Donald Trump wants the United Auto Workers, with its almost 1 million active and retired members, to endorse his candidacy for president by saying that Democrats are “setting the stage for the destruction of American auto production.”
For all his bluster, the former president is failing to make inroads.
UAW President Shawn Fain and his executive board have no plans to endorse Trump, said people with knowledge of the situation, who asked not to be named because the union hasn’t thrown support behind any candidate.
Trump released a video on Twitter Thursday attacking President Joe Biden’s environmental policies, including the Inflation Reduction Act and its incentives for electric vehicles. The Republican front-runner promised to gut the programs and said, “you better endorse Trump.”
While Trump has very little chance of getting the UAW’s backing, the union is also withholding its endorsement of Biden to see if his administration will press automakers to raise battery-plant wages, a potential setback for a politician who’s sided with organized labor his entire career and is wooing them again as he seeks a second term.
Fain has bristled at the IRA’s incentives that provide automakers with billions of dollars in incentives to create battery production in the US, but at lower pay than auto workers get today.
At Ultium Cells LLC, a joint venture between General Motors Co. and South Korea’s LG Energy Solution, workers start as low as $15.50 an hour, half the top rate at GM assembly plants.
“US taxpayers have and are going to continue to funnel over $1 billion a year to Ultium despite their paying poverty wages and having horrifying health and safety conditions,” Fain said at a town hall meeting with union members last month.
Fain has also criticized the Biden administration for giving Ford Motor Co. a $9.2 billion loan to open three battery plants with Korea’s SK On. The plants will open mid-decade and the union wants the same wages paid by Ford.
The UAW is currently bargaining for a new four-year deal with GM, Ford and Stellantis NV and, separately, a deal with Ultium for its sole plant in Lordstown, Ohio, which the union successfully organized in December. Pay and benefits for battery workers is a central issue in bargaining.
Fain met with Biden and senior White House staff on Wednesday to brief them on contract negotiations. The union wants the administration to attach a version of wage-based qualification to EV production incentives, or at least pressure automakers to raise pay.
If Biden doesn’t help, the UAW could simply not endorse anyone, which would be tantamount to a vote of no confidence in Biden, one of the people said. Fain said in May he wasn’t quite ready to endorse Biden.
While the UAW hierarchy has little interest in Trump, the former president does have support among its membership. The union’s internal polling shows about one-third of members voted for Trump in the last election. Democratic presidential candidates typically have gotten support from more than 70% of union members.
--With assistance from Gregory Korte.
