Shawn Fain is the president of the United Auto Workers union. He successfully negotiated higher wages and better benefits for his member in 2023 after calling for and receiving authorization for a strike. He continues his efforts to unionize more shops and floated the idea that other unions have their contract expire in 2028 when the UAW contract expires.

He was on Meet the Nation this past week and when asked “Let’s start very simply on the question of tariffs on autos and auto parts. Fundamentally, and quite simply, why do you believe those are helpful for your membership?” This is what he said:

[A]ll you have to do is look at the history of the United States, especially in auto manufacturing in the last 30 years, with the inception of NAFTA and unfair trade laws. We’ve seen over 90,000 manufacturing facilities leave the United States. We’ve seen- in the Big Three alone, in the last 20 plus years, 65 plants have closed. You know- And so look, tariffs aren’t the total solution. Tariffs are a tool in the toolbox to get these companies to do the right thing, and- and the intent behind it is to bring jobs back here. And, you know, invest in the American workers. The American working class people have been left behind for decades, and they’re sick of it. You know, it’s a massive struggle. People are struggling just to get- to survive right now, to get by. And so, you know- you know- you know, there’s two parts to the tariffs though. I mean, the tariffs are a motivator. We have to fix the broken trade laws. And the other thing to me is, you know, these can’t just be just, you know, as with the Biden administration, when they did the stuff for battery work and EV work, we had to come in and say, no, these can’t just be union jobs or- or jobs. They got to be good paying union jobs that set standards. So the big part of this that gets left out a lot of times is, if they’re going to bring jobs back here, you know, they need to be life sustaining jobs where people can make a good wage, a living wage, have adequate health care and have a retirement security and not have to work seven days a week or multiple jobs, just a scrape to get by, paycheck to paycheck.

He goes on to agree with “Peter Navarro, a top adviser to the president on trade, says currently, automobile manufacturing plants are at about 60% capacity. He argues that there’s lots of untapped capacity, meaning jobs could be created relatively easy, and you didn’t have to need- you wouldn’t need to spend two or three or maybe five years building new factories.”

So I’m glad to hear that the UAW and their membership may be well positioned, but the increase in prices will result in inflation and that’s bad for all people including his members. Guess what we don’t buy when we aren’t sure how much groceries or everyday items will be … Cars? Yep. Cars.