Republican presidential candidate and former Vice President Mike Pence speaks at the Prayer Station Summit at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, DC, on September 15, 2023.
Anna Money Tree | Getty Images
Former Vice President Mike Pence said on Tuesday that the Biden administration’s push A historic UAW strike is underway at three major automaker plants in Detroit, blamed on dissatisfaction with electric vehicles.
“I guarantee you, one of the factors driving this strike is that Biden economics and his green energy electric vehicle agenda are good for Beijing and bad for Detroit, and American auto workers,” Pence said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” Know that.”
Pence said the strike “reflects the Biden administration’s failed economic policies.” Pence’s campaign to win the 2024 Republican presidential election has struggled to gain traction in the polls.
“This push for electric vehicles is driving people away from gasoline-powered cars, and any autoworker who is paying attention will know that’s not in their long-term interest,” he said.
Pence’s stance on the strike echoes that pushed by his former boss and current front-runner for the Republican nomination, former President Trump.
About 12,700 UAW members went on strike last week at assembly plants at General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis as the automakers and unions failed to reach an agreement on a new labor contract.
The union’s main demand is to get more, more faircompensation.
The United Auto Workers union said on Monday it would announce further strikes against the companies if the two sides failed to make “substantial progress” in negotiations by noon Friday.
Trump’s remarks about the strike have focused largely on the rise of electric vehicles, which he claims will hurt American auto workers.
“Electric cars are naturally going to be made in China,” Trump said on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” broadcast Sunday.
The Biden administration has taken steps to accelerate the auto industry’s transition to electric vehicles as part of its climate agenda, exacerbating the natural gas-EV conflict that is already a politically wedge issue in auto-reliant America.
Even as Trump urged unions to support him, he continued to criticize the UAW leadership.
He plans to travel to Detroit to speak with current and former union members ahead of next week’s Republican primary debate.
UAW President Sean Fein attacked Trump after he announced the plan.
“Every fiber of our union is invested in fighting against the billionaire class and an economy that enriches people like Donald Trump at the expense of workers,” Fein said.
“We cannot continue to elect billionaires and millionaires who have no idea what it’s like to live paycheck to paycheck, struggling to survive, and expect them to solve the problems of the working class,” he said.
Fein’s union has so far declined to endorse Biden, a longtime union supporter, over concerns about the transition to electric vehicles.
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