Although one major strike, against Hollywood studios, was finally resolved this past week, another, against U.S. vehicle makers, is expanding. The plight of the autoworkers has now become a major point of contention in the presidential race.
Jonathan Weisman, a political correspondent for The Times, explains why the strike could be an essential test along the road to the White House.
Guest: Jonathan Weisman, a political correspondent for The New York Times.
Background reading:
- A day after President Biden appeared on a picket line with United Automobile Workers, former President Donald J. Trump spoke at an auto parts factory.
- The U.A.W. strike could either accelerate a wave of worker actions or stifle labor’s recent momentum.
For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
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while this is a daily. Yesterday, on the shell, we explained how
major strike against hollywood studios has finally been resolved,
no new major strike against you was automakers, is expanding and is now becoming a flush point in the presidential race. Former president donald trump wolf skip the second republican primary debate. According to the new york times, the former president plans to travel to Detroit, where he will give a speech you over five hundred current
in former members of the united auto workers union. President Biden today inserted himself a labour dispute in a way, no other modern president has joining strike
auto workers on the picket line outside of gm plant mere detroit. Today, my colleague jonathan waste, on why president Biden and former president trump see the workers in
in this strike, as so essential to winning the white house and the profoundly different strategies,
instead that they're relying on to win them over or what the hell was born again. Yesterday Joe Biden came to michigan to pose
Is it the picket line, but it is policies that send michigan autoworkers. Do the unemployment line
it's thursday september twenty job, and it is very rare for a labour strike to attract
with a sitting president Joe Biden and his leading rival for the presidency, in this case former president donald trump to the place where they are holding a strike. Yet here we are so how do you think about that? We're at such an unprecedented
first of all the united autoworkers, are on strike against all three of the big three that is ford general motors and stolen tests, which we used to call chrysler. This is the broadest strike we ve seen in decades right now, there are picket lines at around
forty different plants and distribution centres and the united autoworkers are seeking
really remarkable gains they want raises of about forty per
sent they want more time off right and they want the gains that they feel they lost after the great recession and it's happening during a presidential election in which the two main front runner?
Joe Biden down tromp see their path to the white house through union america and specifically through the state of Michigan, the historic centre of the auto industry, which,
tromp one in twenty sixteen very narrowly right hand
by one in twenty twenty a little less narrowly and they are going to michigan to appeal to workers who, if not actually on strike, are certainly supporting the strikers and one of the most interesting things about this is that
both of these candidates are saying to the workers, I'm your guy, but they have a very, very different messages or jonathan. Let's talk through those very different messages and what this strike means to both Biden
and trump in this campaign season, and I want to start with president by him yet Joe Biden. This is a guy who has made his brand
unions
organized labor. He emerged as
and Joe from northeast pennsylvania. My dad used amateur expression I swear to god is a joy jobs about a lot more than a paycheck for real the sun,
of the working class roger dignity, it's about respect,
and he is made union
organizing and being pro labour really his brand. I am I,
man? I ran for president saying he was going to help unions organise and expand tend to be the most prudent,
president, the most pro you ministration american history, that union
made the middle class and he is going to help unions re emerge as the centre
of american middle income power.
