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Ford CEO Jim Farley rebuffed comments Wednesday night by United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain that the company is not taking bargaining seriously.
Farley said the company has received “no genuine counteroffer” on its four economic proposals.
The UAW is simultaneously negotiating separate national contracts ahead of an 11:59 p.m. ET Thursday strike deadline with automakers Ford, General Motors and Stellantis.

Ford CEO Jim Farley speaks with media after revealing the 2024 Ford F-150 for the Detroit auto show on Sept. 12, 2023.
Michael Wayland / CNBC

DETROIT – Ford Motor CEO Jim Farley rebuffed comments by United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain that the company is not taking bargaining seriously ahead of a Thursday night strike deadline, placing blame on the union leader for not showing up to the bargaining table – both figuratively and literally.
Farley said the company has received “no genuine counteroffer” on its four economic proposals, including the latest offer that Ford is calling the most generous offer ever between the UAW and company. He also said Fain, who is simultaneously negotiating with General Motors and Stellantis, was absent during a Tuesday meeting that he and Ford Chair Bill Ford expected Fain to attend.

“We’re here, we’re ready to negotiate, but it’s sure hard to negotiate a contract when there’s no one to negotiate with,” Farley told reporters Wednesday night on the sidelines of the Detroit Auto Show. “We have time left, but it’s hard to negotiate when you don’t get any feedback back.”
Farley’s comments came roughly 24 hours after he told reporters Tuesday that he was optimistic the company could reach a deal with the union.
Public criticism between the union and an automaker aren’t unprecedented but the amount of detail being released, announced strike plans and simultaneous bargaining certainly are.
Farley said he didn’t know Fain had received the offer until he was discussing it during a 5 p.m. Facebook Live with union members. He also questioned whether Fain is too busy already “planning strikes or PR events that we can’t get the feedback to make the best offer.”

UAW President Shawn Fain chairs the 2023 Special Elections Collective Bargaining Convention in Detroit, March 27, 2023.
Rebecca Cook | Reuters

A UAW spokesman did not immediately respond for comment regarding Farley’s comments or a letter released on his behalf by the company countering many of Fain’s criticisms.

The union has argued the companies know their demands. They include: ambitious targets of 40% hourly pay increases, a reduced 32-hour workweek, a shift back to traditional pensions, the elimination of compensation tiers and a restoration of cost-of-living adjustments, among other items.
Farley declined to directly answer a question about whether he believes the union is bargaining in good faith, which could justify a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board.
The UAW late last month filed unfair labor practice charges against GM and Stellantis to the NLRB for not bargaining with the union in good faith or a timely manner. It did not file a complaint against Ford.

As released Wednesday by the union, Ford’s most recent proposal included some of the union’s demands, but not all of them. It included 20% wage increases; a “deficient” restoration of cost-of-living adjustment, reworked profit-sharing formula; 90-day progression for “temp,” or supplemental, workers to become regular employees; and other benefits such as increased vacation days and two-week paid parental leave.
Fain said Ford and its crosstown rivals rejected the union’s retiree and health-care proposals.
If the UAW and companies cannot reach a deal by an 11:59 p.m. ET Thursday deadline, Fain said the union will implement targeted strikes at certain plants against the Detroit automakers.
During his Facebook event, Fain said he believed strikes against the companies are “likely.”
“To win, we’re likely going to have to take action. Just as we have approached our negotiations differently than we have in the past, we’re preparing to strike these companies in a way they’ve never seen before,” Fain said.
Here is the full text of Farley’s letter following Fain’s remarks:

