A looming auto union strike is threatening President Joe Biden's re-election campaign in a key battleground state, opening up a chance for former President Donald Trump to drive home a 2024 win in Michigan.
A United Auto Workers (UAW) strike is less than one week away, with both sides still far apart in negotiations. The contracts of roughly 150,000 workers at Detroit's Big Three automakers—General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellanits—are set to expire after 11:59 p.m. on September 14.
Although Biden issued a statement supporting a fair outcome for UAW workers last month, UAW President Shawn Fain has ramped up the pressure on the president, urging him to pick a side and publicly undermining the president's optimistic remarks that a strike could be adverted.
UAW, which backed Biden in 2020, is notably the only major union to not yet endorse Biden's 2024 re-election campaign. Fain has said the union would continue to withhold an endorsement until concerns about the auto industry's shift to all-electric vehicles are addressed.
"Given the close nature of the presidential race in Michigan in 2016 and 2020 and the current dead heat, if Biden were to anger the UAW and not secure their endorsement or support, it could tip the scales in favor of Trump in 2024," Steve Mitchell, Michigan-based pollster and CEO of Mitchell Research & Communications told Newsweek.
As the most populous county in Michigan, Wayne County, which includes the Detroit metro area, has helped swing statewide elections in the Democratic Party's favor. Biden carried the county with 68 percent of the vote in 2020, but his margin in Michigan was only 50.6 percent, suggesting that the Democrat needed Wayne County to take the state's 16 electoral college votes.
Former President Donald Trump, who won Michigan by just under 11,000 votes in one of the biggest political upsets of the 2016 election, weighed in on the possibility of a strike over the Labor Day weekend, referring to Fain as a "respected" union head and vowing to stop the "madness" of electric vehicles.
A labor action from UAW is likely to open up an opportunity for Trump to seize one of Michigan's most critical counties. Recent polls show that Biden is in a statistical dead heat against Trump. The Democrat is leading by just one percentage point, according to RealClearPolitics' polling averages.
"Fain is in no hurry to endorse President Biden when a significant number of UAW members supported former President Trump in previous elections," Arthur Wheaton, the director of Labor Studies at Cornell University, told Newsweek. "Why risk fractures in union solidarity during a crucial bargaining period. No upside to endorsing now and plenty of potential downside in an extremely difficult bargaining time at the Detroit Three."
Political consultant Jay Towsend said that while a UAW strike would be unlikely to damage Biden's image as a union supporter, the economic impact and turmoil that a labor action could cause would give his re-election campaign "a headache it does not need, especially in rust-belt states he must win."
"It is not in the President's economic or political interest for the UAW to strike," Townsend told Newsweek.
A strike in Detroit is also expected to upend the automotive supply chain, Michigan's economy and domestic manufacturing—a move that could decimate the impact of Biden's economic victories on these voters. Anderson Economic Group of East Lansing estimates that a strike at all three automakers lasting longer than 10 days could result in an economic loss of over $5 billion.
Mitchell noted that a UAW strike would not have the national impact that others, like the UPS strike threatened in the summer and that foreign automakers would still produce vehicles if one of the Big Three were to strike, but it would most certainly take a toll on Michigan's economy.
UAW's strike fund could pay striking hourly workers $500 a week, which is $100 less than the average hourly worker makes, meaning the union could afford a 33-week strike, he said.
"Although strike pay is only $100 less than the average UAW employee's salary, a $400 per month decrease in pay will begin to take a toll on UAW households," Mitchell explained.
"If the strike gets ugly, which is very likely, the situation is likely to become very rancorous and difficult," he added.
UAW is currently asking for a 46-percent wage increase, a four-day workweek at full-time pay, a shift back to traditional pensions, a share of company profits and an elimination of compensation tiers, among other demands. Even some of the union's own members have expressed that the demands are not "100 percent realistic," so Fain's determination to have the union's wishes granted makes a strike more likely, and thus Biden more vulnerable to a political conundrum.
"At some point President Biden will be criticized for not doing enough to first avert a strike, and second, to end the strike once it begins," Mitchell said. "The longer the strike, and it looks as though it will be a long one, the more damage to President Biden, not only with auto workers but all those impacted by the strike of the Big Three."
Mitchell added that because some of the UAW auto factories are also located in Eastern Ohio near Pennsylvania, "these strikes could also have an adverse impact on Biden's re-election chances in those states as well."
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Katherine Fung is a Newsweek reporter based in New York City. Her focus is reporting on U.S. and world politics. ... Read more
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