Evelyn Reynolds

While big companies wield considerable power, Covid’s economic disruption has given workers new leverage, contributing to a recent upturn in strikes.When 420 workers at the Heaven Hill spirits bottling plant near Louisville went on strike in September, they were frustrated that the company’s proposed contract could reduce their overtime pay. Many had earned extra income working seven days a week during the pandemic.“We were essential,” said Leslie Glazar, recording secretary of the local union representing spirits workers. “They kept preaching, ‘You get us through that, we’ll make it worth your time.’ But we went from heroes to zero.”The recent strike at Heaven Hill, which ended in late October after the company softened its overtime proposal, appears to reflect the current moment: Buoyed by shortages in labor and supplies that leave employers more vulnerable, and frustrated by what they see as unfair treatment during the pandemic, workers are standing up for a better deal.Data collected by the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University shows the number of workers on strike increased in October, to more than 25,000, versus an average of around 10,000 in the previous three months.“Labor market leverage and the fact that workers have been through incredibly difficult working conditions over the past year and a half with the pandemic are combining to explain a lot of this labor activism now,” said Johnnie Kallas, a Ph.D. student and the project director of Cornell’s Labor Action Tracker.Large companies continue to have considerable power, and it is not clear that the recent job actions point to a new era of widespread strikes. Many workers who were nearing a strike appear to have pulled back from the brink, including 60,000 film and television production workers, whose strike threat was at least temporarily defused when their union reached tentative agreements with production studios. And even a doubling or tripling of strike activity would fall well below levels common in the 1960s and 70s.But the fitful economic recovery from the pandemic has eroded management’s advantages. Employers are having unusual difficulty in filling jobs — this summer, the Labor Department recorded the highest number of job openings since it began keeping such data in 2000. And for some companies, supply-chain disruptions have taken a toll on the bottom line.In a recent survey by IPC, a trade association representing the electronics industry, nine out of 10 manufacturers complained that the time it takes to make their goods had increased. Nearly one-third reported delays of eight weeks or more.Workers at Kellogg in Battle Creek, Mich., have been on strike since early October.Nicole Hester/The Grand Rapids Press, via Associated PressMany workers also contend that their employers have failed to share enormous pandemic-era profits, even as they sometimes risked their lives to make those earnings possible. Striking workers at John Deere, whose union announced a tentative agreement with the company over the weekend, have pointed out that Deere is on pace to set a record profit of nearly $6 billion this fiscal year even as it sought to end traditional pensions for new hires. The United Automobile Workers said a vote on the contract was expected this week.Workers say that when companies do offer raises, the increases are often limited and don’t make up for the weakening of benefits that they have endured for years.That helps explain why the upturn in labor action dates back to 2018, when tens of thousands of teachers walked off the job in states like West Virginia and Arizona, though the lockdowns and layoffs of the pandemic initially suppressed strike activity. With workers in both Democratic and Republican states feeling wronged, the strike impulse tends to transcend partisan divides.One increasingly common complaint is the so-called two-tier compensation structure, in which workers hired before a certain date may earn a higher wage or a traditional pension, while more recent hires have a lower maximum wage or receive most of their retirement benefits through a variable plan like a 401(k).Frustration with the two-tier system helped propel a six-week strike at General Motors in 2019, and has loomed over several strikes this year, including Kellogg and Deere. Deere workers hired after 1997 have much smaller traditional pensions.In some cases, workers have even grown skeptical of their union leadership, worrying that negotiators have become too remote from the concerns of the rank and file.This is particularly true at the United Automobile Workers, which has been wracked by a corruption scandal in which more than 15 people have been convicted, including two recent presidents. Some Deere workers cited discontent with their union’s leadership in explaining their vote against the initial contract the union had negotiated.It is also a feeling that some Hollywood crew members have expressed about negotiations handled by their union, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. “They’re not bad people, they’re working in good faith,” said Victor P. Bouzi, a sound mixer and IATSE member based in Southern California. “But they’re not seeing what’s happening to people and how we’re getting squeezed down here.”The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees prepared for a strike before negotiators reached tentative agreements with film and television studios.Jenna Schoenefeld for The New York TimesYet for every force