United Auto Workers (UAW) President Shawn Fain, representing about 370,000 of the nation’s auto workers, has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president. The endorsement comes even as Harris has pioneered Electric Vehicle (EV) mandates to fully eliminate the sale of gas-powered cars in the United States, a policy that risks millions of American auto jobs.
“Our job in this election is to defeat Donald Trump and elect Kamala Harris to build on her proven track record of delivering for the working class,” Fain said in a statement:
We stand at a crossroads in this country. We can put a billionaire back in office who stands against everything our union stands for, or we can elect Kamala Harris who will stand shoulder to shoulder with us in our war on corporate greed. This campaign is bringing together people from all walks of life, building a movement that can defeat Donald Trump at the ballot box. For our one million active and retired members, the choice is clear: We will elect Kamala Harris to be our next President this November. [Emphasis added]
Fain’s assertion that Harris will fight “corporate greed” stands opposed to the fact that her biggest donors are billionaires from the likes of Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and multinational corporations who see the vice president an ally.
The UAW endorsement also comes as Harris, a co-sponsor of the Green New Deal, which would work to eliminate gas-powered cars, most recently while she was running for the Democrat presidential nomination in 2020, rolled out a plan to ensure that gas-powered cars are eliminated by 2035.
“[W]e will ensure that 50 percent of all new passenger vehicles sold are zero-emission by 2030, and 100 percent are zero-emission by 2035,” Harris’s 2020 campaign agenda reads.
Such a plan throws millions of American auto jobs into peril as the U.S. relies on China for critical minerals needed to produce EV batteries. EVs, in general, require far less manpower, meaning automakers can hire fewer employees at lower wages to produce the cars.
At the same time, Trump has vowed to “end the Electric Vehicle mandate on day one — thereby saving the U.S. auto industry from complete obliteration, which is happening right now, and saving U.S. customers thousands and thousands of dollars per car.”
Likewise, Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) introduced the “Drive American Act” last year to eliminate more than $100 billion in EV subsidies from President Joe Biden and Harris’s administration and replace them with the “America First Vehicle Credit.”
The credit would provide up to $7,500 in tax credits for American consumers making less than $150,000 who buy a gas-powered car so long as it is made in the U.S. at a plant where auto workers are earning no less than $35 an hour and where the parts are U.S.-sourced.
Vance’s legislation would require automakers to hike wages for auto workers so their gas-powered cars would qualify for the credit.
Even with the UAW endorsement, Fain has admitted that “a great majority” of auto workers would be voting for Trump in November. During Fain’s prior endorsement of Biden, he similarly admitted that “working class people are hurting” in today’s economy.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
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