President Joe Biden’s hurry to embrace electric cars at any costs is stifling support from the United Auto Workers (UAW) as he prepares for reelection in 2024.
The union, which has around 400,000 members and is located in Detroit, is concerned that Biden’s plans do not provide enough job security assurances for its members.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Biden admin. has proposed the harshest tailpipe emissions rule in the agency’s history. By 2032, the concept calls for up to two-thirds of all cars sold in the U.S. to have to be electric.
Senior Editor-in-Chief at Breitbart News, Rebecca Mansour forecast that Joe Biden’s proposals for “zero emission” electric vehicle policies would result in the loss of thousands of automotive industry jobs, while his more expansive energy policies could cost another 160,000 energy industry jobs, interfere with manufacturing operations, raise home heating costs, and create rolling blackouts in the Great Lakes State. Mansour said that Biden’s aggressive drive toward electric cars “would mean knocking out millions of livelihoods all along the entire supply chain of our auto industry” owing to the removal of all internal combustion engine components.
In a message obtained by Politico and delivered to UAW members on Tuesday, UAW President Shawn Fain said that the union wants Biden to press for higher salaries and greater benefits for employees at EV factories as the White House drive to mandate EVs gains steam.
Fain referenced a battery facility that General Motors Co. is assisting in the development of in Ohio, where employees will start at $16.50 an hour, about half of the salary that GM workers earned at a neighboring GM plant before it shuttered in 2019.
“With no conditions and without making any promises to employees, the federal government is investing billions in the switch to electric vehicles. The EV transition is in grave danger of devolving into a race to the bottom,” Fain said in the document obtained by Politico.
“Before we make any commitments, we want to see national leadership.”
“We were adamant that the workers needed to be compensated with top benefits and wages if the federal government intends to funnel billions of taxpayer dollars into these companies,” Fain said. Standards for our members and upcoming employees must be part of a “just transition.”
The union’s president, according to Reuters, said the union would be “ready to talk politics after we guarantee futures for this sector and the employees who are expected to run it.”
The traditionally Democratic union is not endorsing a Republican candidate, whomever that candidate may be, just because they are waiting for Biden to make concessions.
In his letter on Tuesday, Fain said that “another Trump presidency would prove to be a catastrophe.”