The Ford team continues to put 100% of our energy into reaching an agreement with the UAW that rewards our valued employees and allows the company to invest in the future. If there is a strike, it’s not because Ford didn’t make a great offer. We have and that’s what we can control.
In fact, we have put four offers on the table starting Aug. 29 and each one has been increasingly generous. We still have not received any genuine counteroffer.
On Tuesday, Bill Ford and I sat down with the union at the main table for a major offer. As we were walking in the room, we learned President Fain would not be attending. Nevertheless, Bill and I laid out a historically generous offer to the UAW Ford bargaining team because we listened to the UAW demands and we care about our employees. Here are the facts. Ford:
• Significantly increased our proposal on wage increases;• Offered Cost of Living Adjustments, or COLA;• Fully eliminated wage tiers so all employees can achieve industry-leading wages – and shortened to four from eight years the time it takes hourly employees to reach the top wage;• Increased contributions to in-progression retirement savings;• Protected health care benefits that would continue to rank in the top 1% of all employer sponsored medical plans for lowest employee cost sharing; and• Added more paid time off, with up to five weeks of vacation and 17 paid holidays each year (with the addition of Juneteenth).
The first we learned President Fain received the offer was on Facebook Live this evening. So again, we are here and ready to reach a deal. We should be working creatively to solve hard problems rather than planning strikes and PR events.
Please remember that Ford, more than any other company, has bet on the UAW and treated the UAW with respect. We have been incredibly supportive of the union. We have gone well beyond any contract language in adding jobs and investment.
The future of our industry is at stake. Let’s do everything we can to avert a disastrous outcome.

Correction: Ford CEO Jim Farley’s comment’s were made Wednesday night. A previous version of this article misstated that timeframe. More

