United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain called Tuesday for Congress to “step up” for the working class and for the fight for “economic justice” to happen in “the streets,” characterizing a failure to achieve the goal as a “national security risk.”

Fain’s prepared remarks were scheduled to come alongside comments from Sean O’Brien, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, and Sara Nelson, international president of the Association of Flight Attendants-Communication Workers of America, during a hearing before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions called “Standing Up Against Corporate Greed: How Unions are Improving the Lives of Working Families.”

The meeting led to a heated exchange when an Oklahoma senator challenged O’Brien to a fight.

Some 146,000 UAW members employed by the Detroit Three automakers are assessing whether to ratify tentative agreements that secure 27% wage increases over four-and-a-half years, cost-of-living adjustments, billions of dollars in investments, increased retirement contributions, shorter timelines to the top wage and paths to representing workers at battery plants. The union hopes to reverse its past failures in organizing non-unionized automaker plant and bring its gains there.

“We have no interest in being a private welfare state,” Fain said. “The working class needs this committee, and the entire Congress to step up. You all have an essential role to play. Not only in supporting our fights and other fights like ours. But to finish the job for economic and social justice for the entire working class.”

He added: “We need a pro-worker Congress, guided by a vision of liberty and justice for all, elected leaders who understand that economic justice is a national security risk for all of those who don’t have it. It’s a fight worth fighting for. We must bring that fight into the workplace, as well as the streets, but also in the halls of power in the chambers of the U.S. Senate.”

He highlighted actions by other automakers since the UAW announced tentative agreements with the Detroit Three. Toyota Motor Corp., Honda Motor Co. Ltd. and Hyundai Motor Co. all have announced wage increases in the past couple of weeks.

“We call that the UAW bump, and that stands for: U Are Welcome,” he said, “and we’re very proud of that.”

Opposing testimony criticized the union for not doing more to object to automakers’ plans to move to zero-emission and all-electric vehicles, which are more expensive to produce because of their batteries.

“It’s not justice,” said Diana Furchtgott Roth, director of the Center for Energy, Climate and Environment for the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank, “to make cars that are so expensive that most Americans can’t afford to buy them.”

Fain highlighted in the tentative agreements’ gains for U.S. investment for electrified as well as internal combustion engine vehicles, including reshoring product from Mexico.

“We’re going to embrace this,” he said. “We’re not going to run from it. But our biggest concern to all this is it needs to be a just transition in this process where workers aren’t left behind.”

The new agreement would increase automaker labor costs. Ford Motor Co. characterized it as an additional $850 to $900 per vehicle that it hopes to absorb through improvement in efficiencies.

Stellantis NV on Monday, however, announced it had made buyout offers to 6,400 salaried workers, about half of its white-collar workers who are not represented by the union. The tentative deal with the automaker also includes buyout offers to UAW-represented workers in 2024 and 2026.

“When they took over, they want to cut their way to profitability, but they do it on the backs of workers, and they don’t have to cut those jobs,” Fain said. “They chose to cut those jobs. It has nothing to do with our contract. They made $12 billion in the first six months of this year.”

Meanwhile, O’Brien pointed to gaps in legislation that allow employers to refuse to negotiate first contracts after workers organize. Nelson called on greater accountability for union busting and “company unions” as well as release to flight attendants to be able to strike.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Republican from Louisiana, criticized the hearing as a “taxpayer-funded pep rally for big labor unions.” He criticized the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, saying it would open workers to retaliation and intimidation because of the elimination of secret-ballot union elections and put state right-to-work legislation at risk. The legislation would prohibit employers from permanently replacing striking workers, ban the use of offensive lockouts, and remove prohibitions on secondary strikes.

“The title of this hearing suggests that unions are functioning well,” he said, “and that means that partisan legislation like the PRO Act is not necessary.”

Committee Chair Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, said: “One of the issue that we don’t talk about is that over the last 50 years, despite huge increase in technology and worker productivity, the average American worker is making about $50 a week less than he or she did 50 years ago. How did that happen?”

The hearing did get heated during an exchange between Sen. Markwayne Mullin, a Republican from Oklahoma, and O’Brien over a previous post O’Brien made on X, the social-media platform formerly known as Twitter.

Mullin is a former mixed martial arts fighter.

“Sir, this is a time, this is a place. You want to run your mouth, we can be two consenting adults, we can finish it here,” Mullin said from the hearing room dais, according to The Hll.

“OK, that’s fine. Perfect,” O’Brien shot back.

“You want to do it now?” Mullin asked.

“Get your butt up,” Mullin said, standing from his seat and later referring to O’Brien as a “thug,” as Sanders, an independent from Vermont, struggled to get the hearing back on track.

“Hold it. No, no, no, sit down. Sit down! You’re a United State senator, sit down,” Sanders yelled while banging the gavel to restore order in the room.

The exchange was resolved in an agreement to get coffee.

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