In 2012, Joe Biden was in Michigan for a rally. But first, he wanted to talk with some autoworkers.
Ron Bieber, the political director for UAW at the time, got eight presidents from UAW locals in a room for what was supposed to be an hour. Biden stayed for two.
“An hour came and went like that, he just sat there and sat there. It probably went on for two hours. I had friends who were over at the rally and I sent them a text and said ‘they’re going to be held up a little bit,’” said Bieber, who is now president of the AFL-CIO.
As Vice President under Barack Obama, Biden had reason to wonder how autoworkers were doing. He’d been involved in the controversial plan to save the jobs of autoworkers like the ones in that room.
Eleven years later, he’s banking on autoworkers remembering the effort as he seeks to win Michigan and the presidency against incumbent President Donald Trump.
Trump narrowly flipped Michigan four years ago by increasing Republican votes in communities with strong ties to the auto industry. Trump’s victories in Saginaw and Macomb counties, which had previously voted for Obama and Biden in 2008 and 2012, helped him become the first Republican to win Michigan in nearly three decades.
Nearly every time Trump has visited the state as president, he makes sure to mention that he alone understood how Michigan autoworkers suffered under bad trade deals that incentivized jobs to leave the U.S. Trump’s reelection campaign has put a strong focus on his signature policy achievement: Rewriting the “nightmare” North American Free Trade Agreement that Biden supported.
Biden’s campaign aims to remind voters that he helped shepherd Michigan through the last economic recession while saving the state’s most critical industry. Biden also has a new plan to create 1 million auto jobs through investments in energy-efficient vehicle technology, heralding a new future for Michigan automakers.
“Vice President Biden has always understood that the auto industry is the beating heart of Michigan manufacturing,” said Eric Hyers, Michigan state director for the Biden campaign, in a statement.
Now, Biden’s campaign is honing in on his history with automakers as tries to persuade voters, especially those in the automotive industry, in must-win Michigan.
Biden played key role in bailout
Michigan Democrats across the board have been calling attention to Biden’s role when GM and Chrysler faced economic collapse during the last recession.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer chose to deliver her speech to the Democratic National Convention from a UAW hall in Lansing, Local 652.
“Autoworkers in this union and across our state could have lost their jobs if not for Barack Obama and Joe Biden,” Whitmer told a national audience.
State Rep. Mari Manoogian, D-Birmingham, also highlighted the auto bailout in a keynote address featuring young Democrats from across the country. U.S. Sen. Gary Peters, D-Bloomfield Township, and UAW Secretary-Treasurer Ray Curry announced Michigan’s delegate count at the DNC while flanked by GM vehicles.
Back in 2008, it was President George W. Bush who started the auto bailout, agreeing to lend GM and Chrysler billions in exchange for repayment and restructuring measures.
As outlined by economists Thomas H. Klier and James Rubenstein in a report about the events, the automakers then went through a series of negotiations and managed bankruptcies with the Obama administration. Between the two administrations, GM would receive $50.2 billion, GM financing arm GMAC $17.2 billion and Chrysler $10.9 billion in loans through the federal Troubled Asset Relief Program.
In Michigan, it’s been a political issue in every presidential cycle since then.
In 2012, Michigan native Mitt Romney lost the state after unions called attention to a 2008 op-ed he wrote for the New York Times headlined “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt.”
In a Flint debate during the 2016 presidential primary, Hillary Clinton picked that issue to drive a wedge between Bernie Sanders and herself.
In 2020, Biden and his supporters are highlighting it.
The campaign organized a series of press calls this month with Michigan Democrats focused on Biden’s involvement in the auto bailout. Democrats also criticized Vice President Mike Pence for voting against the Bush administration’s bailout in 2008, when Pence was a congressman representing Indiana.
U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Dearborn, said Biden pushed for the bailout when it wasn’t politically popular.
“(Biden) really led the efforts inside the administration,” Dingell said during an Aug. 13 press event. “I mean if you were to be honest, President Obama didn’t necessarily -- this was one wasn’t one of the first things he wanted to do. Joe Biden said we have no choice. It’s the backbone of the American economy.”
U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Lansing, painted a similar picture of Biden as a hands-on fighter seizing a critical moment.
“Joe Biden was burning up the phones and working this night and day,” Stabenow said.
“Nobody had to explain to him why this is important, why this is the backbone of our economy. Nobody had to explain to him the possibility of losing a million jobs or what this was going to mean specifically to Michigan.”
Ryan Buchalski, President of UAW Local 598 at Flint Truck Assembly, said in a statement Biden and Obama saved the domestic auto industry, “And Joe Biden undeniably was a big part of making that happen.
“In fact, here at UAW Local 598 in Flint our members were directly affected due to the light duty pickup truck that was brought here from Mexico which helped 1,000 people through an added third shift. Joe Biden had our back.”