pushing workers toward a strike, there are others that push in the other direction.Union leaders can be reluctant to strike after having negotiated a deal for workers. IATSE leaders are endorsing the tentative agreements they reached with the studios in October, and even those who oppose them believe it will be a long shot for the membership to vote them down.Matthew Loeb, the IATSE president, said that 36 locals were closely involved in developing the union’s bargaining objectives and that “our members demonstrated incredible union solidarity that stunned the employers and helped us to achieve our stated goals.”For their part, companies often pre-empt a labor action by improving compensation, something that appears to be happening as employers raise wages, though that is also to attract new workers. (It’s less clear if the wage increases are keeping up with inflation outside leisure and hospitality industries.)Manufacturing workers contemplating strikes may have jobs that are relatively sought-after in their cities and towns, making workers less keen to risk their jobs in the event of a strike, and potentially easier to fill than a quick glance at the number of local openings would suggest.And the mere act of striking can exert an enormous psychological and financial toll in an economy where workers have a limited safety net. When unionized workers receive strike pay, it’s typically a fraction of their usual pay, and they must often picket outside their workplace to receive it.Companies can use the legal system to place restrictions on them — as with Warrior Met Coal in Alabama, where about 1,000 workers represented by the United Mine Workers of America have been on strike for seven months. The company recently won a court order prohibiting picketing within 300 yards of entrances..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}As difficult as a strike can be when workers are unionized, it is far more difficult when they’re not. Nonunionized workers often find strikes harder to organize and harder to endure because of the lack of pay. They are typically more vulnerable to potentially unlawful responses by employers, which unions have the legal muscle to resist.It is perhaps no surprise that as the rate of union membership has fallen, so has the number of strikes. Until the early 1980s, the country typically saw more than 200 a year involving 1,000 or more workers, versus 25 in 2019, the highest in almost two decades. Far fewer than 20 began this year.Striking workers outside a John Deere plant near Des Moines. The company’s pension system has been an issue in the strike.Kelsey Kremer/The Des Moines Register, via Associated Press“The volume is quite minimal,” said Ruth Milkman, a sociologist of labor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. “That’s partly because only 6 percent of the private sector is organized.”The recent strike at Heaven Hill in Bardstown, Ky., illustrates the complicated calculus facing workers. An analysis by the employment site ZipRecruiter showed that when the strike vote was taken in September, job postings in the Louisville area had increased by almost twice the percentage they had nationwide during the pandemic.After the company threatened to bring in replacement workers, the employees were dismissive. “No one can find workers now — where do they think they’ll find 400?” Ms. Glazar, the local union official, said shortly before the strike ended. “That’s the only thing that keeps us smiling out there.”There were also indications that Heaven Hill was running low on inventory as the strike wore on, crimping the company’s ability to age and bottle alcohol that it produced in Louisville. “We could see the truck movement had slowed down from week one to week six — there were not near as many trucks in and out,” Ms. Glazar said.Josh Hafer, a company spokesman, said, “There may have been some small-scale products impacted, but not to any large degree.”Still, the workers were under enormous stress. Their health benefits ended when their contract expired, and some workers found their insurance was no longer valid while trying to squeeze in a final doctor’s appointment.And while jobs in the area appeared plentiful, many workers preferred to stay in the whiskey-making business. “I like what I do, I enjoy everything about bourbon,” said Austin Hinshaw, a worker who voted to strike at the Heaven Hill plant. “I have worked at a factory before, and it’s not my thing.” In late October, Mr. Hinshaw accepted a job at a distillery in town where he had been applying for months.A few days earlier, Heaven Hill management had worked out a new agreement with the union. The proposed contract included a commitment to largely maintain the existing overtime pay rules for current workers, though it left open the possibility that future workers would be scheduled on weekends at regular pay, which grated on union members. The company also offered a slightly larger pay increase than it had offered just before the workers’ contract expired in September.In a statement, Heaven Hill pointed to the generous health benefits and increased wages and vacation time in the new contract.The company’s proposal divided the members, many of whom wanted to keep fighting, but more than one-third voted in favor of the contract, the minimum needed to approve it and end the strike.“There are a lot of mixed emotions,” Ms. Glazar said. “Some of them are just disappointed. They thought that it would have been better.”Peter S. Goodman More

