have you ever heard of the word “negotiation”? Why aren’t you talking about how the result was “far less than what the rail companies asked for”?
They got like 5 sick days out of the 15 they wanted. And zero of their other demands.
Then perhaps they shouldn’t have accepted it and striked as planned? The fact that it wasn’t “enough” for the workers isn’t on the POTUS and doesn’t negate his actions.
They kind of kick-started this years huge labor push. Sure, it was bubbling up for a while before the rail unions decided to take action but they were the first “big” players to threaten a strike in a while. It’s easy to say that from the sidelines after the fact but they were being vilified by national media 24/7 for weeks, getting a bunch of pressure from Congress and being threatened to have the book thrown at them if they decided to strike. They were early to the party and didn’t have all of it’s completely understandable.
It’s also completely valid to criticize Biden for not doing enough when it really mattered, he could’ve put more pressure on Congress, he could’ve visited the workers and given his approval. He’s clearly capable of these things when it suits his interests, why didn’t he do any of that for the rail unions? Surely they could’ve used the help. Why was “working in the background” good enough for them but all of a sudden it’s insufficient for the UAW?
The labor movement is a positive feedback loop of direct action. I’m still contending with the fact that I’m a major player in the labor movement within tech, but I can trace the labor action of the last few months directly to CODE-CWA forming to help organize Google workers in 2020. Labor action fuels labor action. The ABK Workers Alliance were inspired by Paizo, who inspired Vodeo Workers United, who inspired ABKWA members to unionize at Raven into GWA, who inspired more tech unions to form, who inspired SBWU to perform militant labor actions, who inspired WGA and SAG-AFTRA (they work in the games industry).
Edit: I feel like downvotes are coming from my claim about being a major player in the labor movement. Without revealing who I am or where I work, my workplace will be the largest union in tech when we file, beating ZWU by approximately 160 people. I’m the lead organizer of this campaign, and we have approximately 40% card saturation (the campaign started very abnormally). There is almost 0% chance anyone has seen my name outside of my home town, except my labor actions have placed me on an obscure games media podcast talking about GDC, in a picture of a CWA newsletter, and I was quoted on an article from WSJ regarding my activism.
Criticism is totally fine and often deserved, I’m just saying using the rail strike (or any past Biden ball-drops) as a measuring stick for this one servers little purpose and detracts from the core issue. He should be held to task for those things when it comes election time, not fielding “but what about XYZ?” statements.
Launching an illegal strike is far different from launching a legally protected strike. They’d have to accept the possibility that everyone loses their jobs and some people might even get taken to court. Things just aren’t that bad yet.
Fair point! Thanks.
Gotta give the president props for that, as well as democrats. Didn’t realize they got that through. I’d like them to keep pushing for a least 12 national sick days for all mid to major companies.
Would love to see some universal protections.
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4 days out of the desired 15, and no addressing of the myriad of other issues. Wow, such good. Much work. Good Biden.
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Did he though? His Congress pushed through a bill with a smaller compensation package, 1(one) day of sick time, no removal of advance notice for sick time, none of the OT protections, and no acknowledgement of safety concerns.
Hih
- Fuck you for assuming I’m any kind of liberal. Especially fuck you for insinuating I’m a Republican.
- Regardless of the RLA holding a gun to their Union’s head, they did vote to approve the Senate’s contract. I’m personally very dissatisfied with the agreement, but ultimately, their union voted to ratify the agreement. As NPR notes, the deal falls significantly short of the goals rail workers were fighting for. They decided to accept it, in the face of a repeat of PATCO.
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I got a bit upset about you saying I was fueling right-wing talking points, so my bad. I’ll always fight on the side of labor, even if the Republican party is trying to make them the ball in political games.
Personally I think it would have turned out much better for their union after even a day on strike, but I guess we’ll never know. My point is not “they didn’t get what they wanted but got something good”, it’s that the deal was forcibly imposed on them without any other options. I was not aware of the aftermath of the deal so I appreciate you highlighting it, but it still falls short in my eyes. Were I in their union, I’d be a minority opposed to the outcome. But that’s the thing, I’m just a guy on the Internet, not a member of IBEW, SMART-MD, or IBT (CWA guy in the tech industry, actually).
I trust you to do the right thing, I don’t need a screen shot. Thank you for putting up.
Dabsvsvabsnsgn
I didn’t say anything about your personal politics - I have far too little to go off to make that kind of claim.
You accused them of listening to Hannity, so uh
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You’ll never get satisfaction from who you’re responding to, but good on you for doing it.
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As long as you were. Carry on friend!
Ooof
It would, absolutely, but it still means a whole lot.
It’s a recognition by a slick, seasoned, career politician in the highest office in his country that the winds are shifting with respect to the labour movement.
Don’t think of this as Biden expressing any deeply held belief. Don’t think of anything he does in those terms. The Democrats in general, and Biden especially, are a mirror that reflects something meaningful about the socio-political environment. Just as Trump and the Republicans are.
He and his team believe that something in that environment has shifted, and that labour is poised to be ok the winning side of that shift.
40% = 8.77% a year during 4 years.
This could be the start of something good. The 40% number isn’t out of thin air. It is the amount the CEO got his pay raised to . Unions can tie exec raises to worker pay in a way that boards aren’t doing.
I agree if its done correctly.
Got to be careful about execs getting paid through shares. My CEO gets millions in shares but only gets paid like 120k. This gets reused in certain indexes and pitched as being a decent ratio of executive to drone pay ratios.
True, but unions as an external force can simply state the exec total pay package rose by 25% in value. “pay us” The problem has been looking to the boards installed by investors to cut their own pay. My hope is boards will cool down on huge exec bonuses if it means they may have to do the same for workers.
Why isn’t he championing a massive raise in minimum wage? Everyone other than the rich are struggling. Is he just trying to make cars even more expensive than they already have gotten here? I’m in my 40s and my first house cost less than an average new car today. Help all the people, man.
Hopefully he keeps the same message when the executives refuse to make a reasonable offer and “the economy” might suffer again.
I don’t think it’s as likely that the Feds break this strike like they did with the railroads. Their argument against the rails was that almost every other industry relies on them to move product, while having fewer new cars will only effect the new and used car markets. With however hundreds of millions of usable vehicles that are already out there, this strike doesn’t really have the same opportunity to spill over to the larger economy.
Well, there are a lot of folks that make parts for those cars. Auto is a pretty large sector, but otherwise… I think I agree.
Good
The 4-Day Workweek is more important.
Only doing this because of the upcoming election year. What about the rest of us?
The American people deserve better than another demopublican. There are other colors and letters besides blue and red and d and r.
Where were you when the railworkers wanted to strike?