TALK TO GERMAN bosses these days and sooner or later one will bring up “Buddenbrooks”. Thomas Mann’s epic tale of the eponymous clan of grain merchants and their demise is required reading in Germany’s business circles, as well as its schools. Today it serves as a convenient metaphor for the country’s perceived economic decline. GDP may contract this year. Inflation remains stubbornly high. The anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party is second in some opinion polls, imperilling Germany’s reputation for openness to skilled foreigners. Iconic companies are fleeing abroad. bASF, the world’s largest chemicals firm, is building its $10bn state-of-the-art factory in China. Linde, an industrial-gas group, delisted from the stock exchange in Frankfurt to escape its cumbersome rules but kept its listing in New York. BioNTech, which helped develop one of the world’s first covid-19 vaccines, is setting up its cancer-research operations in Britain.Viewed through a tragic Buddenbrookian lens, German decline can seem inevitable. Not to Nicola Leibinger-Kammüller, chief executive of Trumpf, a 100-year-old family company based in Ditzingen, near Stuttgart, which makes industrial tools such as laser cutters and punching machines. In Mrs Leibinger-Kammüller’s reading, the Buddenbrooks’ downfall was not caused by others. They brought it on themselves, by turning their backs on the virtues of thrift and hard work. That leaves a path to redemption. And this, she believes, runs through the Mittelstand, the German economy’s enterprising backbone.The Mittelstand is home to some 3.5m small and medium-sized businesses. They are as diverse as their wares, which range from chainsaws to industrial software. Some are large and old: Trumpf has 17,000 employees worldwide and annual revenues of €5.4bn ($5.8bn). Others are small and young, like TeamViewer, an 18-year-old computer-maintenance firm with 1,400 employees, or Marvel Fusion, a nuclear-fusion startup founded in 2019. Despite this diversity, they share two important things in common. They are relentlessly innovative. And, not unrelatedly, their leaders are, like Mrs Leibinger-Kammüller, less gloomy about Germany’s prospects than many of their blue-chip counterparts.More than 80% of Mittelstand firms say their situation is stable or good, according to a survey in July by the zGV, an alliance of such businesses. The mood is not rosy, exactly: half reported that sales were down in the second quarter. But it is hopeful. The Mittelstand continues to hire and invest at home. In July Trumpf announced a €380m investment into its headquarters. “People said we have gone mad,” recounts Mrs Leibinger-Kammüller.In fact, Trumpf is coldly rational. “The current wave of pessimism is vastly overdone,” says Holger Schmieding, chief economist of Berenberg, a private bank. Germany enjoys record employment and low public debt. Most of all, he says, it has in the Mittelstand “one of the best search engines for innovation ever invented”. These “hidden champions”, world leaders in their market niche, have coped with painful transitions before, such as the aftermath of German reunification in the 1990s. Now they are adapting again, be it to higher energy prices or to chillier relations with China, which has become a large market for the Mittelstand’s products but is itself looking economically enfeebled and geopolitically adversarial.Trumpf spends 11% of revenue on research and development, almost twice the average for German industry as a whole. It is constantly comparing notes with clients to tailor its products to their changing needs. It has worked with one client to develop a way of using lasers to cut metal more directly from the coil, which uses less of the newly costly energy than the conventional method of cutting it from sheets. Karl Haeusgen, chairman of Hawe, a maker of hydraulic pumps, says that conversations with domestic customers are his firm’s principal source of innovation. “Our Chinese clients will buy what we have, but our German customers challenge our creativity,” he says.Oliver Steil, chief executive of TeamViewer, agrees that the Mittelstand contains some of Germany’s most agile and innovative firms. They benefit from closeness to German industrial titans, to which they often act as suppliers, and from the country’s deep pool of technological and engineering know-how. Most important in times of change, they are risk-takers, says Mr Steil. Undaunted by the old saw that fusion power is 20 years away and always will be, Marvel Fusion is intent on developing commercially viable power generation by smashing atoms together using lasers.If there is a Buddenbrook in the latest chapter of the Mittelstand story, it is the German government. Policymakers and bureaucrats have become too set in their ways, sighs Mr Steil. They seem wedded to red tape and high taxes, and uninterested in supporting innovation. This is leading some Mittelstand firms to sell up or try their luck elsewhere. In April Viessmann, a maker of heat pumps, sold most of its operations to Carrier, an American rival. Even Marvel Fusion recently teamed up with Colorado State University to set up a $150m research site in America.In search of a novel approachHeike Freund, Marvel Fusion’s chief operating officer, still hopes eventually to build a power plant in Germany. In March the Federal Agency for Disruptive Innovation pledged €90m to support laser-based fusion in Germany, half of which will go to Marvel. At a recent pow-wow in Schloss Meseberg, a castle near Berlin, the government unveiled a “growth opportunities law”. This includes a €7bn tax-relief package that would benefit the Mittelstand. On September 6th Olaf Scholz, the chancellor, announced a series of measures to digitise public administration, simplify immigration rules for skilled workers and make it easier to start companies, three pet peeves of Mittelstand bosses. The faster the government can shake off its own Buddenbrookian complacency, the better. ■Read more from Schumpeter, our columnist on global business:America’s bosses just won’t quit. That could spell trouble (Sep 4th)Cherish your Uber drivers. Soon they will be robots (Aug 31st)Corporate America risks losing the Supreme Court (Aug 24th)Also: If you want to write directly to Schumpeter, email him at [email protected]. And here is an explanation of how the Schumpeter column got its name. More

