By Maria Ortiz
04 Oct 2024, 19:39 PM EDT
The vice president Kamala Harris visited the critical swing state of Michigan on Friday and held an election rally in Detroit, where assured his support for unions and the power they give to workers to negotiate better conditions with the administration.
Harris defended in his speech its priority of strengthening unions. “Just yesterday we saw another example of the power of collective bargaining, when longshoremen and the US Maritime Alliance ended their strike and reached a record wage agreement,” he said.
Harris thus referred to the agreement reached between the dockworkers on strike since Tuesday in the main ports on the East Coast and the Gulf of Mexico of the United States and the employers to increase salaries by 62% in the next six years.
“That’s the bottom line of why we want our unions to be able to do their jobs on behalf of workers every day, because we know that when union wages go up, everyone’s wages go up,” Harris added.
Before a group of workers and union members, Harris recalled that her Republican rival in the 2024 elections, former President Donald Trump, “has been an anti-unionist his entire life.”
“This is a man who sold promise after promise to American workers, but never delivered. That he made fun of the fact of firing striking workers, remember that?” stated the vice president.
“He promised workers that the auto industry would, quote, ‘not lose a single plant’ during his presidency. “Then American automakers announced the closure of six plants while he was president, including General Motors in Warren, Michigan,” Harris said.
President Joe Biden is considered the president who has most supported unions since Franklin Roosevelt (1933-1945), promoter of the ‘New Deal’.
Harris is also scheduled to travel to Flint on Friday, where he will insist that Trump and his vice presidential candidate, Senator JD Vance, They are a danger to the automotive industry.
The leader of the powerful United Auto Workers (UAW) union, Shawn Fain, will be at the Flint event.
It is also expected that Harris highlights $60 million in federal funding to help create electric vehicle battery manufacturing plant in Flintwhich the administration estimates will create 150 jobs.
Also in Flint, the vice president will meet with leaders of Michigan’s large Arab community, whose support is vital in this key election state.
The Arab community in Michigan and other parts of the country has shown its disagreement in the last year with the Biden and Harris administration for its support for Israel in the war against Hamas that has now expanded to combat Hezbollah in Lebanon.
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