It was simple to be cynical when Joe Biden walked a UAW picket line. After all, this is the same Joe Biden who, less than a year prior, ended the railway workers’ strike by utilizing the authority granted to him by his position to force some of the nation’s most vital and oppressed workers back into the meat grinder of mustache-twirling Robber Baron employers.
How should we interpret a president who joins a strike after breaking one? Remember that no American president has ever joined striking workers on the picket line and that this is the first-ever autoworkers’ strike to specifically target all major automakers.
Strikes like those involving autoworkers have an impact on the whole US labor market. The American middle class was established by an autoworkers’ strike, which also brought forth employer-provided health insurance, pensions, and cost-of-living adjustments.
The UAW has achieved significant success, and autoworkers at non-union shops all around the United States are taking notice and attempting to organize their workplaces. The current UAW leadership is outstanding, and their astute strategies are paying dividends.
Biden didn’t just join a strike; he joined one that had the potential to once again reshape America by reclaiming the worker power that US billionaires had been able to suck off in past administrations.
But more importantly, it demonstrates that Biden’s decisions are motivated equally by expediency and principle.
After all, Biden is a career politician who won over people with his reputation as a dealmaker who has a track record of achieving results in partisan smoke-filled rooms.
Although Biden undoubtedly has values — and they may even be excellent ones — when those principles clashed with “good politics,” politics prevailed and principles were defeated.
In light of that, Biden’s choice to support the autoworkers’ strike makes total sense. Joining an autoworkers’ strike is the most popular thing people have done for unions in two generations.