The travails of a Chicago fishing company’s advent calendar highlight the supply chain hurdles for businesses trying to deliver items in time for the holidays.WASHINGTON — It was 73 days until Christmas, and the clock was ticking down for Catch Co.The Chicago-based fishing company had secured a spot to sell a new product, an advent calendar for fishing enthusiasts dubbed “12 Days of Fishmas,” in 2,650 Walmart stores nationwide. But like so many products this holiday season, the calendars were mired in a massive traffic jam in the flow of goods from Asian factories to American store shelves.With Black Friday rapidly approaching, many of the calendars were stuck in a 40-foot steel box in the yard at the Port of Long Beach, blocked by other containers stuffed with toys, furniture and car parts. Truckers had come several times to pick up the Catch Co. container but been turned away. Dozens more ships sat in the harbor, waiting their turn to dock. It was just one tiny piece in a vast maze of shipping containers that thousands of American retailers were trying desperately to reach.“There’s delays in every single piece of the supply chain,” said Tim MacGuidwin, the company’s chief operations officer. “You’re very much not in control.”Catch Co. is one of the many companies finding themselves at the mercy of global supply chain disruptions this year. Worker shortages, pandemic shutdowns, strong consumer demand and other factors have come together to fracture the global conveyor belt that shuffles consumer goods from Chinese factories, through American ports and along railways and freeways to households and stores around the United States.American shoppers are growing nervous as they realize certain toys, electronics and bicycles may not arrive in time for the holidays. Shortages of both finished products and components needed to make things like cars are feeding into rising prices, halting work at American factories and dampening economic growth.The disruptions have also become a problem for President Biden, who has been vilified on Fox News as “the Grinch who stole Christmas.”The White House’s supply chain task force has been working with private companies to try to speed the flow of goods, even considering deploying the National Guard to help drive trucks. But the president appears to have limited power to alleviate a supply chain crisis that is both global in nature and linked to much larger economic forces that are out of his control. On Sunday, Mr. Biden met with other world leaders at the Group of 20 in Rome to discuss supply chain challenges.On Oct. 13, the same day that Catch Co. was waiting for its calendars to clear the port, Mr. Biden announced that the Port of Los Angeles and companies like FedEx and Walmart would move toward around the clock operations, joining the Port of Long Beach, where one terminal had begun staying open 24 hours just weeks before.Shipping containers stacked up at the Port of Long Beach in California in October. One terminal has begun operating 24 hours. Allison Zaucha for The New York TimesMany of Catch Co.’s advent calendars were stuck in the yard at the Port of Long Beach. Allison Zaucha for The New York Times“This is a big first step in speeding up the movement of materials and goods through our supply chain,” Mr. Biden said. “But now we need the rest of the private sector chain to step up as well.”Mr. MacGuidwin praised the announcement but said it had come too late to make much difference for Catch Co., which had been working through supply chain headaches for many months.The company’s problems first began with the pandemic-related factory shutdowns in China and other countries, which led to a shortage in the graphite used to make fishing poles. A worldwide scramble for shipping containers soon followed, as Americans began spending less on movies, travel and restaurants, and more on outfitting their home offices, gyms and playrooms with products made in Asian factories.Shipping rates soared tenfold, and big companies turned to extreme measures to deliver their goods. Walmart, Costco and Target began chartering their own ships to ferry products from Asia and hired thousands of new warehouse employees and truck drivers.Smaller companies like Catch Co. were struggling to keep up. As soon as Apple launched a new iPhone, for example, the available shipping containers vanished, diverted to ship Apple’s products overseas.The timing could not have been worse for Catch Co., which was seeing demand for its poles, lures and other products surge, as fishing became an ideal pandemic hobby. The company turned briefly to air freighting products to meet demand, but at five or six times the cost of sea freight, it cut into the company’s profits.The supply chain woes became an even bigger problem for Catch Co.’s “12 Days of Fishmas” calendar, which featured the company’s plastic worms, silver fish hooks and painted lures hiding behind cardboard windows. The calendar, which retails for $24.98, was a “big deal” for the company, Mr. MacGuidwin said. It would account for more than 15 percent of the company’s holiday sales and introduce customers to its other products. But it had an expiration date: Who would buy an advent calendar after Christmas?Mr. MacGuidwin thought briefly about storing late arrivals for next year before realizing the calendar said “2021.”Catch Co. had secured a spot to sell a new product, an advent calendar dubbed “The 12 Days of Fishmas,” in 2,650 Walmart stores nationwide.Chase Castor for The New York TimesBoxes of the calendars were prepared for distribution in Kansas City.Chase Castor for The New York Times“It cannot be sold after Christmas,” he said. “It is a scrapped product after that.”Like many American companies, Catch Co. had tried to prepare for the global delays.The Chinese factories the company works with began manufacturing the calendar in April, before Walmart had even confirmed its orders. On July 10, the calendars were shipped to the port at Qingdao. But a global container shortage kept the calendars idling at the Chinese port for a month, awaiting for a box to be shipped in.On Sept. 1, nearly three weeks after setting sail across the Pacific Ocean, the vessel anchored off the coast of Southern California, alongside 119 other ships vying to unload. Two weeks later Catch Co.’s containers were off the ship, where they descended into the maze of boxes at the Port of Long Beach.Inside the BoxThe twin ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles — which together process 40 percent of the shipping containers brought into the United States — have struggled to keep up with the surge in imports for many months.Together, the Southern California ports handled 15.3 million 20-foot containers in the first nine months of the year, up about a quarter from last year. Dockworkers and truckers had worked long hours throughout the pandemic. More than 100 trains, each at least three miles long, were leaving the Los Angeles basin each day.But by this fall, the ports and warehouses of Southern California were so overstuffed that many cranes at the port had actually come to a standstill, without space to store the containers or truckers to ferry them away.On Sept. 21, the Port of Long Beach announced that it had started a trial to keep one terminal open around the clock. A few weeks later, at Mr. Biden’s urging and with the support of various unions, the Port of Los Angeles and Union Pacific’s nearby California facility joined in.So far, few truckers have arrived during the expanded hours. The ports have pointed to bottlenecks in other parts of the supply chain — including a shortage of truckers and overstuffed warehouses that can’t fit more products through their doors.“We are in a national crisis,” said Mario Cordero, the executive director of the port of Long Beach. “It’s going to be an ongoing dynamic until we have full control of the virus that’s before us.”Worker shortages at warehouses have led to delays.Chase Castor for The New York TimesTruckers, who have worked long hours throughout the pandemic, are also in short supply.Chase Castor for The New York TimesIn the past, Catch Co. would often ship products from West Coast ports by rail. But longer travel times on rail lines — as well as the high demand for containers at Chinese ports — mean shipping companies have been loath to let their containers stray too far from the ocean.So instead, the Catch Co. calendars were moved by truck to a warehouse outside the port owned by freight forwarder Flexport. There, they were placed on another truck to be shipped to Catch Co.’s Kansas City distribution center, where workers would repack the calendars for Walmart. Mr. MacGuidwin estimated that the calendars would arrive in Walmart stores by Nov. 17 — just in time for Black Friday. The calendar’s entire trip from factory to store shelves would take about 130 days this year, compared with the typical 60.Mr. MacGuidwin said he believes supply chain difficulties may ease next year, as ports, rails and trucking companies gradually work through their backlogs. Asia remains the best place to manufacture many of their goods, he said. But if shipping costs remain high and disruptions continue, they may consider sourcing more products from the United States and Latin America.Catch Co. has already started designing its calendar for next year and is still deciding whether it should say “2022.”“It’s an open question,” said Mr. MacGuidwin. More

