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.”
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.