Local black elected leaders, who are aligned with racial and economic justice groups, are looking to build on labor gains made during the United Auto Workers’ six-week strike. The union’s tentative agreements with three major automakers include major victories, such as a 25% wage raise and getting rid of the two-tiered worker system.
More than 60 black political leaders, many of whom are city council members, mayors and school board members in Washington and 20 states, including Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia and Michigan, he wrote to President Joe Biden, asking him to exploit his political power to promote higher standards in the fast-growing electric vehicle industry. GM also agreed a few weeks ago to contract to produce batteries for electric vehicles.
Biden, who has supported auto workers’ demands and participated in the UAW picket line during the strike, should continue to support changes in the industry, the letter said, by mediating talks between workers, unions and automakers.
Elected officials say standards for workers’ wages, safety and health should be a priority in those talks. The Biden administration has made investing in electric vehicles a substantial priority on its economic agenda and he stated that federal dollars spent on these investments will benefit workers and “expand the number of good-paying manufacturing jobs” and aid them “realize the economic benefits of the clean energy transition.” Almost $1.7 billion Funds from Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure law will go toward electric buses, and the letter’s organizers say they don’t want to see that money spent on businesses that don’t provide good jobs for workers.
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Advocates say the moves are needed to protect black auto workers in the South, where wages are often lower and unions are not as mighty. All three major automakers have built or are building electric vehicle and battery plants in Southern states, and many of those plants are in rural communities, black.
Erica Smiley, executive director of Jobs With Justice, said the Biden administration has acknowledged receiving the letter, but Smiley and others are still waiting for next steps.
“I think the administration needs to act with urgency right now, given the upcoming election, not just the presidential election itself, but all the congressional elections and lower-level elections that Democrats are going to need to secure the House or even make an impression,” Smiley said. “Certainly black mayors and local elected leaders and school board leaders signing a letter saying, ‘We don’t want to use federal dollars to exploit Southern workers, especially Southern black workers, that’s a strong message to do that.”
Most black people live in the southern United Statesat 56%, according to the 2021 American Community Survey. Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows that in 2022 17.7% workers in the motor vehicle and automotive equipment industry are black, and black workers make up 19% of the southern auto industry, according to the Economic Policy Institute analysis BLS data from 2016 to 2020. The letter also emphasized the importance of including black workers in labor gains, given the history of their exclusion of many of these profits.
“The shifting of jobs to the southern United States to take advantage of low labor costs resulting from a history of white supremacy is a pattern we have seen time and time again,” the letter reads.
Smiley said Democrats should be interested in ensuring that black voters are enthusiastic about going to the polls and voting in the 2024 election.
“You applaud the victory in Detroit and assume it’s all said and done, but in the meantime (if) they’re choosing between $17 an hour at McDonald’s and $16.50 an hour at their local electric vehicle plant, they’re not going to be very excited about it. They’re not going to feel like you’ve done much for them,” she said.
Yterenickia “YT” Bell, a city council member in Clarkston, Georgia, said she signed the letter because it was a good opportunity to bring together the majority of her community, which is 64% Black. She said Biden’s endorsement could strengthen unions in a region of the country that often struggles to unite.
“When it comes to the EV supply chain plans, they don’t automatically unionize all the plants, so there’s still a process around that and it’s a big fight. He’s been on the picket lines before and he needs to show them that he’s in this with them to get their wages and have a voice,” Bell said.
Advocates say black people also bear the brunt of many of the effects of climate change. One 2019 document It was found that black people inhale 56% more particulate matter, or air pollution, than they are able to exploit for their own needs.
“[Biden] you have to remember that many [Black people] in their communities have been disproportionately affected by climate change and are unable to move from one place to another. We need to be very mindful of how this industry comes into play when we talk about sustainable energy and that it needs to ensure that the standards of the current agreement are the norm and not just the exception,” she said.