In failing to secure a benefit with bipartisan appeal, President Biden joins a long line of frustrated politicians. But some Republicans say it could be resurrected on its own.WASHINGTON — In late 2019, with bipartisan backing, including from the iconoclastic Senate Democrat Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, President Donald J. Trump’s daughter Ivanka hosted a summit at the White House to promote her vision for paid family and medical leave.As with many domestic initiatives of the Trump years, the effort went nowhere, thanks in part to the former president’s lack of interest in legislating. But it also stalled in part because of opposition from Democrats like Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, who saw the plan not as a true federal benefit but as a “payday loan” off future Social Security benefits.Ms. Gillibrand believed she could do much better.Last week was the Democrats’ turn to fail. A 12-week paid family and medical leave program, costing $500 billion over 10 years, was supposed to be a centerpiece of President Biden’s social safety net legislation. But it fell out of his compromise framework, a victim of centrists who objected to its ambition and cost.The demise of the effort, even amid bipartisan interest, in part reflected the polarization surrounding Democrats’ marquee domestic legislation, which Republicans are opposing en masse.Some business groups and G.O.P. proponents of a paid leave program believe that if it had been broken out and negotiated with Republicans, the way a $1 trillion infrastructure package was at Mr. Biden’s urging, it could have survived, and some think it still could resurrected as a bipartisan initiative.They said the problem lay with the Democrats’ decision to put paid family leave in the expansive social policy and climate bill — a multitrillion-dollar package financed by large tax increases on businesses and the wealthy — which they knew that Republicans and mainstream business groups would never support.“In any area that is substantive, when members sit down to actually walk through whether or not we can build good legislation, there are possibilities,” Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, said. “We’re not being encouraged to work together to solve problems. What we’re being encouraged to do is line up with the team so that we can have the political messaging point.”At least for now, though, the United States is almost certain to remain one of only six countries with no national paid leave.“Fundamentally, to provide paid leave, you have to value women and value their work,” Ms. Gillibrand lamented, “and valuing women and their work is a hard thing for the United States.”The last-minute removal of the paid leave program underscored longstanding questions about how it can be that while 186 other countries have such a program, the United States does not.A rally for paid leave near the White House. The United States is one of only six countries that do not provide some sort of national paid leave.Valerie Plesch for The New York TimesMs. Gillibrand was highly skeptical that a bipartisan deal to address the issue was possible. She said she had been developing paid family and medical leave legislation for nearly a decade, had sought out numerous Republican and business partners, and had always found the parties too ideologically divided.But the issue driving interest in both parties — bringing more women into the work force and keeping them there — has only grown more acute since the coronavirus pandemic hit.White House officials say 95 percent of the lowest-wage workers lack any paid leave, and they are predominantly women and people of color. Some five million women lost their jobs during the pandemic, and many of them, struggling with access to child care and bedeviled by intermittent school closures and periodic Covid-19 outbreaks, have opted not to return.Mr. Trump campaigned on the issue and included six weeks of federally paid leave in his budgets, which were ignored by Republican leaders. Congressional Republicans had their own ideas. Legislation introduced in 2019 by Senators Sinema and Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana, and Representatives Elise Stefanik, Republican of New York, and Colin Allred, Democrat of Texas, would offer new parents $5,000 during the first year of their baby’s life, which they would repay over the decade through cuts to their child tax credit.The Republican senators Marco Rubio of Florida, Mitt Romney of Utah, Joni Ernst of Iowa and Mike Lee of Utah similarly proposed offering workers parental leave benefits that would have to be repaid — with interest — through cuts in their Social Security retirement benefits.Senator Deb Fischer, Republican of Nebraska, championed and secured more modest legislation — tucked into the Republican tax cuts of 2017 — that gave small businesses a tax credit to fund family leave. She argued against broader versions, since many companies already offer employees paid leave.“If you have two or three employees, you cannot afford to do paid family leave because you can’t afford to hire somebody to take their place, which is why I think the tax credit that we have in law now is really beneficial,” Ms. Fischer said.According to the White House, fewer than a third of small businesses with 100 or more employees offer paid leave. Only 14 percent with fewer than 50 employees do. Ms. Fischer conceded that few small businesses have taken advantage of her credit, but she blamed the Treasury Department, under Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden, for dragging its feet on issuing detailed regulations and promoting it.To Democrats, those proposals are not true leave. They are either loans off other needed benefits or too limited to make a difference. Ms. Gillibrand said that optimally, a stable, generous family and medical leave plan would be an “earned benefit” like Social Security and Medicare: Workers would pay into the system and claim the benefit when they needed it, regardless of where they worked or how much they earned.But, she said, taxing workers has become politically difficult. Her 2013 bill envisioned family and medical leave insurance, financed by a small contribution from employers with each paycheck.This year, the Biden administration and Democratic leaders opted to fund paid leave out of general revenues, bolstered by tax increases on the wealthy and corporations. They said the program was part of a broader “human infrastructure” effort to help children and young parents, which included child care support, a child tax credit and universal prekindergarten — and therefore didn’t need a dedicated funding source.Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, opposed a plan for 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave, saying he worried that without a stable revenue source, it would be a drain on the Social Security system.Al Drago for The New York TimesThe House proposal would have guaranteed 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave annually to all workers, in private or government employment, gig work like Uber and Lyft, or self-employment. The benefit would have replaced 85 percent of wages or earnings for the lowest-paid workers, scaling back from there.That generosity was why the plan ran into a roadblock in the Senate. Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, saw an expensive new benefit without a stable revenue source that he worried would end up draining an already stressed Social Security system.Ms. Gillibrand and Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, have pleaded, cajoled and bargained with him. They said a paid leave plan would actually bolster Social Security’s finances by helping women get back to work, where they would pay Social Security taxes, and helping young families have more children, which would bolster the work force of the future. Democrats offered to scale back a 12-week leave plan to four weeks, then to limit it to leave for new babies, not medical emergencies.Mr. Manchin promised to consider the offers, but few are optimistic. Ms. Gillibrand sees societal issues at work. While it is true that virtually every country in the world has a paid leave program, that is somewhat misleading, she said.Most of those countries can afford to offer paid leave because they do not actually expect women to work once they begin having children. Long leave plans help couples get started having children, but most countries then do not help with child care because they assume women will stay home.The U.S. work force relies on women. Mr. Biden’s compromise framework does include generous subsidies for child care starting at birth and for universal prekindergarten for 3- and 4-year-olds. It now lacks the first step: helping parents through pregnancy and childbirth.“What we’re trying to achieve here is the ability of women to work effectively and to be most productive at work,” Ms. Gillibrand said.Advocates say lawmakers should not give up yet. Marc Freedman, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s vice president for employment policy, said the business group had been meeting with congressional offices before the pandemic, pressing for a national paid leave plan to replace the patchwork of state and local government plans popping up.The government would create a minimum benefit that businesses would be allowed to exceed for recruitment and retention, financed by a payroll tax paid by employees. Such a plan would help smaller businesses compete for labor with larger corporations, while offloading some of the burden on companies that already offer leave plans.“We very much want to restart those conversations,” he said.Some Republicans, especially Republican women, say they are ready to join those talks.“It’s an issue we need to address as a nation and look at and get creative with,” said Senator Shelley Moore Capito, Republican of West Virginia, who helped secure paid leave for federal workers.But as with the infrastructure deal struck over the summer, Democrats would not be likely to get all they want. Ms. Capito, for instance, said the plan that Mr. Manchin killed was too generous, with leave beyond care for new babies and sick family members.Ms. Gillibrand said she had already begun outreach. She talked to Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, about an interim step of helping small states pool with larger ones to create regional leave programs. She signaled flexibility on funding the kind of insurance mechanism that Mr. Freedman said the Chamber of Commerce favored.But none of those ideas would happen as quickly as the broad program that Mr. Manchin is opposing, she said.“There is work I can do over the next six months to a year, sure, but will take time,” Ms. Gillibrand concluded. “And it won’t be simple.” More