THE CACOPHONY of small-vehicle engines and horns is one of the most recognisable noises in traffic-choked cities across Asia. Soon that trademark roar may be a thing of the past, even if the horns remain. A wave of cross-border ventures for electric two- and three-wheelers, and the infrastructure required to power them, is rippling across the continent.The electrification of scooters, motorcycles and auto-rickshaws in poor and middle-income countries is proceeding much more zippily than for larger motors. In China, the biggest market in the world for electric vehicles, about half of two- and three-wheeled machines sold were battery-powered in 2021, compared with 16% of new passenger cars. In India, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam, where two-wheelers outnumber cars by between three and 30 to one, electrifying them can help countries decarbonise and limit air pollution in cities.That makes the recent flurry of dealmaking a welcome development. On September 6th GoTo Group of Indonesia announced a deal with Selex Motors, a Vietnamese producer of electric bikes and networks of so-called “battery ATMs”. Gojek, GoTo’s ride-hailing arm, will use Selex’s bikes and charging infrastructure in Vietnam. When its electric vehicles run out of juice, drivers can exchange the removable units for fully charged ones at swap stations. In late August Kymco, a large motorcycle-maker from Taiwan, announced a deal with a Thai state-owned energy firm, PTT, to produce new electric two-wheelers and the battery-swapping services to go with them. Around the same time another Taiwanese company, Gogoro, finalised a joint venture with Ayala, a Philippine conglomerate. This would expand what Gogoro claims is already the largest single battery-swapping network in the world, with more than 12,000 racks, carrying between eight and ten batteries apiece, across more than 2,500 locations in Taiwan.The biggest prize is India, where the market for electric motorcycles is booming. Despite the phase-out in May of some subsidies for the purchase of e-motorbikes, sales of battery-powered two- and three-wheelers in the world’s most populous country reached 5.5m in the first eight months of 2023, a rise of 53% compared with the same period in 2022. This year Gogoro has already announced two deals with Indian food-delivery companies, Swiggy and Zomato, for battery-swapping and scooter technology. The company also signed an agreement with the government of the state of Maharashtra, home to 126m people and to India’s commercial capital, Mumbai, promising to invest $1.5bn over eight years in what the two sides are humbly calling the “Ultra Mega Project”.Although some carmakers, such as Nio of China, are experimenting with battery-swapping, the case for it is most clear-cut for smaller rides. Given that few Asian countries have the deep pockets to encourage adoption of electric vehicles with generous subsidies, sellers and buyers alike need the economics to work. Fortunately, the numbers add up. Research published earlier this year by Arthur D. Little, a consultancy, found that total cost of ownership, which measures how much motorists pay for every mile driven over a vehicle’s lifetime, is lower for two- and three-wheelers with a battery-swapping arrangement than for similar vehicles which are petrol-fuelled or home-charged.That is not to say that e-motorcycles with interchangeable batteries will become ubiquitous overnight. Building battery-swapping networks requires a lot of capital spending, which is hard to justify unless people buy the compatible vehicles. And people are unlikely to make such purchases unless they have access to an existing network of charging stations. Solving this chicken-and-egg problem is easier in Taiwan, a densely populated and relatively wealthy nation, than in India, a poor and vast one. Standardisation of battery types will be necessary, too, if needless duplication of infrastructure is to be avoided. EV firms grumble that India’s official battery-swapping policy, which would provide incentives and certainty, seems to be stuck. And as on India’s streets, no amount of honking is likely to speed things along. ■To stay on top of the biggest stories in business and technology, sign up to the Bottom Line, our weekly subscriber-only newsletter. More

