If you’ve ever listened to President Joe Biden talk about fighting climate change, chances are you’ve heard him connect it to “good-paying” union jobs. It’s a well-worn line that has echoed across the Biden administration and into the districts that Cabinet heads fanned out across in recent weeks. “A lot of my friends in organized labor know when I think climate, I think jobs,” Biden declared last week in Philadelphia. But the relationship between Biden and big labor groups seems to be on the rocks — and it could get more contentious as several major workers’ strikes loom, write Holly Otterbein and Zack Colman. The tensions underscore the challenge of ensuring that clean energy jobs are also the well-paying union jobs Biden promised. The United Auto Workers — whose contract with the Detroit Three automakers ends in September — is, for now, withholding support from the president. The union has accused the administration of doling out billions of dollars in subsidies for electric vehicles without demanding higher wages and other protections. It has also lambasted the administration for steering billions of dollars in clean energy money to right-to-work states like Kentucky and Tennessee. Former President Donald Trump is vowing to undo Biden’s electric vehicle measures as he tries for the UAW endorsement. Political matters: The potential loss of a powerful ally — particularly in the critical battlefield of Michigan — has the Biden administration and its allies concerned. Biden’s senior staff has told allies “that the rhetoric from the new UAW leadership is concerning, this is a problem, and we’ve got to figure this out together,” said one person familiar with the administration’s thinking. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told Holly and Zack that if Democrats don’t get this right, it could both hurt them politically and threaten the transition from gas-powered cars to electric vehicles. Many federal grants and loans from Biden’s climate law are heading to the largely nonunionized battery industry and right-to-work states, which bar unions from collecting mandatory dues. That could set a lower floor for worker standards in a sector crucial to the president’s agenda, say progressives and organized labor. Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.) said the Biden administration should steer such grants and loans to more union-friendly locations. “It’s a matter of targeting in the places where we have historically good jobs working in the auto industry,” he said. “If you come to Michigan, for example, is a different question than going to a place that does not have a history of labor rights.” Reminder: POLITICO is holding an event Wednesday on whether energy initiatives are paying off and what it will really take to support clean energy jobs. Michigan Democratic Rep. Debbie Dingell and Tony G. Reames, the principal deputy director for the Energy Department’s Office of State and Community Energy Programs, are among the event speakers.
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