The deal, which comes as U.S. and E.U. allies meet in Rome, will keep some trade protections in place in a nod to metalworking unions that supported President Biden.WASHINGTON — The Biden administration announced on Saturday that it had reached a deal to roll back tariffs on European steel and aluminum, an agreement that officials said would lower costs on goods like cars and washing machines, reduce carbon emissions, and help get supply chains moving again.The deal, which comes as President Biden and other world leaders meet at the Group of 20 summit in Rome, is aimed at easing trans-Atlantic trade tensions that had worsened under former President Donald J. Trump, whose administration initially imposed the tariffs. Mr. Biden has made clear he wants to repair relations with the European Union, but the agreement also appears carefully devised to avoid alienating U.S. labor unions and manufacturers that have supported Mr. Biden.It leaves some protections in place for the American steel and aluminum industry, by transforming the current 25 percent tariff on European steel and 10 percent tariff on aluminum into a so-called tariff rate quota, an arrangement in which higher levels of imports are met with higher duties.The agreement will put an end to retaliatory tariffs that the European Union had imposed on American products including orange juice, bourbon and motorcycles. It will also avert additional tariffs on American products that were set to go into effect on Dec. 1.“We fully expect this agreement will provide relief in the supply chain and drive down cost increases as we lift the 25 percent tariffs and increase volume,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said.Ms. Raimondo, in a briefing with reporters, said the deal had allowed the United States and European Union to establish a framework to take carbon intensity into account when producing steel and aluminum, which could allow for them to manufacture “cleaner” products than the ones produced in China.A steel mill in Farrell, Pa. A new accord is said to allow the E.U. to ship 3.3 million metric tons of steel into the U.S. duty-free and impose a 25 percent tariff after that.Aaron Josefczyk/Reuters“China’s lack of environmental standards is part of what drives down their costs, but it’s also a major contributor to climate change,” Ms. Raimondo said.The tariffs were imposed on dozens of countries, including those in the European Union, after the Trump administration determined that foreign metals posed a national security threat. Mr. Biden vowed to work more closely with Europe, which he has described as a partner in efforts to combat climate change and compete against authoritarian economies like China. But he has been under pressure from American metal manufacturers and labor unions not to entirely remove the trade barriers, which have helped protect the domestic industry from a glut of cheap foreign metal.The deal marks the final step for the Biden administration in dismantling Mr. Trump’s Trans-Atlantic trade war. In June, U.S. and European officials announced an end to a 17-year dispute over aircraft subsidies given to Airbus and Boeing. In late September, the United States and Europe announced a new partnership for trade and technology, and earlier this month they came to an agreement on global minimum taxes.Under the new terms, the European Union will be allowed to ship 3.3 million metric tons of steel annually into the United States duty-free, while any volume above that would be subject to a 25 percent tariff, according to people familiar with the arrangement. Products that were granted exclusions from the tariffs this year would also temporarily be exempt.The agreement will also place restrictions on products that are finished in Europe but use steel from China, Russia, South Korea and other countries. To qualify for duty-free treatment, steel products must be entirely made in the European Union.Jake Sullivan, the president’s national security adviser, said that the deal removed “one of the biggest bilateral irritants in the U.S.-E.U. relationship.”Metal unions in the United States praised the deal, which they said would limit European exports to historically low levels. The United States imported 4.8 million metric tons of European steel in 2018, a level that fell to 3.9 million in 2019 and 2.5 million in 2020.In a statement, Thomas M. Conway, president of the United Steelworkers International, said the arrangement would “ensure U.S. domestic industries remain competitive and able to meet our security and infrastructure needs.”Mark Duffy, the chief executive of the American Primary Aluminum Association, said that the deal would “maintain the effectiveness” of Mr. Trump’s tariffs, “while allowing us to support continued investment in the U.S. primary aluminum industry and create more American aluminum jobs.”He said the arrangement would support the American aluminum industry by limiting duty-free imports to historically low levels.Other countries remain subject to U.S. tariffs or quotas, including Britain, Japan and South Korea. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has opposed the metal tariffs, said the deal did not go far enough.Myron Brilliant, the executive vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said the agreement would offer “some relief for American manufacturers suffering from soaring steel prices and shortages, but further action is needed.” “The U.S. should drop the unfounded charge that metal imports from the U.K., Japan, Korea and other close allies represent a threat to our national security — and drop the tariffs and quotas as well,” he said.Katie Rogers More

