In a speech Wednesday endorsing President Joe Biden, United Auto Workers (UAW) President Shawn Fain called Donald Trump a “scab” who doesn’t align at all with what his union advocates for.
The GOP presidential candidate “is a billionaire, and that is who he represents,” Fain said at the union group’s Washington, D.C. conference, where Biden also spoke.
“If Donald Trump ever worked in an auto plant, he wouldn’t be a UAW member. He would be a company man trying to squeeze the American worker,” Fain went on. The former president “stands against everything we stand for as a union, as a society,” he added, citing wages, retirement and healthcare, among others.
“Joe Biden bet on the American worker while Donald Trump blamed the American workers,” he said. “We need to know who’s going to sit in the most powerful seat in the world and help us win as a united working class. So if our endorsement must be earned, Joe Biden has earned it.”
Last fall, the UAW went on strike against the Big Three automobile companies. While Biden fully threw his weight behind the striking auto workers and spoke alongside them at Fain’s invitation, Trump delivered remarks about the strike at a non-union plant. At the time, Fain called that a “pathetic irony.”
The six-week strike ended in late October when the union reached a tentative agreement with General Motors, following similar accords with Ford and Stellantis. That deal included a 25 percent wage increase through April 2028, according to the union, along with cost of living adjustments. It also put under the UAW national contract employees from a GM subsidiary, GM Subsystems, as well as battery manufacturer Ultium Cells.
In a statement at the time, Biden praised the “historic” agreement as one that “rewards the autoworkers who have sacrificed so much with the record raises, more paid leave, greater retirement security, and more rights and respect at work.”
And on Wednesday, the president said he kept his commitment “to be the most pro-union president ever.”
“Let me just say I’m honored to have your back,” Biden said, “and you have mine.”
Trump, meanwhile, hadn’t posted about losing out on the UAW’s endorsement as of Monday night.
