Biden Cripples Auto Industry, UAW Announces Major Strike, Attacks…Trump

The United Auto Workers (UAW) announced on Friday that it is expanding its major nationwide strike against the Big Three automakers. Negotiations have failed and 146,000 autoworkers continue to be without a contract; the union is demanding continuing benefits for up to two years in case of an indefinite layoff, which is a very real possibility in light of Old Joe Biden’s proposed electric vehicle mandate. The regime’s EV mandate would decimate the auto industry and eliminate as many as 117,000 jobs. And so is the UAW standing up and denouncing Biden? Come on, man! The UAW is zeroing in on the real problem here: Donald Trump.

About 13,000 UAW members are on strike now, and the Daily Caller reported Friday that “more workers will go on strike as the union and automakers continue to be unable to reach a deal.” The UAW strike will now extend to “38 new plants across the U.S.”; this is a significant expansion, as “the UAW first announced its partial strike on Sept. 14, striking at three plants: GM’s plant in Wentzville, Missouri; Ford’s plant in Wayne, Michigan; and Stellantis’ Jeep plant in Toledo, Ohio.”

UAW President Shawn Fain declared that “all of the parts distribution centers at General Motors and Stellantis will be called to stand up and strike. We will be striking 38 locations across 20 states, across all 9 regions of the UAW.” Ford is not included in the expansion of the strike because it has offered numerous concessions to the UAW, while General Motors and Stellantis have not. Ford’s offer includes “enhanced profit sharing and the conversion of temporary employees into full-time,” as well as “job security for up to two years in the event of an indefinite layoff.”

Now, why would the UAW be pushing for something like “job security for up to two years in the event of an indefinite layoff”? Is the union worried about indefinite layoffs? Clearly it is, and it has good reason to be. The America First Policy Institute revealed last July that “proposed Biden Administration regulations would require Americans to switch to electric vehicles they do not want. Under the draft rules, auto manufacturers would be required to increase the proportion of electric vehicles they sell from 6% to 67% in less than a decade.”

This requirement would decimate the auto industry, for “electric vehicles have fewer parts and require considerably less labor to manufacture than conventional gas-powered vehicles. As a result, mass vehicle electrification will eliminate many jobs.” Specifically, “the Biden Administration’s mandate would eliminate a net 117,000 auto manufacturing jobs nationwide. The Midwest would bear the brunt of these losses. Even under a best-case scenario, the Biden EV mandate would cost Michigan (-25,000), Indiana (-16,000), and Ohio (-14,000) tens of thousands of auto manufacturing jobs.”

So the Biden regime’s obsession with tanking the American economy in the name of addressing the fictional problem of “climate change” would cost Michigan as many as 25,000 jobs. Yet on Wednesday, Fain denounced not Biden, but Donald Trump, who is planning to come to Detroit and speak to UAW members next Wednesday. With all the leftist sanctimony he could muster, Fain proclaimed that “every fiber of our union is being poured into fighting the billionaire class and an economy that enriches people like Donald Trump at the expense of workers. We can’t keep electing billionaires and millionaires that don’t have any understanding what it is like to live paycheck to paycheck and struggle to get by and expecting them to solve the problems of the working class.”

Fain has apparently forgotten that gas prices have skyrocketed amid a general steep increase in inflation since the Biden regime took over from Trump. He seems to be unaware of or indifferent to the fact that the push for electric vehicles that threatens to decimate his industry is the work of the Biden regime, not of the Bad Orange Man.

Quite some time ago, Biden regime apparatchiks revealed the game that is being played. Back in March 2022, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg responded to skyrocketing gas prices by asserting airily that Americans could simply go electric: “Clean transportation can bring significant cost savings for the American people as well. Last month, we announced a $5 billion investment to build out a nationwide electric vehicle charging network so that people from rural to suburban to urban communities can all benefit from the gas savings of driving an EV.” Pete wasn’t alone: around the same time, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief Michael Regan boasted, “We’re pressing the accelerator to reach a zero-emissions future sooner than most people thought.” Nothing presses the accelerator to reach a zero-emissions future more effectively than gas prices rising so high that driving a car powered on fossil fuels is simply too expensive. And remember, back in 2020, Old Joe Biden promised during a presidential debate that he would “transition away from the oil industry.”

That transition will severely weaken and could destroy the auto industry. So let’s hear it again, President Fain: tell us how the man who could save your industry is so bad, and why you support the man who is working to destroy that industry. The conditions over which the UAW is striking are ones that the union brought upon itself and actively supported. Now they’re reaping what they have sown.

Robert Spencer Geller Report https://gellerreport.com/