Biden’s Top Clean Energy Adviser on How the UAW Strike Affects EV Goals

In advance of President Joe Biden preparing to join striking members of the United Auto Workers on a picket line Tuesday, his top clean energy adviser weighed in on how the UAW strike might affect the administration’s goals to accelerate electric vehicle production.

Biden said Friday he will join a picket line in Michigan after the UAW expanded its strike against automakers General Motors and Stellantis. The UAW on Friday announced additional work stoppages, now including 38 facilities in 20 states. The union’s first walkouts, announced September 15, also included the Ford Motor Company, but the union did not include Ford in the expanded strike, saying that salary and job security negotiations with Ford are progressing.

With the UAW strike in its second week, the Biden administration is attempting to ease tensions between two of its main objectives: a rapid clean energy transition and support for organized labor. Biden set a goal in 2021 for EVs to make up 50 percent of U.S. vehicle sales by 2030 to quickly reduce the emissions from oil consumption.

But the shift to electric vehicles has emerged as a major point of concern for the UAW. The manufacture of EVs typically requires fewer parts compared to making an auto with an internal combustion engine, and that could mean fewer workers would be needed.

John Podesta, the senior adviser to the president for clean energy innovation and implementation, told Newsweek he is confident that the administration can make its green push benefit blue-collar workers. Podesta oversees implementation of the clean energy and climate provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act, one of the administration’s signature legislative victories and the biggest climate-related bill in U.S. history.

Newsweek caught up with Podesta at a Climate Week event on September 19 in New York City, where he briefed an audience of green business leaders and climate policymakers on the status of the energy transition.

“I think the president was clear in his statements that he thinks that America and American auto manufacturers can lead the way on electrification, but that it should be done with a fair contract with the UAW, and that the benefits from that transformation need to be shared with a unionized workforce,” Podesta told Newsweek.

Since President Biden took office, companies have invested nearly $85 billion in EV manufacturing, batteries and EV chargers, according to a White House fact sheet. That investment is spurred by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s support for charging stations and the Inflation Reduction Act’s consumer incentives for EV purchases.

Podesta said other provisions in the IRA are important for the concerns the UAW is raising about potential workforce impacts, especially the assistance available to help auto manufacturers retool existing facilities and ease the transition to EV manufacturing.

“The transition grants create a mechanism to deploy $2 billion to make sure that the workers in existing plants that are in transition can benefit from the money that the federal government spent, along with $10 billion of loan program office money,” Podesta said. “We stand on the side of good jobs, workers and the union. But it really is up to them to negotiate a contract, and we’ll see where they go.”

Podesta made an explicit appeal to business leaders in the audience at the Climate Week event on September 19, urging companies to ensure that their energy transition decisions are made with workers and labor rights in mind. In our interview, Podesta said he thinks incentives in the new law will help make that happen.

“I think those provisions in the IRA that give bonuses to pay prevailing wage and use registered apprentices, often union apprentice programs, are very powerful drivers for fair labor protections, so that is definitely leveling the playing field for union contractors,” he said. “And it’s the rare developer that won’t take advantage of that bonus because it’s about a 5X bonus in the law that applies to a whole set of the tax credits.”

Another concern for the UAW (and potentially other trade unions) is that much of the EV and battery manufacturing investment sparked by the Biden administration’s policies has been happening in politically conservative states where unions have a smaller presence. Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee have all enjoyed major new battery and EV projects. All of those states have so-called right-to-work laws, giving workers in unionized workplaces the option to avoid paying union dues, something the UAW views as hostile to worker rights and the ability to organize workplaces.

Podesta acknowledged the red-state trend in EV investment but said that it could bring unexpected results.

“We’re seeing a lot of investment in right-to-work states, but even there we’ve seen some success from organizing. An electric bus company in Georgia voted to organize,” he said. “And there’s, I think, a kind of premium that companies get from having a stable and well-trained workforce.”

Auto industry author and journalist Jim Motavalli, who has written two books about EVs, said the electric shift is affecting two dominant, long-running trends in auto industry employment, both with major implications for unions.

“One is the flight of jobs to the Southeast and the other is the flight of jobs out of the U.S.,” Motavalli told Newsweek. While Southeastern states are receiving a large share of EV-related development, he said, the Biden administration’s policies and incentives brought broader domestic job growth, guarding against job losses to global competitors.

“Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act has strongly encouraged production of EVs in the U.S.,” Motavalli said, with significant tax credits available for U.S.-made cars and parts. “That led to a boom in not only EV plants but also in parts, battery recycling, battery making and mining for critical minerals for batteries. So that should be a benefit to unions,” he said.

Other labor groups such as steelworkers and electrical workers are all closely watching how the UAW strike unfolds for indications of how the broader clean energy transition might play out for them, adding to the potential economic and political stakes.

Writing Friday on X, formerly Twitter, President Biden announced his plan to visit a UAW picket line, an extraordinary show of union solidarity from a sitting president.

“It’s time for a win-win agreement that keeps American auto manufacturing thriving with well-paid UAW jobs,” Biden wrote.