(Molly Bruns, Headline USA) The United Auto Workers labor union called out the Biden administration’s green energy programs, which cut wages for thousands of automotive workers while handing out tax breaks to large manufacturers.
According to Breitbart, the so-called Inflation Reduction Act passed last year by Democrats provided massive tax credits for companies that increased their electric-vehicle programming in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
Those companies, in turn, scaled back their traditional manufacturing operations with little regard for the overall impact on the workforce.
UAW President Shawn Fain and members of the union in Lordstown, Ohio, called out President Joe Biden for the extreme cuts into manufacturer’s wages as automotive companies made the move to EVs.
“There have been clear winners and losers, and the same people who’ve always won—the corporate elite and the billionaire class—seem to think they can keep calling the shots,” Fain said in a video.
“Ford, General Motors and Stellantis are taking billions of dollars in government subsidies to go electric,” he continued. “But those benefits aren’t trickling down to UAW members.”
Fain, along with several locals, told the story of the closure of the GM manufacturing plant in Lordstown, which resulted in the loss of thousands of jobs and extensive damage to the small rural community.
“I think it was like an economic crash almost. I mean, everybody here was GM,” said Dominic Giovannone of UAW Local 1112. “… [M]y kids went to Lordstown schools, so a lot of their friends moved away. It took a hometown community and separated it.”
GM opted to close down the existing Ohio plant in order to partner with LG to open an EV battery plant, which officials claimed would bring in higher-paying jobs in the green energy field.
Several members of the Lordstown community stated that the new plant had not followed through on those promises.
Fain stated that Lordstown Assembly employees previously made $30 per hour or more. At the new battery plant, known as Ultium Cells, employees started work at $16.50 an hour, with earnings increasing to $20 per hour after seven years.
“Ultium [Cells] cut auto wages in half,” Fain said.
All of the big-three auto companies received billions in taxpayer funds in the form of EV tax credits with no requirement to increase the pay of their production workers.
The UAW withheld their endorsement from the president’s 2024 campaign as they waited for him to follow through on his commitment that auto workers would receive similar wages as the factory transitioned.