Few events in the tech calendar create as much buzz as the release of the latest iPhone. On September 12th Tim Cook, Apple’s boss, unveiled what he called “truly incredible” new devices. Yet it was an earlier, quieter launch of a rival gadget that left the tech world gobsmacked. In late August, with no forewarning, Huawei showed off the Mate 60 Pro. As the first fully Chinese-made smartphone that can tap into 5G networks, it was an instant hit. The processors inside it were made by SMIC, China’s chipmaking champion. It is exactly this type of technology that America has been trying to stop Huawei and other Chinese companies from getting their hands on.If being upstaged by a Chinese rival was not enough to sour Apple’s mood, days later news broke that some Chinese government departments and state-owned firms may be banning iPhones. The American giant’s share price fell by 6%, wiping around $200bn from its market value.A ban’s direct impact on Apple would be minimal. A tiny fraction of China’s 7m or so public servants can afford iPhones, reckons Jefferies, an investment bank. Still, the rumours—and they are still that—signal that not even Apple, whose relations with China have long been cosy, is invulnerable to geopolitics. What is more, China’s targeting of America’s most valuable company, combined with SMIC’s newfound chipmaking prowess, may provoke hawks in Washington to tighten anti-Chinese controls. The Chinese may respond, and so on up the escalation ladder. No wonder investors are spooked.So far the tit-for-tat has rocked semiconductor firms the most. Last year America restricted exports to China of advanced chips and the tools to make them. Nvidia, a specialist in processors for artificial intelligence (AI) whose market value surpassed $1trn this year, said that trade controls will cut its quarterly revenue by 6%. Tighter controls could hurt its sales of data-centre AI chips. Between 20% and 25% of these go to China. In August Nvidia said that America’s government was controlling exports of its most advanced AI chips to the Middle East, possibly to prevent Chinese firms from procuring them there.The chipmakers have also suffered from Chinese retaliation. In May China barred memory chips made by Micron from certain infrastructure projects. The Idaho-based company said this could cut annual revenue by more than 10%. Talk of the Apple ban has pulled down the share prices of the iPhone-maker’s American chip suppliers, such as Cirrus, Qualcomm and Skyworks. Chinese regulators have also been dragging out the approval of big American acquisitions, points out Stacy Rasgon of Bernstein, a broker. As a result, in early August Intel, another chipmaker, gave up its attempt to buy Tower Semiconductor, an Israeli firm, for $5.4bn.The situation of American makers of chipmaking tools is more mixed. LAM Research and Applied Materials, two such firms, each warned last year of a $2bn hit to sales in 2023, equivalent to around 10% of revenue. But some of that may be offset by rising sales of equipment used in manufacturing less advanced semiconductors. American companies can keep selling these to China, which is stockpiling them while it still can. According to New Street Research, a firm of analysts, Chinese purchases of such tools have increased roughly four-fold between 2019 and 2023.Further escalation may bruise America’s tech giants, and not just Apple. According to the Wall Street Journal, President Joe Biden’s administration is considering curbing China’s access to American cloud computing. That would bring Alphabet, Amazon and Microsoft into the firing line.The biggest losers were, in American eyes, meant to be Huawei, SMIC and China’s other tech titans. They have certainly suffered. But today they are taking advantage of the techno-nationalism that is a byproduct of the geopolitical strife. Huawei’s share of domestic smartphone sales grew from 7% to 13% in the year to the second quarter of 2023, reckons IDC, a research firm. The new 5G device, which sold out in two days, may boost it further—as would an iPhone ban. Huawei also benefits from SMIC’s efforts to innovate around the American controls. In the week after the Mate 60 Pro’s launch, meanwhile, the chipmaker’s share price jumped by 10%. Not quite what the China hawks in Washington had in mind. ■To stay on top of the biggest stories in business and technology, sign up to the Bottom Line, our weekly subscriber-only newsletter. More

