2023-09-24 21:21:48
– The automobile strike becomes political in the United States
Avoided in Canada, the automobile strike currently affecting the United States will take a political turn this week with the expected visits of President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.
Published today at 11:21 p.m.
In the United States, the first strike affecting all three manufacturers at the same time entered its second week on Friday.
Getty Images via AFP
The automobile strike was averted in Canada on Sunday but it continues in the United States and will even take on a very political dimension this week with the expected visits of President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, Tuesday and Wednesday.
Members of the Unifor union, which represents employees of automobile factories in Canada, approved an agreement with the American manufacturer Ford on Sunday, thus ruling out the risk of a walkout. “Congratulations. The votes have been counted and Unifor members at Ford in Canada have ratified a three-year agreement that will bring huge gains for auto workers,” the union said on X, formerly Twitter.
Salaries are to be increased by 15% over three years, including a 10% increase in the first year. The deal also includes other benefits and bonuses, including cost-of-living adjustments and better pensions. It concerns more than 5,600 Ford employees in Canada, and should serve as a reference for those of Stellantis and General Motors as is traditionally the case. The three American giants, nicknamed the “Big Three”, employ some 18,000 Unifor members.
In the United States, the first strike affecting all three manufacturers at the same time entered its second week on Friday, and hardened at General Motors and Stellantis. Some 38 spare parts distribution centers from these two groups are now affected. The reason, according to the United Auto Workers (UAW) union, is the lack of progress in union negotiations, while “real progress” has been made at Ford. The UAW is demanding in particular a salary increase of 40% over four years, corresponding to that which the leaders of the groups have benefited from over the last four years.
“Record profits”
Invited to come on a picket line, Joe Biden, who readily describes himself as the leading supporter of American unions, is due to come to Michigan on Tuesday, as a sign of “solidarity”. The 80-year-old Democrat has already, several times, publicly estimated that manufacturers should pass on their “record profits” to employees. For Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, elected Democrat from the left wing of the party, Joe Biden’s visit is a “historic event”. “Our economy is going through such a crisis of inequality that we are going to need political and popular support unprecedented in recent history to achieve progress,” she argued on CBS.
Tim Scott, a Republican senator from South Carolina, accused the president on Sunday of “standing with workers during the day and making deals at night with the greens who are destroying jobs.” This candidate in the presidential primary, who openly dreams of being the first black Republican president, believes that the head of state is “working against the interests of the strikers”. “We need him to help us close the border in the south of the country, not on a picket line,” he added.
Joe Biden had planned to devote next week to a trip to the West, but he finally decided on Friday to scold his great rival Donald Trump, who also wants to be the champion of workers and working-class circles. The former Republican president, favorite in his party’s primary for the 2024 presidential election, announced his visit on a picket line on Wednesday, also in Michigan, a key electoral state.
AFP
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