In the opening moments of the second Republican presidential debate, five GOP contenders attempted to address the highest-profile economic dispute in America today — the United Auto Workers strike in Michigan. Every candidate whiffed.
One by one, each candidate pivoted from the strike to unrelated issues, all of which inevitably rested on the idea that everything was President Joe Biden’s fault. Not a single one of them criticized the chief culprits — the corporations exploiting their workers. And not a single one of them acknowledged the role that union power could play in helping workers achieve their goals of higher pay, better working conditions and stronger job security.
It’s a lot of hand-waving about workers — and then a series of diversions from the real sources and the real solutions to their problems
The consecutive whiffs illustrated the phony populism of the right. It’s a lot of hand-waving about workers — and then a series of diversions from the real sources and the real solutions to their problems, which in turn serves to preserve the economic status quo.
The first candidate to answer, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, evinced little sympathy for UAW grievances, scolding the union’s members for seeking a “French workweek” (UAW members are calling for a 32-hour workweek, although it’s almost certainly a reach goal) and criticizing union pension plans as extravagant. He then started talking about ... Mexico? “Joe Biden should not be on the picket line. He should be on the southern border working to close our southern border, because it is unsafe, wide open and insecure,” Scott said, before going on a diatribe about fentanyl and calling for finishing former President Donald Trump’s wall.
The candidates seemed to have their own pet theories to distract from the matter at hand. Former biotech executive Vivek Ramaswamy said he had “sympathy” for the workers before undercutting that sympathy by asserting that “victimhood is a choice.” He argued that UAW workers should be picketing not outside their workplaces but outside the White House to protest policies that have “driven up prices.” His solution? Among other things, deregulate the economy and “drill, frack, burn coal.”
Other answers were no better. Former Vice President Mike Pence dismissed “union bosses” talking about “class warfare” and instead cast blame on “Bidenomics” and Biden’s climate policy. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said that the workers on the picket line were there because of Biden’s spending and that the solution was to cut taxes — on gas, the middle class, small businesses and corporations. And North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum jumped in to criticize Biden for subsidizing electric cars.
The issue with all the blame on the president is that the UAW’s issues predate Biden's tenure. According to Bloomberg News, inflation-adjusted wages for autoworkers on the production line have declined 30% since 2003. There are a number of reasons for that fall in wages, as The Washington Post explains:
Technology began to replace manufacturing as the nation’s profit center. U.S. manufacturing jobs began to shift to nonunionized factories in the South. And the UAW made big pay concessions around the time of the Great Recession in 2008, when Detroit’s Big Three automakers — General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, now part of Stellantis — were fighting to survive.
In other words, a number of structural and industrywide phenomena have contributed to the fall in autoworkers’ wages for many years now. But now the UAW is taking on an aggressive strategy of work stoppages for better pay because the companies they’re striking against — Ford, General Motors and Chrysler parent Stellantis — have seen profits increase 90% over the last decade and their CEOs’ pay is skyrocketing. The UAW argument to the companies is simple: You’re doing really well — we should be, too.
The Republican impulse to try to nail Biden for high inflation is an attempt to exploit the public’s reasonable concern about the rise in prices of goods in recent years. But it’s not a serious attempt to assess why autoworkers’ wages are so low compared to where they could and should be. Neither was Trump’s address in Michigan on Wednesday night, ostensibly to autoworkers but given at a nonunion factory with statements like “I don’t think you’re picketing for the right thing.”
Biden, seemingly in response to pressure from the UAW and concern about being outflanked by Trump, joined the picket line with the UAW on Tuesday. It was the right thing to do, as it is those companies that control workers’ pay and work conditions. And it’s consistent with Biden’s support for pro-labor policy through his rhetoric, his pro-labor language in his legislation and executive orders and his progressive appointees to the National Labor Relations Board.
If Republicans were sincere about supporting workers, they’d support union power and call out corporate greed. Their answers revealed that they’re not.