UAW slow-walks Harris endorsement after stalling on backing Biden

Now that President Joe Biden is out of the race, politicians, special interest groups, and labor unions are all quickly endorsing Kamala Harris, except for the United Auto Workers. 

UAW President Shawn Fain said his union is going to take its time before it decides whether to endorse the vice president.

“We’re not going to rush in and just throw it out there,” Fain said during an interview with MSNBC’s Jen Psaki. “We want to have fruitful discussions when we meet, and I think it’s important we do that. We owe that to them.” 

While Fain proclaimed Biden to be the “greatest president of my lifetime, the most pro-labor president of my lifetime,” the labor union did not endorse Biden for a second term until nine months after Biden announced he was running for reelection in April 2023. 

The UAW endorsement was withheld as the Big Three auto companies were in the works of negotiating new contracts with auto workers, and there was also concern with the amount of money being spent by the federal government on electric vehicles. 

“The EV transition is at serious risk of becoming a race to the bottom,” the statement said. “We want to see national leadership have our back on this before we make any commitments.”

However, while working out contracts with the Big Three, Fain negotiated protections for EV and battery plant workers. 

“I’ve never been opposed to [the EV transition], we just want it to be a just transition, and we don’t want workers left behind. That’s it,” Fain said in a November interview.

When the UAW strike broke out in September, Fain praised Biden for going down to the picket line. Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump addressed the event at a nonunion company called Drake Enterprises. 

Fain also praised Harris for being at the picket line during the 2019 General Motors strike, where Trump had not made an appearance. 

“He said nothing, he did nothing — not a damn thing because he doesn’t care about the American worker,” Fain said regarding Trump’s actions during the 2019 strike. “Donald Trump is a billionaire, and that’s who he represents. Donald Trump stands against everything we stand for as a union, as a society.”