Political danger for Biden receding as second automaker has deal with UAW

The pieces are lining up for President Joe Biden to lay claim to a victory for his pro-union stance as the second of Detroit’s Big Three car companies reached a tentative agreement with the United Auto Workers, President Shawn Fain confirmed Saturday evening.

Stellantis notched the deal with the union following a final stretch of intense negotiations, mere days after the UAW similarly came to preliminary terms with Ford on a new four-year contract. General Motors is now the lone Detroit automaker still at the bargaining table and faces growing pressure to come to terms as its competitors’ workers return to their jobs pending ratification of their agreements.

"Our union is again victorious; once again we’ve achieved what we were told just weeks ago was impossible,” Fain said in a video message. "We truly are saving the American dream."

UAW sketched out some of the details of the tentative deal, which closely aligned with those brokered with Ford, in-line with the union's past practice of using its first agreement as a pattern for the other companies. Ford agreed to a 25 percent wage increase for workers across the course of the contract, along with other salary concessions.

Fain credited the strike with drawing better terms from the companies, saying that the overall value of the Stellantis agreement is more than double the offer when the work stoppages first began nearly a month-and-a-half ago. Similar to the one with Ford, the Stellantis deal includes a 25 percent wage bump for union workers over the life of the four-year contract.

Though the UAW members’ acceptance of the Ford and Stellantis deals is not yet assured, they are crucial steps toward ending a six-week disruption to the automotive industry and its supply chains that has cost billions of dollars.

Biden is now closer than ever to turning the page on a major concern as he begins navigating shared governance with new House Speaker Mike Johnson, just ahead of another deadline to fund the government. It eases the danger that unrest in the sprawling auto industry will be an economic drag as he makes his pitch for reelection.

Asked about the development on Saturday, the president, who was in Delaware, responded with two thumbs up. The White House later released a statement from Biden calling the tentative agreement a "testament to the power of unions and collective bargaining to build strong middle-class jobs while helping our most iconic American companies thrive."

The UAW called its Ford members back to work immediately after its deal was announced, and the union instructed picketing workers at Stellantis — whose product lines include Jeep, Ram Trucks, Dodge and Chrysler — to follow suit in short order.

Stellantis said that roughly 14,300 of its workers were on strike, as of earlier this week, and another 2,000 were temporarily laid off as a knock-on effect from the work stoppages at its facilities.

The strike began Sept. 15, with Ford and GM offering 20 percent pay increases — already up from the raises of 9 and 10 percent, respectively, that they initially proposed. The UAW also showed flexibility, moving off its original demand of 40 percent raises to mirror CEO pay growth in the last four years.

Both Democrats and Republicans have tried to use the strike’s political symbolism to their advantage.

Biden joined workers on the picket line in September, the first time in living memory a sitting president has done so. That came a day before former President Donald Trump traveled to Michigan to troll Biden and woo blue-collar votes.

But Biden has more tools at his disposal.

His administration has dispatched deputies to be a presence on the ground. White House senior adviser Gene Sperling and acting Labor Secretary Julie Su traveled to Detroit multiple times to meet with the parties, aid in the bargaining process and move negotiations forward, a Labor Department spokesperson said Thursday.

At the same time, the UAW has kept some distance between itself and the administration so as to not mire the ongoing negotiations in partisan politics — and potentially alienate some of its membership.

Beyond the topline pay increases, Stellantis agreed to keep open an engine plant in Trenton, Mich., and resume operations at a Jeep facility in Illinois that has sat idle for most of the year. The UAW credited those recent concessions — as well as commitments to add several thousand jobs for UAW members — as key to sealing an agreement.

"We’re going from the managed decline of the American working class to a new era of auto manufacturing," Fain said.