[ “The most union-friendly president in U.S. history” may be a
low bar, but Biden took another step toward clearing it today by
standing with Michigan autoworkers out on strike.]
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BIDEN JUST MADE HISTORY BY BECOMING THE FIRST U.S. PRESIDENT TO JOIN
STRIKING WORKERS ON THE PICKET LINE  
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Jeff Schuhrke
September 26, 2023
In These Times - Labor
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_ “The most union-friendly president in U.S. history” may be a
low bar, but Biden took another step toward clearing it today by
standing with Michigan autoworkers out on strike. _

US President Joe Biden addresses striking members of the United Auto
Workers union at a picket line outside a General Motors Service Parts
Operations plant in Belleville, Michigan, on September 26, 2023., JIM
WATSON/AFP via Getty Images

 

On Tuesday, Joe Biden became the first sitting U.S. president to join
a picket line when he visited striking United Auto Workers (UAW)
members outside a GM parts facility in Belleville, Michigan.

“You guys, UAW, you saved the automobile industry back in 2008 and
before. You made a lot of sacrifices, gave up a lot when the
companies were in trouble,” the president said
[[link removed]] to picketing
workers. ​“But now they’re doing incredibly well, and guess
what? You should be doing incredibly well too.”

The president has voiced support
[[link removed]]
for the UAW’s strike at the Big Three automakers since it began on
September 15. But after former President Donald Trump announced plans
to hold a campaign rally at a non-union auto parts plant near
Detroit — which the media grossly mischaracterized
[[link removed]] as
​“Trump standing with striking autoworkers” — Biden was
pushed
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by fellow Democrats to visit a UAW picket line.

As a candidate in 2019, Biden joined
[[link removed]]
workers on picket lines, including
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striking GM employees. Candidate Bill Clinton also walked a picket
line
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in 1992, as did candidate Barack Obama in 2007
[[link removed]]. But no president has
ever joined a picket line while in office until today.

On the campaign trail, Obama promised
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workers that, if elected, he would ​“put on a comfortable pair of
shoes” and ​“walk on that picket line with you as President of
the United States of America” — a promise he never fulfilled.
As Obama’s vice president, Biden rebuffed
[[link removed]] a request
from Wisconsin labor leaders in 2011 to join their massive protest
against Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s push to curtail public sector
union rights. 

Biden’s UAW picket line visit reflects the fact that the strike by
union workers is so popular that the leader of the most pro-capitalist
country on Earth believed being seen standing alongside them was
politically advantageous.

“This is absolutely unprecedented. No president has ever walked
a picket line before,” labor historian Erik Loomis told
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the _Associated Press_.

Labor historian Nelson Lichtenstein similarly told
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the _Guardian_, ​“This is genuinely new — I don’t think
it’s ever happened before, a president on a picket line.”

PRESIDENTS AND PICKET LINES

Almost three years into his term, much ink has been spilled debating
whether Biden is living up to his promise to be the ​“most
pro-union president leading the most pro-union administration in
American history,” and today’s event will undoubtedly further fuel
that discussion. 

But what often goes unmentioned is what a low bar it is to earn the
distinction of most pro-union president in U.S. history. Far from
joining picket lines, most presidents have firmly sided with bosses,
if they weren’t bosses themselves.

Twelve U.S. presidents (one in four) were literal slave
owners — eight of them while in office. They physically coerced
men, women and children to work for them in cruel, excruciating and
humiliating conditions with no freedoms and no rights to speak of, let
alone compensation. 

Several presidents have deployed federal troops to break strikes and
crush worker rebellions, including Andrew Jackson in 1834
[[link removed]],
Rutherford B. Hayes in 1877
[[link removed]], Grover
Cleveland in 1894
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Theodore Roosevelt in 1903
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and 1907
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and Warren G. Harding in 1921
[[link removed]].

Calvin Coolidge’s ascent to the White House was set in motion
[[link removed]] in 1919 when,
as Massachusetts governor, he defeated the unpopular Boston police
strike and declared
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​“There is no right to strike against the public safety by
anybody, anywhere, anytime.” 

During wars, Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D.
Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman seized control of certain enterprises or
entire industries a total of 71 times
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prevent or end strikes — sometimes on the side of unions,
sometimes on the side of management. 

