by Jeff Mason, Heather Timmons and Ben Klayman

WASHINGTON/TOLEDO, Ohio (Reuters) – US President Joe Biden will travel to Michigan on Tuesday to show his support for the strike by US auto industry workers.

Joe Biden, a Democrat, sees himself as a pro-union president and his visit to Michigan – on the eve of a trip to Detroit by his predecessor Donald Trump – will underline his support for the right of unionized workers to take action and engage in collective bargaining.

“I will be traveling to Michigan on Tuesday to join the picket lines and show solidarity with the men and women (of the United Auto Workers) as they fight for a fair share of the value they have contributed to create,” Joe Biden wrote on Friday on the social network X, formerly Twitter.

“It’s time to reach a win-win agreement that will allow American manufacturers to continue to thrive while providing good-paying jobs.”

For a week, employees of the three historic automobile manufacturers, General Motors, Ford and Stellantis, have walked off the job at the call of the UAW, which demands an increase in wages and greater job security while the sector carries out its transition to electric vehicles.

Nearly 12,700 workers are on strike at three Big Three auto industry plants in Michigan, Ohio and Missouri.

The UAW has strengthened its movement against GM and Stellantis, parent company of Chrysler, but limited its actions targeting Ford to a single plant because of progress made in discussions with this manufacturer, the union said Friday.

The organization began strikes at noon Friday local time against 38 parts distribution centers across the United States supplying GM and Stellantis, adding approximately 5,600 strikers to the movement.

The UAW on Friday invited the American president to meet workers on the picket lines. Many unions already support a re-election of Joe Biden in the 2024 presidential election, but the auto workers union has not yet revealed its position.

Donald Trump is due to deliver a speech on Wednesday which should notably address the automobile sector in Detroit. The former president has not yet said whether he will go to the picket lines.

(Reporting Heather Timmons and Jeff Mason in Washington, Ben Klayman in Toledo, Ohio, David Gaffen in New York and David Shepardson and Joseph White in Detroit; Camille Raynaud and Gilles Guillaume)

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