Hyundai in Alabama

 

N.Y. Times story:

A coalition of labor unions and civic groups in Georgia and Alabama will launch a pressure campaign on Monday targeting Hyundai’s electric vehicle plants and its clean energy suppliers, an effort that could also push the Biden administration to make good on its oft-repeated pledge to create not just jobs but “good union jobs.”

By focusing on the shift to electric vehicles at Hyundai, a nonunion carmaker expected to reap huge benefits from Mr. Biden’s prized initiatives, the coalition hopes to make inroads at other automakers, such as B.M.W. in South Carolina and Mercedes-Benz in Alabama, which similarly chose union-hostile territory for their American manufacturing bases.

The campaign could also raise the heat on domestic automakers in the middle of contract negotiations with the newly aggressive United Automobile Workers, who are focused on raising wages at electric vehicle suppliers like battery makers.

For Mr. Biden, the Hyundai campaign has political ramifications, in setting specific demands on one of the largest automakers in the world in one of the most important swing states in the 2024 presidential election, Georgia.

“The people in the community should be able to come to work in these plants, with a livable wage and good jobs,” said Yvonne T. Brooks, president of the Georgia State A.F.L.-C.I.O., adding that “to bring jobs here but not provide a livable wage kind of defeats the purpose.”

Mr. Biden has campaigned on the sheer number of jobs created by his three signature laws, a $1 trillion infrastructure package, a $280 billion measure to rekindle a domestic semiconductor industry, and the Inflation Reduction Act, which included $370 billion for clean energy to combat climate change. A $25 million advertising blitz announced by his campaign last week kicked off with a one-minute spot that proclaims, “Manufacturing jobs are coming home,” and “America is leading the world in clean energy.”

But despite low unemployment, tempering inflation and steady job creation, Mr. Biden’s overall approval ratings have been dragged down by voters’ refusal to give him credit for the good economic news. Clifford Young, who oversees U.S. public opinion research at Ipsos, a polling company, said that last year’s 8.5 percent inflation and the ensuing interest rate hikes and slower economic growth might have sealed Mr. Biden’s fate with the voting public.

“The dirty secret is a bad economy hurts a president more than a good economy helps,” he said.