Head of the US’s leading autoworkers union, which has pointedly withheld the endorsement of Joe Biden for next year’s election say that the president’s landmark climate legislation has been “disappointing” and failed to deliver protections to car industry workers confronted by the transition to electric vehicles.
The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which was signed by Biden a year ago this week, has bestowed huge incentives to car companies to manufacture electric vehicles without any accompanying guarantees over worker pay and conditions, Shawn Fain, president of the United Auto Workers (UAW), said.
“So far it’s been disappointing. If the IRA continues to bring sweatshops and a continued race to the bottom it will be a tragedy,” Fain said. “This is our generation’s defining moment with electric vehicles. The government should invest in US manufacturing but money can’t go to companies with no strings attached. Labor needs a seat at the table. There should be labor standards built in, this is the future of the car industry at stake.”
The UAW, which is based in the car-making heartland of Detroit and has about 400,000 members, has so far refused to endorse Biden for next year’s presidential election, a major political headache for a president who has called himself a “union guy” and counts upon organized labor as a key part of his base, particularly in crucial midwest states such as Michigan.
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“We aren’t against a green economy – global warming isn’t a hoax, it’s a real thing that you just have to step outside to notice,” said Fain. “But in the transition to EVs the workers can’t be left behind, it needs to be a just transition.
Speaking further, he said “I do believe the president’s heart is in the right place but we have to make sure endorsements are earned and not freely given. Politicians have to prove they are in the fight with us, which is the only way to win back the working class in the midwest. We don’t have to endorse anyone at all.”
Reports show that the ire of unions has been a thorny problem in the Biden administration’s attempts to speed the proliferation of electric vehicles and cut planet-heating emissions from transportation, the largest source of US carbon pollution.
The White House has set a target for half of all new car sales to be electric by 2030, a scenario it maintains will provide well-paid union jobs. “A lot of my friends in organized labor know when I think climate, I think jobs,” Biden said at an event last month.
Story was adapted from the Guardian.