Over the weekend, President Joe Biden will attend the annual forum of the “Group of 20,” or G-20, referring to the world’s 20 major economies.
Biden will convene a supply chain meeting with world leaders while in Rome in hopes of alleviating pressure points in the global trading system.
The world’s supply chain is bearing the brunt of surging consumer demand, high transportation expenses, labor shortages, overseas manufacturing delays, trade policies and inflation.

A cargo ship moves under the Bayonne Bridge as it heads into port on October 13, 2021 in Bayonne, New Jersey.
Spencer Platt | Getty Images

WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden is expected to spotlight disruptions in the global supply chain and surging energy prices when he meets this weekend with fellow leaders of the world’s largest economies.
On Saturday, Biden will attend the annual forum of the “Group of 20,” or G-20, referring to the 20 major economies that account for more than 80% of world GDP and 75% of global trade.

Speaking to reporters on Air Force One en route to Rome, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Biden is slated to convene a supply chain meeting with world leaders. The plan is to discuss ways in which governments can alleviate pressure points in the global trading system.

“The global economy is obviously going to be front and center because the pandemic is continuing to have an impact on economic recovery,” explained Howard Stoffer, University of New Haven professor of International Affairs. “How countries respond in a coordinated way or independently is going to be an important issue at the G-20,” he added.
The world’s supply chain – already disrupted by the pandemic – is continuing to bear the brunt of surging consumer demand, labor shortages and overseas manufacturing delays, which has led to higher transportation costs and inflation.
Global supply chain challenges “will be an initiative very high on the agenda,” explained Michael Froman, vice chairman and president of strategic growth at Mastercard.
Froman, who served for four years as President Barack Obama’s trade representative, added that Biden will have the opportunity to lead discussions without sharing the stage with Chinese President Xi Jinping or Russian President Vladimir Putin, who will not be present.

“Not only is the U.S. back at the table, but one of Biden’s political strengths is engaging with leaders informally. He’s been involved in these kinds of informal discussions with leaders throughout his career in the Senate as well as vice president and now president. With two of the other major leaders not attending really shows that the U.S. is reasserting leadership and reasserting engagement in an effective way.”

U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks on his Build Back Better infrastructure agenda at the NJ TRANSIT Meadowlands Maintenance Complex in Kearny, New Jersey, U.S., October 25, 2021.
Jonathan Ernst | Reuters

Biden’s diplomatic choreography at the G-20 summit in Rome, which went virtual last year, follows America’s shambolic exit from Afghanistan and a stunning diplomatic row with France, Washington’s oldest ally.
Biden has previously vowed to repair alliances through diplomacy and restore Washington’s leadership position on the global stage following years of “America First” policies pursued by his Republican predecessor, Donald Trump.
“The goal almost always with foreign travel for the president is to have people look at the leader of America, as the leader of the world. And that’s something Donald Trump had a very hard time doing,” explained Tom Block, Washington policy strategist at Fundstrat.
“He feels very comfortable dealing with foreign leaders, unlike president Trump, and for many years he chaired the Foreign Relations Committee in the Senate. So this is an area where he feels very comfortable and will be well briefed,” added Block, who previously served as global head of government relations for JPMorgan Chase.

In an aerial view, container ships are anchored by the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles as they wait to offload on September 20, 2021 near Los Angeles, California.
Mario Tama | Getty Images

“In the near-term, Biden wants to use the G-20 to engage the leaders of some of the world’s most important states on addressing near-term economic challenges including supply-change disruptions and the ongoing effects of Covid,” explained Joshua Shifrinson, associate professor of International Relations at Boston University.
The White House has previously said that the administration continues to press on ways to address issues in the supply chain causing global commerce disruptions.
Earlier this month, in an effort to address the nation’s own supply chain issues, the Biden administration unveiled a plan to run operations 24/7 at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, which account for 40% of sea freight entering the United States.
And while round-the-clock operations at the twin California ports are expected to alleviate the backlog of container ships, it’s far from solving the compounding issues impacting the global supply chain.
“All major ports around the world have to be 24/7,” argues Stoffer. “With exception of some national or religious holidays, all ports in the world can’t be nine to five.”

Cargo trucks travel past shipping containers in the Port of Los Angeles in Los Angeles, California, U.S., on Wednesday, Oct. 13, 2021.
Kyle Grillot | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Awi Federgruen, a production and management expert and professor at Columbia University Business School in New York, says other pieces of the supply chain need to be addressed as well.
“It’s not just fixing the ports, that’s one component in a very long supply chain,” Federgruen said, noting labor shortages in the trucking and warehousing industries.
“Extending the working hours of the ports in California by some 60 hours, and then shaving off 25% of the unloading time will not be the savior of the entire problem. There are several factors that are compounded by each other,” Federgruen, who chairs Columbia Business School’s Decision, Risk and Operations division, told CNBC.
Earlier this week, the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach announced new fines on carriers at the nation’s busiest port complex in order to abate the intensifying logjam of cargo ships.
Once loaded off vessels, containers moved by trucks will have nine days before fines start accruing. Containers scheduled to move by rail will have three days.
In accordance with these deadlines, carriers will be charged $100 for each lingering container per day starting Nov. 1.

WATCH LIVEWATCH IN THE APP More

Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman called for the Fed to raise interest rates and start cutting its monthly asset purchases immediately.
“We are continuing to dance while the music is playing, and it is time to turn down the music and settle down,” he said in a tweet.
Ackman’s Pershing Square is underperforming the S&P 500 this year after a stellar 2020 run.

Bill Ackman, founder and CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management.
Adam Jeffery | CNBC

Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman called Friday for the Federal Reserve to begin reining in the support it has provided for the U.S. economy during the coronavirus pandemic.
In separate tweets, the head of Pershing Square Holdings, with $13.1 billion under management, said the central bank should start turning off the monetary juice right away.

