https://www.nysun.com/article/biden-backing-uaw-on-demands-for-wages-that-would-give-elon-musk-and-xi-jinping-the-last-laugh
In Joe Biden’s 1950s world, unions are good and corporations bad. Hence his response to the UAW strike against the three legacy automakers. “Over the last — the past decade,” he said, “auto companies have seen record profits, including the last few years, because of the extraordinary skill and sacrifices of the UAW workers.”
Yet, the president said, “those record profits have not been shared fairly, in my view, with those workers.” He added, referring to current negotiations: “I believe they should go further to ensure record corporate profits mean record contracts for the UAW.” Nothing like putting the presidential thumb on the bully scale.
In Mr. Biden’s world, because the automakers have had a few good years, they should award unionized employees huge pay hikes. Never mind that if our economy slows and demand for cars slumps, the auto firms would be stuck with higher costs that would make them even less competitive with non-union companies like Tesla or BYD in Communist China.
Nikki Haley says presidential candidates should have mental competency tests; business IQ tests might be more useful, starting with the “sacrifices” made by autoworkers that Mr. Biden hails. It is true that during the Great Recession UAW members accepted changes in contract terms that allowed the auto makers to stay in business.
Taxpayers, already being crushed by government levies, forked over $80 billion to bail out GM and Chrysler. Much of that was eventually paid back. The country was largely sympathetic; after all, it was banks that had caused the 2008 downturn, so why should Detroit’s Big Three and their employees suffer?