Questions are usually more interesting than answers. If you had to identify the most important person in your organisation, there is an obvious answer, a trite-and-untrue answer and a wrong-but-useful answer.The obvious answer is “the chief executive”. No cheese is bigger, no dog is more top. The most important decisions about the long-term direction of a company lie with the CEO; the hardest calls land on their desk; and the biggest pay cheques head their way. A board of directors might control their fate but no one wields more power. That is especially true of a startup: up to a certain point in its history, founders are the company.The trite answer to the same question is “the customer”. This is the kind of thing someone delivering a TED talk would say, after a suitably meaningful pause. It is the kind of thing that people in the audience would nod wisely at. An analysis of earnings-call transcripts of S&P 500 firms by Nandil Bhatia and Stephan Meier of Columbia Business School finds that executives talk about customers ten times more than they do about employees.But it is also untrue. The customer is patently not in your organisation. Many employees care more about who took their mug from the kitchen than anything else. There is a reason why firms sometimes have someone play the role of “customer advocate” in meetings.The third category of answer will almost certainly be wrong but it will be the product of an instructive thought process. Firms routinely identify their most talented people across departments, and offer retention bonuses to get them to stay. But they don’t usually ask what might qualify someone for the title of most important person in an organisation (setting the CEO to one side).If you think customers trump everything, then you might start by looking at the people who interact most with them. In some industries—rainmakers at investment banks, for instance—these folk have lots of status. But in many others, front-line employees suffer from low wages, job dissatisfaction and burnout. The effects can be pernicious, particularly in the public sector: turnover among child-welfare workers in America is persistently high, to take one example, and associated with worse outcomes for kids.Your search might lead you to the cutting edge: an executive, programmer or researcher working on your most promising new product. It might also take you back in time. The vital employee might be someone who knows the technology equivalent of Sanskrit. A report published in 2021 found that almost half of the British government’s tech spending was devoted to maintaining outdated IT systems. A 60-year-old programming language called COBOL is still in widespread use in many banks; according to Reuters, the average COBOL programmer is between 45 and 55 years old.Your products might owe their character to one person in particular: the designer who makes the curves of a luxury car distinctive, say. Or, if you think the secret sauce of your company lies in something amorphous like its culture, you might alight on people who embody it. Amazon anoints a special cadre of interviewers known as “bar raisers”, whose purpose is to participate in hiring processes as a kind of culture warrior. Their job is to ensure that successful candidates embrace the firm’s code of leadership principles.You might think of importance in terms of influence within the company—the person who may not have the longest title but does have the most tacit knowledge and social capital. They have the ear of the boss on important issues, but they also know everyone and everything: who is a nightmare to work with, why the firm cut ties with that supplier and who can help you order a new laptop. They are the Panama Canal of the organisation. Things can get done without them, but it takes a lot more time.This thought exercise is no more than that. As with organs in the body, the fact is that most departments have to run well for the whole company to thrive. You may not think much about your spleen but you would miss it if it suddenly disappeared; the same goes for your head of compliance. And the obvious answer is almost certainly correct: the CEO does matter more than anyone else.But asking the question might lead you to adjust a bonus here or document how things work there. It might lead you to spot a gap between where value is created and where it is being recognised. Just don’t tell everyone where they rank. ■Read more from Bartleby, our columnist on management and work:Networking for introverts: a how-to guide (Sep 7th)The best bosses know how to subtract work (Aug 31st)How to get the most out of mentoring (Aug 24th)Also: How the Bartleby column got its name More

Flashy temporary pavilions in Munich’s city centre displaying the latest models from bmw, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen were the public face of iaa Mobility, Germany’s biennial motor show, which ended on September 10th. German automotive might was less in evidence in the show halls a few miles away, where the Chinese electric vehicles (evs) that are making inroads in Europe vied for attention and floor space. The fear of a flood of well-made, decently styled and better-value evs from the east outcompeting those from Europe’s established carmakers has now jolted the eu’s lawmakers into action.image: The EconomistSuspecting foul play, on September 13th the European Commission announced an “anti-subsidy investigation” into Chinese car firms. Those found guilty may be hit with tariffs far above the 10% now levied on Chinese imports. These imports are small but growing fast. In the first seven months of 2023, 189,000 Chinese cars were sold in Europe, equivalent to 2.8% of all car sales. But Chinese pure battery cars made up nearly 8% of sales for this type of vehicle, reckons Schmidt Automotive Research, a consultancy (see chart). These sales have trebled in the past two years, led by Polestar and mg. Brands like Aiways, byd, Nio, Ora and Xpeng are also on sale. Others, like Leapmotor, are poised to join them. ubs, a bank, reckons China’s share of all cars sold in Europe could hit 20% by 2030. All will be electrified.China’s advance is in part a result of its government’s desire to create a global force in carmaking. A slowdown in ev sales at home as the economy weakens and lots of spare capacity have encouraged Chinese producers to look abroad. With America’s market protected by heftier tariffs and subsidies favouring domestic carmakers, they are eyeing Europe instead. The more compact Chinese models are anyway more suited to European tastes.Undoubtedly the Chinese carmakers have benefited from government largesse such as cheap loans. But making anti-dumping charges stick will be tricky. Complaints from a European industry that has long been hooked on all manner of state support look hypocritical. More important, as ubs notes, the 25% cost advantage over European rivals for the byd Seal, a mid-market ev that will go for as little as €45,000 ($48,000), are mostly the result of the firm’s high degree of vertical integration and the low-cost Chinese supply chain, not government handouts.Europe’s carmakers are split on the wisdom of the commission’s move. At the top end of the market, where brand loyalty is strong, Chinese firms like Nio are unlikely to challenge Mercedes and bmw, with or without subsidies. But by enraging the government in Beijing, the investigation endangers European companies’ Chinese profits. Half of German car firms’ net profits come from China, according to Bernstein, a broker. By contrast, marques such as Renault, which do not rely on China but face a daunting challenge in the cut-throat mass market, will probably cheer. Swingeing tariffs may spare them from having to cut costs to compete with a Chinese influx. European car buyers, who probably don’t care if China’s government had a hand in keeping down the price of evs, will be the ones to suffer. ■To stay on top of the biggest stories in business and technology, sign up to the Bottom Line, our weekly subscriber-only newsletter. More