Right and despite the fact that for many years- and we learned this lesson when Donald trump, when the president was exceeding the Democrats, have lost a lot of support in that world of unionized working class voters Biden did pretty darn well with them. That's right. He showed a real gains, especially in the upper MID west, we're talking about what we used to call the blue wall, pennsylvania michigan and was content the gains that he made among the working class. Virtually the white working less really were decisive in the election of twenty. Twenty rights are heading into this. You have you strike. That is the reservoir of goodwill. That Biden has to call upon that's right, but there was a conflicting piece of his message because, as he was appealing to the working class with his messages about
What labor and unions he was also appealing to more liberal voters who wanted to see the government take action against climate change. I would do everything in my power clean our air and water, protect our people self when the clean energy future. He was also going to be the president that finally started moving the united states away from
so fuels a future of the automobile industry. That is, electric
battery electric plugin hybrid, electric fuel cell, electric electric,
and now there's no turning back. The question
is whether will lead or fall behind in the race for the future. But the challenge is doing both things at once: creating union jobs and
green jobs lot of my friends and organized labor. No, when I think climate, I think jobs, you you're just not a joke, because when it comes to the auto industry, a vehicles fundamentally vehicles fundamentally take fewer workers to build than the old internal combustion engine. Cars did a little bit more about that. This tension
and for Biden between supporting auto workers in the union and his climate agenda. At the same time, yeah I mean the fact is that electric cars are simpler than traditional cars. Things like drive trains and catalytic converters disappear
or when the engine is really being operated by a battery, and at the moment there,
norway, not built by union workers. You know people love their teslas, but those tests was are not being built by organised labour,
those are non union shops and other companies are coming in from abroad like candy and they are setting up their big, auto plans in the south, where there or unions and where the state governments are very hostile to unions, and that were also the battery companies are coming in. Those battery may
those are the ones that are replacing the workers that now or building transmissions and catalytic converters and if their lot unionized the movement as away from the union's, not toward unions, and so Joe Biden has this problem. He needs to be able to say that the electric vehicle future is bright for american workers and at the same time, he understands that, for now, electric vehicle labour is not unionized. So Jonathan, how does President Biden reconcile these two sides of his political identity in this moment? Amid this strike the green revolution Joe and the union Joe so he's throwing his weight
tire way behind the usa, w and when the usa, w president Sean Fain invited him to come to michigan. He overruled the opposition of some of his aids and said I am going on getting on that plane and he showed up at a you ever. You pick it which is unprecedented for president. So then we see President Biden wearing a: u s. W hat on the picket line holding assign. He makes a few quick remarks on a makeshift stage, while one an broadcast his support for the union's position against detroit management eyes. W drew out a fact in mind.
the companies were in trouble or an incredibly well guess what you should be going incredibly well too. So what he's doing here going to the? U a w picket lines is trying to throw presidential weight behind the? U a w to get as good a contract as he can for the union so that the union can then take that contract from the big three automakers to these new battery plants or two
these foreign electric vehicle makers and extend union organizing where it isn't now,
further complicate, but what binds hoping for as dad
a winning you. A w contract translates into an ability by the? U s w to union eyes the rest of the electric vehicle market in places where there not yet unionized, thereby solving that problem. You mentioned earlier of this vast easy market that relies on non unionized labour correct his pitch is green energy. Jobs are good union jobs. He just has to make that a reality and if Biden,
actually deliver that he'll have to own that people will blame him for ushering in a green revolution that happens in non union plants and how does the eu a w c? This vision is pretty complicated vision that bind us outlining. They understand rhetorically. That Biden is with them, but they want to see real concrete legislation.
And regulations that benefit them, which is why the union, with it's very aggressive, new leadership under their president Shaun Fein, has withheld the endorsement for Biden's reelection because they feel like he could and should have done more for them, as their industry moves toward electric vehicles and Biden has tried in the inflation reduction act of two thousand and twenty two, which included all sorts of incentives to move the country toward electric vehicles. He got a few provisions that help the unions, for instance, tax credits for the hiring of union apprentices, but the big one, which was a
honest tax credit for the hiring of unionized workers that was stripped down at the last minute buys entered a jewel mansion of west virginia. So there are limits to what Biden can do for the union's. So the? U interviews, message to Biden is basically do better work harder and show us that you understand just how existential a thread the electric vehicle is to our workers and that's why Joe Biden was on the
picket lines on tuesday, with the? U s, W. To basically say not only do I hear you, but I am pausing my busy schedule as president states to literally be here with you as you strike. The first president that we know to ever walked the picket lines of a strike. It's a remarkable moment
now, just because the u a w has withheld it's endorsement of Joe Biden doesn't mean they're even flirting with the idea of endorsing donald trump. They know. Trump is anti organized labor and you know Shaun Fein the president of the. U a w really hates trump is very outspoken and is very popular, but trump thing.
