Warren and Biden Join U.A.W. Picket Lines as Democrats Use Strike to Court Labor
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Democratic candidates are publicly aligning themselves with union members in hopes of holding onto their support — and winning over those who flipped for President Trump in 2016.
Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts appeared on the picket line Sunday alongside striking General Motors workers at an assembly plant in Detroit.CreditCreditBrittany Greeson for The New York Times
By Stephanie Saul
Sept. 22, 2019
Updated 4:23 p.m. ET
DETROIT — The Democratic presidential candidates have been chasing labor support all summer, appearing at small union halls and large conferences, and tweeting support for workers at companies like Amazon and Walmart. But now, as the United Automobile Workers, one of the nation’s largest unions, stages a strike that has even drawn words of support from President Trump, Democrats are seizing the moment to align themselves with workers in public and dramatic ways.
Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts walked the picket line Sunday alongside striking General Motors workers at an assembly plant in Detroit. Not to be outdone, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. appeared at another G.M. assembly plant in Kansas City, Kan.
The picket line visits of two of the leading candidates for the Democratic nomination — with the third, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, planning to join striking workers in Detroit on Wednesday — illustrated the importance to Democrats of winning the support of rank-and-file union members, including those who voted for Mr. Trump in 2016.
Taking her message of fighting inequality to Michigan for the fourth time since June, Ms. Warren joined a scrum of striking autoworkers, carrying a blue and white “U.A.W. on Strike” sign. As they crisscrossed the entrance to the Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Plant, where Cadillacs and Chevrolets are built, the workers chanted, “We are the union, the mighty, mighty union. U.A.W. stand strong.”
FULL story: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/22/us/politics/elizabeth-warren-uaw-strike.html