UAW President Shawn Fain said Ford has offered a 20% increase over four years of a deal, followed by GM at 18% and Stellantis at 17.5%.
Union members are on track to strike after the 11:59 p.m. ET deadline Thursday.

UAW President Shawn Fain addresses union members during a Solidarity Sunday rally in Warren, Michigan, Aug. 20, 2023
Michael Wayland / CNBC

DETROIT — The United Auto Workers and Detroit automakers remain far apart ahead of the union “likely” strategically striking the companies after an 11:59 p.m. ET Thursday deadline, UAW President Shawn Fain said Wednesday night.
The outspoken union leader laid out significant details of current proposals between the UAW and General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis regarding wage increases, cost-of-living adjustments, bonuses and job security.

Fain also laid out general plans about how the union expects to strategically strike the Detroit automakers, if necessary. He said the strike will start at a limited number of locations, followed by others, if required.
“If the companies continue to bargain in bad faith … then our strikes are going to continue to grow … We’re going to hit where we need to hit,” Fain said Wednesday during a Facebook Live event.
Fain also said “an all-out strike is still a possibility.” He added if there are strikes, the union will not negotiate Friday, instead they will hold a 4 p.m. rally in Detroit with U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, the progressive lawmaker from Vermont.
Fain referred to the union’s plans as a “stand-up strike,” a nod to historic “sit-down” strikes by the UAW.
“I’ll tell you this, I’m at peace with a decision to strike if we have to because I know that we’re on the right side of this battle,” Fain said after discussing his faith in religion and the union. “It’s a battle of the working class against the rich; the haves versus the have-nots; the billionaire class against everybody else.”

Key demands from the union have included 40% hourly pay increases, a reduced 32-hour workweek, a shift back to traditional pensions, the elimination of compensation tiers and a restoration of cost-of-living adjustments, among other items.
Ford CEO Jim Farley, in a lengthy statement released by the company, criticized several of Fain’s statements, saying the automaker has not “received any genuine counteroffer” to the last proposal from the union.
He also said Fain missed a Tuesday meeting that he and Ford Chair Bill Ford believed the union chief would be attending. Farley defended the company’s recent proposals, saying “if there is a strike, it’s not because Ford didn’t make a great offer.”
Stellantis did not immediately respond for comment on Fain’s remarks.
GM issued a blanket statement that the company continues to bargain with the union and “have presented additional strong offers.”
“This includes historic guaranteed annual wage increases, investments in our U.S. manufacturing plants to provide opportunities for all, and shortening the time for in-progression employees to reach maximum wages,” GM said in an emailed statement.
Here’s where things stand on key issues, according to Fain.

Wages

Fain said Ford has offered a 20% increase over the four years of the deal, followed by GM at 18% and Stellantis at 17.5%.
Such increases would easily be record wins for the union in modern times, but Fain said they are not adequate because they pale in comparison to the roughly 40% pay increases commanded by the Detroit automaker CEOs.
“We are seeing movement from the companies, but they’re still not willing to agree on the kinds of raise that will make up for inflation on top of decades of falling wages, and their proposals don’t reflect the massive profits that we’ve generated [for them],” he said.