That he can appeal to the rank and file of: u s, w members with a much
simpler message
and
all the way back.
My name, is Abdullah teeth to hear the east africa correspondent of the new york times speaking to someone in their own local language opens up a level of honesty and transparency that would not be present
I speak to somebody in english when I come
to summarize homing greet them in somalia or swahili in other cut body or nobody's animal. It brings you into the room. I understand the culture comes from an
Speaking to you in the language that you understand that level of familiarity, I use that to really
deeper into what's going on what I'm
I do is help our readers understand- what's happening. He in east africa and see
how it plays a role in the bigger picture, new york times
Skype is keep our journalists reporting from across the map to help you understand
shoes shaping our world if you'd, like
I subscribe, you could do that at n Y times, dot com slash, subscribe. Sutra then walk us through donald trump strategy for winning over the rank and file of the
united autoworkers, given the reality that the union's leadership, as you just told us, is pretty wary of trump donald trump has shown a remarkable ability to tear union voters away
from their leaders and the marching orders that union organizers have given their voters, he can go around the union leadership and go straight to the union. Voters and say I'm your guy, you know in two thousand and sixteen he had vanishingly few union leaders actually behind him and yet his appeal to union workers helped him break. The blue wall
in the upper MID west and win the presidency by winning michigan, wisconsin and pennsylvania, and he's done this not just with autoworkers. We will lift the restrictions on american energy, including shell oil, natural gas and clean beautiful call put our minors back there
he's done this with coal minors, he can reopen the coal mines, we're going to bring field that the pennsylvania like it used to be. He can bring steel back to the united states. We are not going to allow our jobs to be taken from our states anymore. He has this way of telling voters. He can turn back time right. Make amerika great again has always contain
a promise to reverse a lot of the changes that have been made to the working class american economy. It's an appeal to nostalgia and it has really worked and we're seeing that playbook all over again with electric vehicles,
electric cars will kill. More than half of you are sort of jobs, and it's going to than more than anybody else. The state of Michigan gotta be decimation. It's the auto workers are not going to have any jobs when you come right down to it, because if you take a look at what they're doing with electric cars election
or is it going to be made in china troms fundamental pitch? Is we don't need to move to electric vehicles, climate change,
a hoax. We can stick with internal combustion engine electric vehicles are all made in china and electric vehicles are the threat, not the future. So trumps basic message that you at our view in this labour conflict, is that their problems could be solved. If the
we just take the electric vehicle out of the equation. That's right. Biden is a catastrophe for michigan and his environmental extremism is heartless and disloyal and horrible for the american worker and you're starting to see
If you want to have an auto industry, you need to defeat Joe Biden. These are corrupt president and reelect president donald trump, and he won't electric vehicles to be Joe Biden problem and he wants to be the guy who can liberate them from economic change and bring them back to some house yon days when internal combustion engines bore.
