Biden exit prompts questions about UAW's support for Harris

Joe Biden’s decision on Sunday to drop out of the presidential race weeks before the Democratic National Convention in Chicago raises questions for a key Biden ally: the UAW.

The union formally endorsed Biden in January after some delay, but has since been a key piece of the president’s labor support.

Biden has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as his successor, but will the UAW, if Harris ultimately becomes the Democratic nominee, line up behind the former U.S. senator and California attorney general as well?

The UAW perhaps gave a hint in a statement about Biden’s candidacy thanking him for his “incredible term of service” that also highlighted the union’s concerns about former President Donald Trump. That statement, while not offering specific support for Harris, made sure to mention her pro-labor efforts as it was making its broader points.

“Vice President Kamala Harris walked the picket line with us in 2019, and along with President Biden has brought work and jobs back to communities like Lordstown, Ohio, and Belvidere, Illinois,” according to the statement.

That 2019 reference related to the UAW’s strike that year against General Motors. Harris posted on Twitter at the time that GM had earned billions of dollars in profits while closing plants. She called it unacceptable and said she stood “shoulder to shoulder” with the workers and their families.

Expect Harris to work hard to show support for labor

It’s not unusual for Democratic politicians to emphasize their support for labor, and the Biden administration, in particular, has gone to its own great lengths to make that case.

Steven Greenhouse, a longtime labor writer at The New York Times and currently a senior fellow at The Century Foundation, described how he sees the transition to a new candidate on the Democratic side.

"Biden has been the most pro-union president in my lifetime. He even walked a UAW picket line, becoming the first sitting president to join a picket line. So I doubt Kamala Harris or anyone else will be quite as pro-union. But I believe Harris will still be plenty pro-union, and because she doesn't have Biden's well-known pro-union reputation, I think we'll see her work hard in the coming months to demonstrate her enthusiastic support for unions,” Greenhouse said.

“I’m 100% sure that Harris will be light years more pro-union and pro-worker than Donald Trump, considering Trump’s long anti-union record,” he added.

Rosemary Feurer, associate professor and labor expert at Northern Illinois University, noted that Harris’ record stands out in being a union supporter.

“Harris was on picket lines well before Biden ever was, and did not hesitate to align herself with unions, so her record is actually more robust on that score than Biden. We shouldn't forget that until fairly recently, Biden was known as the ‘senator from MBNA’ (Delaware's credit card industry), and had never been on a picket line before he became president,” Feurer said.

Union support is not a given

Harris, she said, “would need to get that message out to UAW voters if she is the nominee.”

Feurer said Harris has the opportunity to differentiate her policies from Biden on Medicare for all, “which is wildly popular with UAW members” and on Gaza, an important issue to some UAW voters in Michigan and UAW President Shawn Fain, who has pressed for a cease-fire.

That doesn’t mean union members will automatically support Harris, of course.

Sean O’Brien, the general president of the Teamsters, notably, spoke at the Republican National Convention last week in what was considered a stunning departure from the norm and painted his union as neutral in the presidential race.

That’s not how some labor watchers viewed it, however.

Harley Shaiken, professor emeritus at the University of California-Berkeley and a labor expert, told the Free Press “the talk, the reception and the approach gave license to Teamsters leaning toward Trump to go right ahead … in a race … that could prove damaging to Joe Biden.”

It’s not clear, of course, what would have happened with O’Brien and the RNC if Biden had made his decision earlier in the year. Biden’s widely panned debate performance and the growing voices calling for him to stand down in the upcoming election had even prompted the UAW to weigh its options as worries about Biden’s prospects grew.

But despite the possibility that a not insignificant percentage of union members at the Teamsters and the UAW could vote for Trump, the UAW is clearly not neutral in this race.

Although the UAW did hold out for firmer commitments for worker support on the electric vehicle transition and other issues from Biden and others, Fain in a memo in May 2023 wasn’t offering any support to Biden’s expected opponent, saying “another Donald Trump presidency would be a disaster.”

And Fain and the UAW leadership have not backed away from their ongoing criticism of Trump, who has also blasted the UAW president, even calling for his firing. Fain, notably, has described Trump as a “scab.” The union has also pointed out that Trump was president when GM's Lordstown assembly plant closed.

There’s no reason to believe that the animosity between Trump and Fain won’t continue, and although the union could, of course, push for more commitments from Harris or whoever else might become the Democratic nominee, that doesn’t mean the union won’t offer its strong support.

Feurer, of Northern Illinois University, noted that “the UAW under Fain will likely place a great deal of resources into educating its members about the distinctions between Trump and the Democrats' nominee on the issues, distinguishing itself from the Teamsters president.”

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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: UAW endorsed Joe Biden. Will that support shift to Kamala Harris?