Making History, Biden Joins UAW Picket Line & Calls on Big 3 to Give Autoworkers "Significant Raise"

In a historic show of support for striking autoworkers, President Biden became the first sitting U.S. president to join a picket line Tuesday when he joined UAW members outside a General Motors facility in Wayne, Michigan. The American Prospect's executive editor David Dayen says the Biden administration's support for the union is a big shift from how the Democratic Party has treated organized labor in recent decades. "The mentality of the Obama administration and the Biden administration, as far as it relates to worker power, couldn't be more stark," he says. The union launched a strike against the Big Three manufacturers — Ford, GM and Stellantis, parent company of Chrysler — earlier this month in a bid to raise pay and benefits amid record profits for the companies. There are now 18,000 workers on strike at 41 facilities across 21 states, and UAW President Shawn Fain has threatened to keep expanding the strike if needed. Dayen recently went to a picket line in Ontario, California, and reported that striking workers have twice had guns pulled on them by nonunion truckers seeking to use a distribution center to move auto parts to dealers.