President Joe Biden is scheduled to visit Belvidere on Thursday, celebrating the United Auto Workers’ contract agreement with Stellantis that includes the company’s vow to invest millions of dollars and reopen its manufacturing plant in the northern Illinois town for electric vehicles and creating an EV battery assembly.
Underscoring the strike-ending UAW agreement, Biden’s visit is an effort to show his post-COVID economic strategy dubbed “Bidenomics” is working. The reelection-seeking president has said his plans to use the government to help fuel economic expansion is assisting with job creation and growing manufacturing jobs.
Biden is scheduled to meet in Belvidere with UAW President Shawn Fain and Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a member of the Biden campaign’s advisory board who also played a major role in the redevelopment of the Belvidere facility since Stellantis idled the massive plant along the Northwest Tollway in March after decades of auto production. The closure, which ended most recently production of Jeep Cherokees, sidelined 1,200 workers.
The reconstituted assembly plant, battery production facility and a related parts distribution hub is expected to create as many as 5,000 jobs. The plant’s fate was a key discussion point in negotiations between the UAW and Stellantis. An Oct. 28 contract agreement ended a seven-week strike against the automaker as part of a larger strike against the nation’s Big Three vehicle manufacturers.
“Ultimately, this was a negotiation that the UAW and Shawn Fain led directly with the auto companies,” said Ben LaBolt, White House communications director.
But LaBolt noted Biden “called the CEO of Stellantis and specifically advocated for the reopening of this plant at Belvidere and had made a broader public push to make sure that the auto companies we’re hiring workers and opening plants in what had historically been auto communities” for electric vehicle production.
Biden, he said, also “was the first president to stand at an active strike site in history when he went outside of Detroit with Shawn Fain and autoworkers there. Generally a lot of presidents are afraid of strikes. This president has stood with workers as they’ve been engaged in strikes and empowering workers has been one of the big principles of President Biden and his presidency.”
LaBolt said the autoworkers contract, which contain significant raises, was an example of how “workers are more empowered in this economy. That businesses aren’t the only ones with power. You’re seeing wages for workers go up, particularly to the workers farther down the wage scale.”
At the same time, he said, the Belvidere project plans are an example of a “Bidenomics” principle of “investing in America and making sure that we’re providing the incentive structure to create jobs, particularly manufacturing jobs, here in America.”
Still, the Biden administration acknowledges its “Bidenomics” messaging, launched at a June speech in Chicago and derided by some critics, has been slow to catch on with a public still feeling the effects of inflationary price increases.
The administration touts as successes an unemployment rate under 4% for the longest stretch on record, job creation that includes 800,000 manufacturing jobs and costs down 60% from a year ago when inflation spiked from the pandemic.
In Illinois, LaBolt said, $8.4 billion in federal infrastructure funding for more than 170 projects also has helped leveraged $1.5 billion in private sector investment since Biden took office.
“If you look at things like job satisfaction and consumer satisfaction, you’ve seen significant increases there. So that’s ultimately going to be the measure for the president: What are the results for hardworking Americans?” LaBolt said of public attitudes. “We know they’re coming out of a tough period with the pandemic and the supply chain crisis. And so it’ll take some time for folks to feel all of the economic progress.”
Politically, for Biden the event is also an effort to showcase his union credentials to the UAW, which has not made an endorsement for president. But it also takes place in Boone County, which has not backed a Democrat for president since home state U.S. Sen. Barack Obama’s 2008 victory. Voters in the county backed Obama’s opponent, Republican U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, four years later.
While Biden’s trip to Belvidere is listed as an “official” government visit, the president also is scheduled to come to Chicago for a political fundraiser hosted by health care entrepreneur Glen Tullman.
