President Joe Biden is set to join members of the United Auto Workers union Tuesday in Wayne County, Michigan, walking the picket line on the eve of a visit from former President Donald Trump.
The trip comes as Biden faces consistently low polling numbers on his handling of economic issues, and, back in Washington, the looming threat of a government shutdown this week. Both a prolonged strike and a shutdown could have economic consequences – something the White House is seeking to avoid as Biden tries to convince voters his economic policies are working. He’s also appearing in the battleground state of Michigan just one day before his chief political rival – whom he defeated in the 2020 presidential election – comes to the crucial swing state to make his own appeal to union workers.
Trump, the front-runner in the GOP presidential primary race, is scheduled to skip the second Republican debate to deliver a prime-time speech to an audience of current and former union members, including from the UAW, in Detroit on Wednesday. Trump has slammed the president for the visit, claiming Biden “had no intention” of walking the picket line until Trump said he would make a speech in Michigan.
I saw that story from a distance but didn’t really follow it. How did Biden negatively impact the workers striking against the railroads?
The railway strike would’ve caused shortages of chlorine for city water supplies, shortages of essential medicines like insulin and antibiotics, severe food insecurity and inflation, and would’ve led to millions of people losing their jobs. Railway freight accounts for 40% of freight transport in the US. Imagine 40% of everything that’s made every day suddenly not getting to where it needs to go. There’s a reason Congress has never refused to block a railway strike every time it’s been threatened over the last 150 years.
The contract was good for the workers but didn’t include paid sick days. Congress imposed the contract on the rail workers when a couple of unions didn’t ratify it (although most of the unions did).
Biden kept working behind the scenes after signing the law Congress passed to block the strike and got the rail workers their sick days without the suffering a rail strike would’ve had on the millions of Americans who were already struggling with high inflation on essentials. The IBEW union explicitly thanked him for it: https://www.ibew.org/media-center/Articles/23Daily/2306/230620_IBEWandPaid