Biden's involvement in UAW strikes 'certainly complicates' negotiations: Mitch Roschelle
Madison Ventures Plus managing director Mitch Roschelle discusses the economic impact as a result of the UAW strike, President Biden involvement in strike negotiations and the push for electric vehicles.
President Joe Biden’s visit to Michigan Tuesday amid the ongoing United Auto Workers (UAW) strike lays bare the ongoing fight between two reliable factions of the Democratic Party. This squabble has long-lasting implications that extend beyond current events, and every would-be Democratic standard bearer is caught betwixt and between with no easy way out.
At loggerheads are the unions and the greens. At first glance, the UAW demands resemble a typical union strike: higher pay (a 40% increase) in exchange for fewer hours (a 32-hour work week) and better benefits. These asks may seem exorbitant for those whose wages have been outpaced by Biden-fueled inflation. Or as one Washington Post columnist put it, "too big a slice of a soon-to-shrink pie."
The UAW fault lines go deeper than the old guard "workers versus executive" dispute. Underlying everything is the forced transition to electric vehicles handed down by Biden, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and other governors beholden to the green lobby. A government mandate of EVs is disrupting the flow of car makers’ manufacturing.
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Right now, roughly 6% of cars on America’s roads are electric. Biden wants that number to be 66% by 2032. California has gone even further. Newsom signed a law forcing all new cars to be electric by 2035. Liberals’ fondness of "preserving choice" apparently does not apply to vehicle selection.
The problem with EVs run the gamut. Here are three at the top of the list:
1. They are very expensive. Averaging more than $63,000 dollars, EVs cost more than $18,000 more than their combustible counterparts.
2. The majority of the required auto parts come from China.
3. Consumers don’t want them. Despite the $12.5 billion dollars of giveaways in Biden’s so-called "Inflation Reduction Act," EVs tend to sit twice as long at dealerships (103 days) compared to the industry average of 53 days. It’s no coincidence that the first three strike sites were at plants that produce bestsellers like the Ford Bronco and Jeep Wrangler. It wasn’t a Ford Lightning, whose prices were already slashed 17% this year amid flagging demand.
UAW STRIKE HAS ALREADY COST THE US ECONOMY $1.6B
Against that backdrop, it's not surprising that Ford’s electric division is on pace to lose $4.5 billion dollars this year. Ford lost $60,000 on each EV they made in the first quarter of 2023. In other words, even before the latest strike, carmakers faced 99 problems.
Furthermore, the manufacturing of EVs requires 40% less labor than combustible engines. Layoffs have already started, another problem for Biden, who has bragged about being the most "pro-union president in history."
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In 2020, unions poured $27.5 million to help Biden get elected (compared to less than $360,000 for former President Donald Trump). Green groups ratcheted up their giving in 2020 to $11 million dollars, 97 percent of which went to Democrats and Biden was at the top of the list.
Even if Biden bows to dreadful polling numbers and steps aside, the list of his potential successors are equally compromised by the eco-extremists. Newsom and Vice President Kamala Harris are from California, home of $6 dollar a gallon gasoline and a green transition even more extreme than the federal level. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy wants to make regular cars illegal by 2035, a move that nearly six in ten voters in the deep blue Garden State oppose.
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To be clear, there’s nothing inherently wrong with electric vehicles. Those who want one should have the ability to buy one. But so too should the more than 90 percent of Americans who enjoy their combustible engine cars like Biden’s 1967 Corvette Stingray that doubles as a storage unit for classified documents in his Wilmington garage.
If EVs were as terrific as their supporters claim, they wouldn’t need billions of dollars in taxpayer handouts or government mandates to force their transition. Consumers would gravitate toward a better product of their own accord, like the iPhone revolution.
Those seeking to frame the UAW strike about workers’ "fair share" and "corporate greed" are ignoring their role in the dispute. To appease the greens, Biden and crew tossed their union allies overboard.
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UAW President Shawn Fain’s recent warning that the union "expects actions, not words" from the president heading into next year’s election was a tell.
Already facing growing doubts in his own party about his viability for another term, Biden now has two groups of erstwhile allies on opposite sides of a headline-grabbing dispute. It’s a precarious position for a president already facing uncertain re-election prospects.