He teed up his position by saying he met last week with officials at the Fed’s New York branch, which houses the trading desk that carries out the wishes of officials regarding interest rates and the monthly asset purchase program.
“The bottom line: we think the Fed should taper immediately and begin raising rates as soon as possible,” he said.
“We are continuing to dance while the music is playing,” Ackman added, “and it is time to turn down the music and settle down.”
The statements come just a few days before the Federal Open Market Committee is set to begin its two-day policy meeting Tuesday.

For Ackman, insisting on the taper isn’t anything radical: Investors widely expect the FOMC on Wednesday to announce that it soon will start pulling back on its monthly asset purchase program in which the Fed is buying at least $120 billion of bonds. Markets are looking for monthly pullbacks of $10 billion in Treasurys and $5 billion in mortgage-backed securities, possibly starting in November and concluding in the summer of 2022.

Calling for interest rate hikes is another matter.
Fed officials have stressed that the initiation of tapering shouldn’t be construed as a path to rate hikes. The central bank has been holding its benchmark overnight borrowing rate near zero since the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, and most FOMC officials have indicated that the first increase won’t come sooner than late 2022.
However, traders lately have been pricing in more aggressive moves, with futures contracts pointing to at least two quarter percentage point 2022 rate hikes, beginning in June, according to the CME’s FedWatch tool. There’s also just shy of a 50-50 chance of another increase coming in December. The recent anticipation of hikes comes with inflation running around a 30-year peak.
Ackman said he’s beginning to position his portfolio for higher rates.
“As we have previously disclosed, we have put our money where our mouth is in hedging our exposure to an upward move in rates, as we believe that a rise in rates could negatively impact our long-only equity portfolio,” he tweeted.

Pershing Square is up 15.7% gross in 2021 and 12.2% net of fees this year, lagging the S&P 500’s 22.5% return, according to company statements. That comes after a stellar 2020 during which the fund returned 70.2% on net. The firm has attracted about $1.3 billion of additional assets this year.
— CNBC’s Yun Li contributed to this report.

WATCH LIVEWATCH IN THE APP More

The economy in the third quarter grew at just 2%, the slowest pace since the 31.2% plunge in the second quarter of 2020, when the economy was shutdown by the pandemic.
The unique nature of the pandemic shutdown has resulted in a longer and now shallower than expected rebound, as the economy struggles to overcome supply chain disruptions, labor shortages and inflation.

As far as the eye can see cargo trucks wait in long lines to enter The Port of Los Angeles as the port is set to begin operating around the clock on Wednesday, Oct. 13, 2021 in San Pedro, CA.
Jason Armond | Los Angeles Times | Getty Images

As the pandemic recedes, it has created lingering ill effects like worker shortages, inflation and supply constraints that have delayed, but could also ultimately extend the economy’s recovery.
Governments around the world spent trillions of dollars to smooth the impact of the abrupt curtailment of activity in the second quarter of 2020, but no one knew how the world would get back to business.

At first, the U.S. economy rebounded sharply. But a year later, third-quarter gross domestic product grew at just 2% — way below initial estimates — because of the uneven activity and extreme mismatches of supply and demand.
“What we’re seeing is an economy with millions of individual decisions having to cope with these large changes,” Mellon chief economist Vincent Reinhart said. “It’s a modern economy that has gotten more and more complicated. … It’s a very complicated machine to restart.”
Stores are grappling with shortages of goods as ports are clogged, and shipping has become an expensive challenge. Companies large and small are facing worker shortages that have resulted in delayed or canceled orders. This has driven prices higher for the goods that are available, and with surging commodities prices, inflation is hotter and more persistent than many expected.

The tightness in goods and labor is showing up across the economy, and consumers are paying more for everything from meat to clothing. For example, the national average price for a gallon of unleaded gasoline is $1.25 higher than a year ago, according to AAA.
Reinhart said consumers are reacting to higher prices. In the third-quarter GDP report, consumer spending — which is about two-thirds of the U.S. economy — rose at a 1.6% pace, after jumping 12% in the second quarter.

“I think a striking aspect of the earnings reports we’ve gotten thus far for the quarter is executives pushing back the date of when they see supplies coming back to normal and I think we should listen to those individual responses,” he said.
Reinhart said the economy has fallen about a year behind the rebound many initially expected. He added that by the second half of next year, many supply problems should be resolved and hiring should be easier. By then, he expects companies will be showing fewer impacts from supply chain disruptions or will have found solutions for the issues that remain.

