Sept. 26 (UPI) — President Joe Biden will travel to suburban Detroit Tuesday morning to join striking autoworkers on the picket line in the recently expanded UAW strike against the Big Three automakers before flying to California.
Biden, who often touts his support for labor unions around the country, is expected to join United Auto Workers in Wayne, Mich. about noon.
“The president is a union guy. You heard him say that many times,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Monday. “He is the most pro-union president in modern times. That is not something that he’s given him that — himself that title. That is something that labor unions have given to him, and he wears that very proudly.”
While Jean-Pierre declined to say if Biden supports the 40% pay increase asked for by the unions, she said he believes that records profits by the industry should lead to “record UAW contracts.”
“He spoke to the parties on both sides of this. He has made it very, very clear that he supports union workers; he supports the UAW workers. The president is going to continue to show his support, not just from the last couple of years, but as he has been in the public eye.”
Asked if former president Donald Trump’s plans to visit workers affect Biden’s decision to go to the picket lines, Jean-Pierre swiftly rejected the idea. Trump continues to lead all polling for the Republican presidential nomination.
“This is a decision to visit the picket line was based on his own desire,” she said. “This is what the President wanted to do to stand, to stand with autoworkers. That’s what you’re going to see the president do tomorrow.”
On Friday, UAW President Shawn Fain announced its members at General Motors and Stellantis distribution centers across the country will go on strike, adding to the 13,000 already walking the picket lines at three assembly plants.
UAW members totaling roughly 13,000 workers at the Ford Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne, Mich., the Stellantis Toledo Assembly Complex in Ohio, and the GM Wentzville Assembly Plant in Missouri kicked off the UAW strike earlier this month.
