all across the country, having begun the week before in just three Midwestern car factories. There are now more than 18,000 autoworkers, from Nevada to Tennessee to Florida, out on the picket lines. Joining them on the line at a General Motors parts distribution center in Belleville, Michigan, on Tuesday was none other than President Joe Biden, the first sitting chief executive to ever appear at such a rally.
Biden’s support will increase the pressure on the major automakers, but it’s also punctuated the workers’ action in a different way. The UAW strike is indeed a labor story, but it’s also a climate story—and an important one. However this thing ends, it could help determine what role blue-collar workers will play in the country’s climate adaptation and energy transition efforts, a process that the Biden administration has dramatically moved along.