The Guardian-Biden joins picket line to tell UAW strikers You deserve a significant raise
September 26, 2023 4 min 765 words
这则报道中，乔·拜登成为美国历史上第一位在任总统，亲自加入罢工工人队伍的行列，前往密歇根的汽车工厂，以示与美国汽车工人工会（UAW）的罢工会员团结一致。这次行动发生在UAW工会与美国三大汽车制造商之间的不断升级的争端中。 拜登在到达密歇根后，首先受到UAW工会主席肖恩·费恩的欢迎，随后与他一同乘坐总统座驾前往罢工队伍。在罢工队伍面前，拜登通过扩音器对欢呼的人群说道：“事实是，你们——UAW，是在2008年及之前拯救了汽车工业。你们做出了很多牺牲，放弃了很多。当时这些公司陷入了困境。现在它们表现得非常出色，猜猜看？你们也应该表现得出色。”他继续说：“你们应该获得显著的加薪和其他福利。让我们找回失去的东西。” 肖恩·费恩说：“今天，敌人不是遥远的外国公司，而是就在我们自己的地区——是企业的贪婪。”拜登身穿一顶带有“联合是”的UAW棒球帽，看着他的发言。后来，拜登还搂着一位穿着红色T恤的UAW罢工工人。 站在罢工队伍的前线，61岁的UAW委员会成员拉里·赫恩称拜登的访问是“历史性的”。“我们在这里承受了一切，为所有人承受了损失。”赫恩说：“支持感觉很好。我们不需要他介入我们的事务并为我们争取合同，但他的支持已经足够了，对人们产生了影响。” 拜登自称是美国历史上最支持工会的总统。根据加利福尼亚大学圣巴巴拉分校的长期劳工历史学家尼尔森·利希滕斯坦的说法，没有其他在任总统曾经加入过罢工队伍。“这是真正的新事物——我认为以前从未发生过，总统曾经参加过罢工队伍，”利希滕斯坦告诉《卫报》。 拜登的访问发生在预计将在明年竞选中成为他的共和党对手的唐纳德·特朗普前一天访问底特律之前。特朗普在2016年的选举中依靠工会成员的支持赢得了密歇根，但在四年后输给了拜登。特朗普预计不会访问罢工队伍。 特朗普在他的Truth Social网站上发帖说：“腐败的乔·拜登，他的对中国软弱立场和对所有电动汽车的荒谬坚持，每辆车都将在中国制造，看到我本周（周三）要去密歇根，所以白宫的法西斯分子刚刚宣布他将在明天去那里。” 拜登表示支持福特、通用汽车和斯泰兰蒂斯工人的罢工，该罢工于9月15日开始，到周二已进入第12天，他宣布派遣劳工部长朱莉·苏和白宫高级顾问吉恩·斯珀林帮助工会与公司老板达成协议的计划，但在遭到费恩批评后撤回了这一计划，费恩还坚决拒绝了特朗普争取工会成员支持的努力。 特朗普在2016年赢得了重要的工会支持，如果他明年要获胜，就需要重新获得这些支持。他表示工人受到了他们的领导和拜登鼓励美国三大汽车巨头转向生产电动汽车的政策的背叛。 UAW迄今尚未支持拜登，但工会领导对特朗普持批评态度，特朗普试图利用罢工来吸引多数民主党工会的支持。特朗普明天将访问一家非工会店铺，对于在韦恩工厂外的人们来说，这一点没有被忽视。 57岁的质检员沃尔特·罗宾森说：“只要拜登在这里，然后在返回华盛顿时采取行动来帮助工薪阶层，那么他就受欢迎。”他补充说：“如果他想要我们的支持，他将不得不这样做。我认为他会这样做。” 评论：拜登的罢工队伍访问是一项历史性的举措，显示了他对工会的强烈支持，并试图团结罢工工人。这个行动也将在竞选中产生影响，特朗普
Joe Biden became the first sitting US president to appear on a picket line on Tuesday, joining a protest outside a Michigan car plant in solidarity with striking members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) union, which is locked in an escalating dispute with America’s three biggest carmakers.
The UAW president, Shawn Fain, was the first to greet Biden after he arrived in Michigan on Air Force One, and he joined him in the presidential limousine for a ride to the picket line.
“The fact of the matter is you guys – the UAW – you saved the automobile industry back in 2008 and before. You made a lot of sacrifices, gave up a lot. The companies were in trouble. Now they are doing incredibly well and guess what? You should be doing incredibly well too,” Biden said, addressing the cheering crowd through a bullhorn.
“You deserve a significant raise and other benefits. Let’s get back what we lost,” said Biden.
“Today, the enemy isn’t some foreign company miles away. It’s right here in our own area – it’s corporate greed,” Fain said as Biden, wearing a UAW baseball cap with the words “Union Yes” on the side, looked on. Biden later put his arm around one of the red T-shirt-wearing UAW strikers.
“And the weapon we produce to fight that enemy is the liberators, the true liberators – it’s the working-class people,” Fain added.
Standing on the picket line Larry Hearn, a 61-year-old UAW committee member, called Biden’s a “monumental and history-making” visit.
“We’re out here on the frontline taking the brunt for everybody, losing money,” Hearn said. “The support feels good. We don’t need him to get in our business and secure us a contract, but his support is enough, it hits home with people.”
Biden bills himself as the most pro-union president in history. No other sitting president has joined a picket line, according to Nelson Lichtenstein, a longtime labor historian at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
“This is genuinely new – I don’t think it’s ever happened before, a president on a picket line,” Lichtenstein told the Guardian. “Candidates do it frequently and prominent senators, but not a president.”
The US president’s visit comes a day before Donald Trump, his expected Republican opponent in next year’s poll, visits Detroit – the historic centre of the US car industry – to address workers in different industries in his own pitch for the strikers’ support.
Trump, who won Michigan with the help of union members’ support in his 2016 election victory over Hillary Clinton before losing it four years later in his defeat to Biden, is not expected to visit a picket line.
“Crooked Joe Biden, who is killing the United Autoworkers with his WEAK stance on China and his ridiculous insistence on All Electric Cars, every one of which will be made in China, saw that I was going to Michigan this week (Wednesday!), so the Fascists in the White House just announced he would go there tomorrow,” Trump posted on his Truth Social website this week.
Biden voiced support for the strike by Ford, General Motors and Stellantis workers, which was entering its 12th day on Tuesday, when it started on 15 September and had announced he was dispatching his labour secretary, Julie Su, and Gene Sperling, a senior White House adviser, to help the union reach a settlement with company bosses.
That plan was withdrawn after criticism from Fain, who has also flatly rejected Trump’s efforts at wooing the support of union members.
Trump, who won significant union support in 2016 and needs to regain it if he is to prevail next year, has said workers are being betrayed by their leadership and also by Biden’s environmentally friendly policy of encouraging the three American car giants to convert to making electric vehicles.
The UAW has withheld an endorsement of Biden so far, but union leadership has been critical of Trump, who has sought to capitalize on the strike and siphon support from the majority Democratic unions. Trump visits a non-union shop tomorrow, which was not lost on those outside the Wayne plant.
“As long as Biden is going to come here then do something to help working people when he returns to Washington, then he is welcome,” said Walter Robinson, a 57-year-old quality inspector. “He is going to have to do that if he wants our endorsement. I think he will.”