(Breitbart) American auto workers, about 150,000 of whom are represented by the United Auto Workers (UAW) union, are increasingly fed up with Democrats as President Joe Biden pursues a green energy agenda set to eliminate auto jobs and shift billions up to corporate executives.
“UAW members feel abandoned by the Democratic Party,” former UAW President Bob King told Politico this week, noting the Democrat majority’s continued support for job-killing free trade as well as Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) which is handing out billions in taxpayer subsidies to auto companies and their top line.
“I think there’s a segment of the Democratic Party that sees itself as serving corporations rather than the common good … we’ve had a lot of disappointments,” King said.
As Breitbart News has chronicled, Biden’s IRA is showering automakers with a massive windfall via tax credits for electric vehicles (EVs) made in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
At the same time, a publicly funded transition from combustion engines to EVs has the potential to eliminate millions of American auto jobs altogether.
UAW President Shawn Fain, who has made sure to withhold the union’s endorsement from Biden, has called out the green energy agenda for merely shifting wealth to the top as auto workers see their salaries slashed.
“Workers can’t be left behind in this transition,” Fain said last week:
OUR DEFINING MOMENT.
A new industry is being born. New standards are being set.
It’s not just about Lordstown.
Everywhere, our message is the same: Our country deserves good, safe, living-wage union jobs.
It’s time to build an EV industry that puts workers first.#UAW pic.twitter.com/cNB6ujxR99
— UAW (@UAW) July 5, 2023
In a recent UAW report, the union looked at General Motors (GM) and LG’s EV battery plant in Lordstown, Ohio, known as Ultium Cells, which replaced GM’s old vehicle assembly plant.
While workers at the former plant earned up to $30 an hour, the UAW notes that workers at the Ultium Cells plant had been earning about $16.50 an hour with a raise to $20 an hour after seven years. This suggests a 45 percent drop in wages for auto workers in Lordstown.
Weeks ago, the UAW fought to secure pay increases at Ultium Cells, scoring workers an additional $3 to $4 an hour and thousands of dollars in back pay.