Grant Thornton chief economist Diane Swonk said the supply issues that are impacting corporate America are especially hard on smaller businesses.
“What really worries me is the large retail and tech behemoths are going to be gaining more market share over the small and mid-sized firms,” she said. Swonk said one positive from the pandemic was the surge in entrepreneurship as people started up new businesses.
“They face margin pressures where the larger firms have the technology to get through it,” she said.
Wild cards
There are lingering wild cards that make the outlook uncertain, including the course of the pandemic itself. Reinhart said political uncertainty is one of the bigger risks.
It’s not clear how much spending will be approved by Congress or what it will be aimed at. President Joe Biden presented Thursday a $1.7 trillion plan focusing on social spending and climate.
“This idea of federal stimulus abating is happening already,” Swonk said. “That’s going to be important as we go into 2022 because no matter what package is passed and agreed, it’s all less than was was passed so the private sector has to pick up the baton from the public sector.”
Government spending edged slightly higher in the third quarter after sliding in the second quarter. The sharp decline in federal spending was offset by a rebound in state and local spending as schools reopened.
Swonk said federal spending is set to fall again in the fourth quarter, but she expects fourth-quarter growth to be stronger.
“It will be a strong fourth quarter. I’m looking at about 5% growth,” she said. Swonk also said Halloween spending appears to be higher this year, and the quarter also includes spending for the Christmas holiday season. “The question is what do we buy, what’s not available and how much do we pay.”
Consumer confidence is improving, and credit card spending has picked up, she noted. Bank of America reported that its total card spending was up 19% over a two-year period for the week ending Oct. 16.
One impact of the slower than anticipated economic rebound this year may be that the activity that would have come in a burst rolls into future quarters instead.
“The silver lining of a less boomy growth profile is that it could prove conducive to a more sustainable recovery,” JPMorgan economists wrote. “The stunning bounce back from last year’s pandemic collapse revealed the limits to ramping up supply in response to surging demand—as manifested in manufacturing bottlenecks and multi-decade highs in core goods inflation.”
Inflation
Reinhart expects the economy to grow by about 3.5% in the fourth quarter. He also sees the economy expanding at a rate of 2% to 2.5% by the second half of 2022. Swonk expects the growth rate to remain higher in 2022, with growth of 3.3% in fourth quarter over fourth quarter.
Economists also expect inflation to remain above the Fed’s 2% target.
“Core inflation could still continue to be higher. … Some of the backlogs at the ports, the problems in hiring truckers. That eases over time,” Reinhart said. “Dealing with extra demand given supply, that’s what keeps inflation higher.”
Higher inflation could mean the Federal Reserve would act sooner than anticipated to end its zero rate policy. Traders are already pricing in as many as three hikes next year, and the concern is if the Fed begins to raise interest rates it could slow the economy.
“Inflation matters when it distorts behavior, and it looks like it’s going to continue to distort behavior in 2022,” Swonk said.
Swonk expects core personal consumption expenditure inflation — an indicator watched closely by the Fed — to be 4.2% at the end of 2021 on a year-over-year basis and 3.1% at the end of next year. The consumer price index has been running above 5%, and core CPI was 4% in September.
Wage inflation is expected to continue as employers attempt to lure workers or just retain them.
Labor woes
Swonk said hiring should improve now that students have returned to school, and parents could be freed to return to work. “The problem is we’re still in the pandemic,” she said. “The good news is we have more vaccinations and more immunity.”
But she said recent data from Indeed Hiring Lab show that the number of job openings could reach a record 11 million, or more by the end of October. “Even as we bring workers back, demand is outpacing supply,” she said.
Nonfarm employment has risen by 17.4 million since the trough in April, 2020, but it is still down by 5 million from its pre-pandemic level in February, 2020.
Economists say many people retired and fewer immigrants coming into the U.S. are two factors behind the labor shortage.
“Many people thought when we turned the lights back on in May 2020 and June 2020, that was it and we didn’t get there then. Employment lags,” she said. “The longer these distortions related to the pandemic and the pandemic continues to persist, the more workers are permanently displaced.”

WATCH LIVEWATCH IN THE APP More

Headline inflation, including food and energy, rose at a 4.4% annual rate in September, the fastest since 1991.
Core inflation, which is the Fed’s preferred gauge, increased 3.6% for the 12 months, the same as in August but still also the fastest pace in 30 years.
Personal income declined at a faster pace than expected while consumer spending increased and was in line with forecasts.
Employment costs rose more than expected and at the fastest annual pace in 19 years.

Customers shop for produce at a supermarket on June 10, 2021 in Chicago, Illinois. Inflation rose 5% in the 12-month period ending in May, the biggest jump since August 2008. Food prices rose 2.2 percent for the same period.
Scott Olson | Getty Images

Annual inflation rose at its fastest pace in more than 30 years during September despite a decline in personal income, the Commerce Department reported Friday.
Headline price pressures as gauged by the personal consumption expenditures price index including food and energy increased 0.3% for the month, pushing the year-over-year gain to 4.4%. That’s the fastest pace since January 1991.

Stripping out food and energy costs, inflation rose 0.2% for the month, in line with the Dow Jones estimate, and 3.6% for the 12-month period, unchanged from August but good for the highest since May 1991. The Federal Reserve prioritizes the so-called core PCE reading among a battery of measures it uses for inflation.

The continued inflation jump came as personal income declined 1% in September, more than the expected 0.4% drop. Consumer spending increased 0.6%, in line with Wall Street estimates.
The headline inflation rate was pushed by a 24.9% increase in energy costs and a 4.1% gain in food. Services inflation rose 6.4% on the year while goods increased 5.9%.
The inflation and income numbers come as the Fed is grappling with the specter of higher prices and lower growth. Gross domestic product increased at just a 2% annualized pace in the third quarter, the slowest since the recovery began off a recession that ended in April 2020.
Compensation costs also climbed, rising 1.3% in the third quarter, ahead of the 0.9% estimate, the Labor Department reported. That brought the year-over-year increase to 3.7%, slightly higher than Q1 and the fastest acceleration since the second quarter of 2002.

Wages and salaries rose 4.6%, compared with 2.7% from September 2020.
Earlier in the morning, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, a former Fed chair, said she still expects inflation to dissipate, though she and other officials have acknowledged that it has been more persistent and longer-lasting than expected.
“Year-over-year inflation remains high and will for some time simply because of what’s already happened in the first months of the year,” Yellen told CNBC from Rome and the G-20 summit. “But monthly rates I believe will come down in the second half of the year. I think we’ll see a return to levels close to 2%.”
Yellen noted that consumers have high levels of savings and cash that she said should boost growth ahead.
The savings rate for September was 7.5%, equating to $1.34 trillion, a decline from the 9.2% rate in August and the lowest monthly reading since December 2019.

WATCH LIVEWATCH IN THE APP More