Since Congress passed the anti-union Taft-Hartley Act in 1947 over
President Truman’s veto, the law’s emergency injunction
provision — allowing the federal government to shut down strikes
in the private sector — has been invoked by presidents 35 times
[[link removed]].

Ronald Reagan — the only White House occupant to have previously
been a union president [[link removed]] and
strike leader
[[link removed]]—infamously
fired over 11,000 striking air traffic controllers in 1981 rather than
negotiate a new contract with them, setting off the modern era of
union busting.

Still, some presidents have also occasionally provided organized labor
with moral and tangible support.

In March 1860, as the New England Shoemakers Strike
[[link removed]]
was underway, candidate Abraham Lincoln addressed the situation while
campaigning in Hartford, Connecticut. ​“I know one
thing — there is a strike! And I am glad to know that there is
a system of labor where the laborer can strike if he wants to,” he
said
[[link removed]].

Four years later, as the Civil War raged, a printers’ strike in St.
Louis was in danger of being broken by U.S. Army troops commanded by
General William Rosecrans, who saw labor disputes as impediments to
the war effort. The printers appealed
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to President Lincoln by reminding him of his campaign remarks about
the right to strike. Lincoln is said to have ordered Rosecrans to
stand down.

President Teddy Roosevelt made history during the anthracite coal
strike
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of 1902 when, instead of simply having the military stamp out the
strike, he attempted to mediate a fair resolution by bringing union
and management representatives to Washington to negotiate as equals.

During World War I, Woodrow Wilson rewarded union workers with shorter
hours, higher wages and better conditions to avoid strikes. But Wilson
was also merciless toward anti-war labor radicals, imprisoning
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many organizers with the Industrial Workers of the World for
​“obstructing” the war.

Franklin D. Roosevelt is often considered the most pro-labor U.S.
president because he oversaw the New Deal — a slew of reforms in
the 1930s that uplifted much of the industrial working class,
including the pro-union National Labor Relations Act. A famous 1940
union poster [[link removed]] quotes
FDR as saying, ​“If I went to work in a factory, the first thing
I’d do would be TO JOIN A UNION” — but it’s unclear if he
ever actually said this. 

“EARNED, NOT FREELY GIVEN”

FDR’s New Deal wouldn’t have been possible without overwhelming
Democratic majorities in Congress, a critical advantage not enjoyed
by Joe Biden and his stalled Build Back Better agenda.

Nevertheless, Biden has made a decent effort. Under his
administration, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has been
more unabashedly pro-worker than likely any time since the 1930s.
Biden has also followed union leaders’ wishes on who to elevate into
key positions such as Secretary of Labor and NLRB general counsel, and
has used his bully pulpit to make some of the most pro-union public
statements we’ve ever heard from a president (again, it’s a low
bar.)

At the same time, Biden has so far failed to get Congress to pass the
union-friendly PRO Act, though he was all too successful in getting
Congress to preempt last year’s potential railroad strike and impose
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an unpopular contract on rail workers despite a majority of them
voting to reject it. Anti-union actions like overriding rank-and-file
democracy and denying workers’ their fundamental right to strike are
unfortunately par for the course for U.S. presidents.

This seems to be something UAW President Shawn Fain understands. Just
as Fain refused
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to engage in the traditional, ceremonial handshake with the Big Three
CEOs at the start of contract bargaining, he and his union have so far
refrained from endorsing Biden’s reelection (while 17 other unions
and the AFL-CIO quickly endorsed
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in June).

“Our endorsements are going to be earned, not freely given,” Fain
has said
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This example of labor proudly standing up for itself and demanding
respect, instead of reflexively bowing to those in power, likely
encouraged Biden to make history by joining the picket line today. It
may also be what ultimately forces the Big Three to make historic
concessions to striking autoworkers.

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Jeff Schuhrke [[link removed]] is
a labor historian, educator, journalist and union activist who
teaches at the Harry Van Arsdale Jr. School of Labor Studies, SUNY
Empire State University in New York City. He has been an_ In These
Times _contributor since 2013. Follow him on Twitter @JeffSchuhrke.

* United Auto Workers Strike; President Biden; UAW President Shawn
Fain; Strikes and US Presidents
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