President Joe Biden speaks at the Community Building Complex of Boone County in Belvidere to herald the United Auto Workers contract agreement with Stellantis on Nov. 9, 2023. (Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune/TNS)

WASHINGTON — The United Auto Workers granted President Joe Biden its long-awaited endorsement here Wednesday as he makes the pitch for his reelection that he’s delivered for working people.

“Elections aren’t about picking your best friend for the job or the candidate who makes you feel good. Elections are about power,” UAW President Shawn Fain said during the union’s National Community Action Program Conference in Washington, D.C.

“This November we can stand up and elect someone who stands with us and supports our cause, or we can elect someone who will fight us and divide us every step of the way. That’s what this choice is about. The question is, who do we want in that office to give us the best shot at winning?”

A member of the audience shouted: “Joe Biden!”

Fain said former President Donald Trump doesn’t care about the American worker, while Biden stood “by our side every step of the way” in efforts last year to reopen a Stellantis assembly plant from closure in Belvidere, Illinois, and appearing with striking workers on the picket line in Wayne County.

“That’s a choice we face. It’s not about who you like. … It’s not about anything but our best shot at taking back power for the working class,” Fain said.

“This choice is clear: Joe Biden bet on the American worker. While Donald Trump blamed the American worker. … Joe Biden has earned it.”

The endorsement follows months of uncertainty and delay, with the union withholding its endorsement as other organized labor groups got behind the Democratic president’s bid for a second term.

The Detroit News was first to report last year that the UAW planned to withhold endorsing Biden until the Democratic president showed support for a “just transition” to electric vehicles.

The nod could be pivotal for this year’s presidential election, with many of the union’s 383,000 active members and hundreds of thousands of retirees living in battleground states like Michigan and Wisconsin that have been decided by tight margins in recent cycles.

“We have to take the issues that matter to the working class and poor, and we have to make our political leaders stand up with us,” Fain said Monday during his opening remarks. “Our message in doing this is simple: Support our cause, or you will not get our endorsement.”

Wednesday’s event followed Tuesday’s primary election in New Hampshire, where former President Donald Trump won the night and Biden secured a write-in victory.

David Dulio, a political scientist at Oakland University, said that, while expected, the UAW nod is a big deal, even though one would expect such an organization to endorse a Democratic candidate who describes himself as the most labor-friendly president ever and who showed up on the picket line to rally workers last fall.

“I think it’s a bigger deal because of the success that former president Trump has had with voters who look like those union workers ― blue-collar autoworkers, manufacturing workers — who were really key to his surge in 2016 and kept it close in 2020,” Dulio said of Trump, the Republican presidential frontrunner.

“Trump is going to give those voters an alternative and really try to bring that success that he found eight years ago. That is likely to be dampened by the fact that Mr. Fain negotiated what appears to be a really good deal for his members, and maybe that means they will follow him on this.”

UAW workers attending the three-day conference this week generally had positive things to say about Biden, while acknowledging Trump’s appeal to some of their fellow members.

Jessie Collins, a UAW retiree from Flint, said Wednesday he’ll be voting for Biden, citing the strong U.S. economy and low unemployment. But he’s worried about Biden’s prospects in Michigan, noting friends there who tell him they’re still on the fence.

“I’m hearing that a lot. They talk about voting independent versus Biden, and they talk about his age. What the hell?” said Collins, chair of the Local 599 Retiree Chapter. “If he wasn’t doing his job, I’d get that, but he’s doing his job. He’s got good people around him.”

UAW retiree Muriel Samuels, 74, of Flint said voting for Biden is a “no brainer,” and that she’s confident he’ll win Michigan again. She’s especially happy with the low unemployment rate and the administration’s efforts to protect abortion rights.

“I hate to say this, but there are people who are not looking at the facts. They’re drinking the Trump Kool Aid, and they’re believing whatever he tells them,” said Samuels, who worked at the Flint Metal Center for 35 years.

“It really bothered me when he talked about immigrants ‘poisoning’ the blood of this country. The majority of the people that have come to this country are immigrants. That’s what has made this country great. Don’t forget the fact that two of his three wives were immigrants.”

The UAW endorsement follows some ups and downs in the relationship between Biden and Fain over the last year during negotiations between the Detroit Three and the union over new contracts and later during a strike that lasted over 40 days. Fain at times was critical of White House involvement in the talks with the companies.

But Biden publicly sympathized with the workers during the standoff, and in September made history when he traveled to Van Buren Township in Michigan to join UAW workers on the picket line ― a first for a sitting U.S. president in over 100 years.

“You made a lot of sacrifices. You gave up a lot when the companies were in trouble. Now, they’re doing incredibly well. And guess what? You should be doing incredibly well, too,” Biden told the workers at the time. “You deserve a significant raise you need and other benefits. Let’s get back what we lost, OK? … It’s time for them to step up for us.”

Republicans belittled the visit as “nothing more than a photo op.” “Shame on Biden for attempting to gaslight Michigan families who are footing the bill for his green energy campaign,” RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said at the time.

Trump held a rally the same day at a non-union auto parts maker in Michigan, which Fain has cited as evidence that the former president doesn’t care about what UAW workers stand for. He also criticized Trump for being non-responsive during a different strike while he was president.

Trump suggested at that rally that the UAW should endorse him instead of Biden, as the former president makes the transition to electric vehicles part of his “woke” culture war stump speech. He sees the chance to gain working-class support by playing to skepticism over EVs, claiming it would reduce domestic auto jobs.

Trump also has publicly attacked Fain and union leaders and urged workers not to pay dues.

“Autoworkers are getting totally ripped off by crooked Joe Biden and their horrendous leadership, because these people are allowing our country to do these electric vehicles that very few people want,” Trump said in a campaign video last fall.

“The union bosses don’t want to do anything about (the EV transition) because they’re not leaders. But you know who’s voting for me? The people in the union.”

UAW retiree John D. Hunter, 81, of Sheffield Village, Ohio, said workers should look at what Trump’s actions over what what he says and promises.

“You say you support labor unions and then you don’t support labor unions — you change laws to do things. You say, ‘I’m for the military,’ and then you take money away from the military families,” right?” said Hunter, who spent 40 years working for Ford Motor Co. including in Dearborn.

“His actions don’t match up his words. He’s a good ‘spokesman.’ He should go back to television.”

UAW worker Ayannah Cleary, 41, of Southfield said she did like the economy better when Trump was president but will be supporting Biden, in part because she can’t stomach Trump’s arrogance and sense of entitlement.

She stressed the importance of turning out young UAW workers to vote in the fall. “That’s a struggle that we have. They don’t understand the importance of it,” said Cleary, who works at the Stellantis Jefferson North Assembly Plant in Detroit. She also hears concerns about Biden’s support for Israel in its war against Hamas in Gaza, she said.

“The fact that he supported us during the strike is huge,” Cleary said. “His supporting us and standing with us and walking with us (on the picket line) ― that works to his advantage because no other president has done that.”

Detroit News staff writers Breana Noble and Kalea Hall contributed to this story.

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