Lowering detroit like water
when thrilled to be back with the workers. You a w members- and
page of the great and when tromp held a rally in
chicken wednesday night. Instead of going to the republican debate, he had that message really hard
you can be loyal to american labor or you can be loyal to the environmental lunatics, but you can't really be loyal to both it's one or the other and they understand, but it does make sense to remember that trump's previous stabs at economic nostalgia, to use your word back in two thousand and sixteen didn't play out the way he promised they would. He, like you, said claimed he could turn back time on coal and coal mining and he was wrong and now he's saying that you can turn back time on the vs
which seems pretty complicated. They had become such an essential part of the big three automakers future. So why would a unionized autoworkers believe trumps claimed here? Will you write Michael men when Donald trump was pitching the coal mines that he was going to keep those minds open that didn't pan out? But if you think about the mindset of the miners, they had nothing to lose their minds were going the way they could put their hopes in this man and if it didn't work out, they'll lose anything that they weren't going to lose any way in this case, trumps got it a much harder pitch here, he's going to electric vehicle workers and saying stop the electric vehicle transition. These electric vehicle workers are gonna, look at each other and say: what's he talking about, he wants to stop the electric vehicle transition, we're working for electric vehicle makers. Now our question is
whether our jobs are going to exist. Our question is whether our pay is going to get better or our benefits are going to get better under a union contract we're not disappearing. We are the industry of the future. He so because this threat of the eu is not as existential,
as the previous economic threats that trump identified and campaigned against
from himself phases somewhat of a tricky sales job here, you're saying that's right so, as both trump and Biden make these two very different pitches to autoworkers, don't I'm curious beast
and your reporting, which of their messages, is most resonating with the? U a w membership. You know I was at a u a w plant last week and he talked to a lot of workers. They really do understand. Electric vehicles are the future. They see the tesla was on the road. They spend eighty dollars filling up the gas tank on their ford f. One fifties: they understand. There is a great appeal to an electric vehicle future and they hear trump
They know that troms idea that you can just stop the movement towards a visa is probably not right, but they didn't like him. They like the way he talks. They like the sense that trump gets them and cares about them. That's the big challenge at Joe Biden faces. Can he also come across as really caring about them? Just what you think suggested, even if president Biden can deliver this complicated economic trick of delivering good paying union jobs and the easy revolution that same time, trumps comparatively simpler message could still win the day for many
unionized workers, not just in the uk w but across the country, watching this, and that will remind us of a lesson we ve learned many times in many elections, which is that economic policy and economic interest in elections can get pretty well divorced from political
loyalty loyalties that when it comes to voting the head and the hard can go separate ways
as we have seen time and time again. Voters do not necessarily vote in their own economic interests. They vote with their heart. They vote by email.
Given the fight that we are seeing now developing, is a fight for the hearts and minds of white working class. Boaters donald trump as difficult job is biting here. Tromp has to reassemble that patchwork coalition that delivered the white house to him in twenty sixteen and that are banned in him in twenty twenty. But Joe Biden has the more difficult message, which is look. I've done everything I can offer you. The fact of the matter is the electric vehicle revolution is coming, whether you want it or not, would you like to have somebody who guides it in favour of the union's, or would you like to have that other guy whose living in his fantasy world of coal mines and steal mills and couldn't care less about electric vehicles, I'm the guy for you
It's time you come back to the party that recognizes the contributions of organized labor. So who wins these union voters support that really could determine who sits in the white house in two thousand and twenty five?
Thank you very much. Thanks for having me Michael will be right. Back
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get a camel right. Now tell you donald, I know you're watching you can't help yourself
I know you're watching, okay and you're, not here tonight, because you're, afraid of being on this stage and defending your record you're ducking these things. And let me tell you, what's going to happen, you keep doing that. No one appears going to call donald trump
politically the donald duck in the second republican presidential debate, governor criss, crossed
of new jersey and governor wrong dissent as of florida marked and taunted donald trump for skipping the event saying that he
whose voters an explanation for what they said?
his wool in rising inflation and
ballooning, national debt, Donald trump,
missing in action. He should be on this stage tonight
to you. They defend his record where they added seven point eight trillion to the dead that set the stage for the information that we have not yet tell you. This is covered with true off.
stage. The candidates once again focused much of their fire on political newcomer, vague rama, swami,
who has served in the polls overshadowing.
long time, elected officials like former south carolina
governor Nicky Healy, who pointedly dis,
MR ramaswamy, as a lightweight. What you've got I honestly
tom. I hear you, I feel a little bit dahmer for what you say, because I can't believe to these episode was produced by ricky nevsky olivia in that area. Crop key and robs have go withheld from luke vanderbilt,
It was edited by John catch up and page cow. It contains original music by Miriam was on women,
Mr end, diane walk in
was engineered by Chris. Would our theme music is by
one book and ben landfolk of wonderland?
the
That's it today
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Transcript generated on 2023-09-29.