Stabenow drew a contrast with Trump, who she said didn’t understand the importance of manufacturing and had hurt the industry with tariffs on steel and aluminum. Going forward, Stabenow said, Biden would invest in training and research to ensure the next generation of vehicles were made in Michigan.
Dingell also said Biden would put Michigan automakers ahead of the competition when it comes to producing energy-efficient cars. Dingell held several high-ranking positions at GM before joining Congress, including executive director of global community relations and government relations.
“We’re competing in a global marketplace with autos right now, and I’m going to be damned certain China is not going to beat us in producing electric vehicles,” she said.
Candidates court autoworkers on other issues, too
But the bailout isn’t the only issue candidates have leverage on with autoworkers in Michigan, and both Trump and Biden have courted the constituency.
In May, Trump toured Ford Motor Company’s Rawsonville manufacturing plant in Ypsilanti Township, highlighting the company’s shift to produce ventilators for the coronavirus pandemic. His campaign is building on his previous one, which focused on promoting domestic manufacturing and tightening trade agreements.
Trump also has the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, a renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement that passed with bipartisan support in Congress.
Terry Bowman, a national co-chair of the Workers for Trump coalition and a Ford Motor Co. employee, said rank and file union members who supported Trump in 2016 are “firmly” behind the president. Bowman cited the USMCA as one of the top reasons during an event organized by the Trump campaign this week.
“Donald Trump has shown that he can do the work, he can do something that presidents for over a generation have been talking about,” Bowman said. “The American worker has been forgotten in a lot of these trade deals.”
Bowman, who works at the Rawsonville plant Trump visited earlier this year and is a former UAW member, also highlighted Biden’s support for NAFTA in the 90s.
According to figures provided by the Trump campaign, the USMCA is projected to create 76,000 new U.S. automotive jobs.
Even Dingell, the Democratic congresswoman representing parts of Wayne County, said she’s observed still strong support for Trump in unions. However, she also said “many union voters” don’t approve of the way Trump handled the COVID-19 pandemic.
Though Trump argues he has ushered in a renaissance for Michigan automakers, vehicle manufacturing jobs have fluctuated throughout his first term.
Michigan vehicle manufacturing jobs declined by 2,100 from the month Trump took office through February 2020, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. U.S. manufacturing experienced a mild recession for all of 2019, according to data released by the Federal Reserve.
That was before the industry took a significant hit to sales and employment after the COVID-19 pandemic caused factories to shut down in late March. Though 14,100 auto jobs have come back since the low-point in April, there were still 3,500 fewer auto jobs in July compared to February.
Regardless, Trump’s focus on manufacturing in the United States has impressed auto workers like Todd Rodriguez, a 22-year Ford electrician and UAW member.
“I would say he’s been good in three and a half years he’s been in the office. Because we have been doing well. I mean everything got hit by the COVID crisis... a 10-week shutdown did not help my industry. But we’re climbing back, we’re ramping up to do our thing,” Rodriguez said.
He works in truck assembly and is wary of the impact Biden’s environmental plans could have on the auto industry. On his campaign website, Biden describes the Green New Deal, a congressional plan to address climate change, as “a crucial framework for meeting the climate challenges we face.”
That’s concerning to Rodriguez, who said that type of plan “kind of kills off the industry that I’m in.”
Jim Conger, a retired GM worker from the Delphi plant in Saginaw who was not a union member, praised Trump’s work on the USMCA. Democrats have long taken autoworkers for granted, he said, while jobs were “sucked” to other countries.
“Part of what happened to the Democratic Party is they forgot us. Back in the 60s, 70s and 80s they were all about us -- John F. Kennedy and even moving forward. I’m going to say to Bill Clinton to an extent. But after that it just went downhill,” Conger said.
Auto rescue still has legs in Michigan, experts say
After Whitmer’s DNC speech Abby Clark, president of Athena Strategies, said focusing on the bailout was smart.
“I think (Biden’s) broader message to the rest of the county also works in Michigan. I don’t think we need our own special message, but it’s always worth pointing out because the state would have absolutely collapsed without the auto industry,” Clark said.
Former Michigan Democratic Party Chair Brandon Dillon said reminding people of the auto rescue still resonated a decade-plus later, particularly in southeast Michigan.
“Trump was able to cut into the traditional democratic base of union UAW voters. Continuing to remind people of Vice President Biden’s critical role in saving the auto industry is important to make sure that some of those voters come back home,” Dillon said.
And focusing on autos, he said, makes sense.
“I think it’s a really strong appeal those blue-collar, particularly white, working-class voters who bailed on Hillary Clinton.”
Bieber, the AFL-CIO president who was so impressed by that 2012 meeting with Biden, said the meeting wasn’t reported on, and Biden didn’t want any fanfare.
“It’s genuine. The Joe Biden you see that cares about workers and what they think and what they’ve got to say, I saw that right there and it’s real,” Bieber said.
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11 years later, the auto rescue is still a campaign issue in Michigan. Here’s why Joe Biden is leaning into i - MLive.com
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