President Joe Biden will travel to Michigan on Tuesday and walk the picket line with members of the United Auto Workers union, he announced Friday, a trip that comes after the president faced political pressure to ramp up his public support for the union members.
“Tuesday, I’ll go to Michigan to join the picket line and stand in solidarity with the men and women of UAW as they fight for a fair share of the value they helped create. It’s time for a win-win agreement that keeps American auto manufacturing thriving with well-paid UAW jobs,” Biden said in a post to X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
Biden’s trip, and the historic presidential appearance on a picket line, underscores the political opportunity as the strike against the nation’s three largest automakers – General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis – enters its second week. It will come one day before former President Donald Trump, currently the front-runner in the GOP presidential race, is scheduled to deliver a primetime speech to an audience of current and former union members, including from UAW, in Detroit. Earlier in the week, Trump’s team confirmed he would be skipping the second Republican primary debate for the Michigan speech.
I remember a state of the union address where he said, “It’s time for Americans to get back to work and fill our great downtowns again,” like people didn’t bust their asses working from home during the pandemic. Small moment but it always really stuck in my mind for showing how he thinks of the commercial property owning class before he thinks about workers.
I busted my ass working not from home during the pandemic.
Not everyone had the flexibility to work from home. Which makes his condescension that much worse.