Tiers

Ending tiers, or in-progression pay, where members are paid differently based on seniority, has been a top priority of the union for years.
Fain said each of the automakers has proposed cutting an eight-year grow-in period to top wages that are currently at more than $32 an hour to four years.

COLA

Fain has demanded a return to cost-of-living adjustments, or COLA, which increase wages to keep pace with inflation. 
Fain said all companies have made “deficient COLA” proposals that either include lump sum payments, limit the amounts, or only kick in at certain levels that the union finds inadequate.
Ford has proposed a return to a COLA formula used in the past, which Fain said would provide estimated wage protection of less than $1 over the term of the contract; proposals from GM and Stellantis would provide no protection, he said.

Profit-sharing

The UAW wanted to enhance profit-sharing payments to provide workers $2 for every $1 million a company spends on share buybacks, special dividends and increases to normal dividends.
Fain said the Detroit automakers have each offered “concessionary profit-sharing” formulas that lower the current standards, which are based on a company’s North American profits.
The union said Ford’s formula would have resulted in 21% smaller checks over the last two years; GM’s would have resulted in 28% smaller checks over the last year; and Stellantis would like to base payments on “an unknown internal company attendance calculation.”
Profit-sharing was implemented in recent years as a way for the companies to “reward” members in good times but not have to pay as hefty of bonuses when the companies were not doing well.

Temps

Ending the use of temporary workers, who can be paid lower wages and have no job security, is another long-standing UAW priority. Fain said that Ford has agreed to convert all current temporary workers with 90 days of continuous service to full-time workers, with full benefits, in the tiered progression.
Fain said GM has offered “inadequate” benefits and “meager” wage increases for temps and that Stellantis’ proposal provides no path at all to full-time status.

Job security

The UAW has proposed what it calls a “Working Families Protection Program,” under which employees at a shuttered factory would be paid by the automakers to do local community-service work. All three automakers rejected the proposal, Fain said. Stellantis went further, proposing a unilateral right to close and sell 18 facilities, including factories and parts depots, he said.

Work-life balance

The UAW has demanded more time off for workers, with more paid vacation and holidays and extended parental leave. All three of the automakers agreed to make Juneteenth an official holiday, Fain said, but only Ford went further, proposing two weeks of parental leave.

Retirees

The UAW has demanded a “significant” increase to pay for retired workers. All three automakers rejected any increases, Fain said.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates. More

Delta earlier this year increased entry requirements to its airport clubs but has now taken additional measures.
The new rules will cut unlimited access to the clubs for certain American Express credit card holders.
Delta is also setting new requirements to earn elite status, solely based on customer spending.

Delta’s new SkyClub at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.
Leslie Josephs/CNBC

Delta Air Lines is changing how customers can earn elite frequent flyer status and is making it harder for many American Express cardholders to get into the carrier’s airport lounges, the latest reality check for air travel’s era of mass luxury.
Starting Jan. 1, customers will earn Delta Medallion status solely based on their spending, instead of a combination of dollars spent with the carrier and flights. The new model is similar to one that American Airlines adopted earlier this year.

Major airlines have continually raised the requirements to earn status as customer spending at the airline and on co-branded credit cards has surged in recent years, swelling the ranks of these high-paying customers. Elite status can come with a variety of perks, from early boarding to upgrades to first class and lounge access.
“We want customers to be able to receive status with activity beyond just air travel,” Dwight James, Delta’s senior vice president of customer engagement and loyalty, told CNBC.
Next year, Delta customers will earn 1 Medallion Qualifying Dollar for every $1 they spend on Delta flights, car rentals, hotels and vacation packages booked through the airline.
The ratio isn’t 1:1 for dollars spent through co-branded American Express cards. Delta SkyMiles Reserve and Reserve Business American Express card members earn 1 Medallion Qualifying Dollar for every $10 spent on the card, while Delta SkyMiles Platinum and Platinum Business American Express Card Members earn 1 Medallion Qualifying Dollar for every $20 spent.
Here are the new status requirements:

Silver Medallion – 6,000 MQDs
Gold Medallion – 12,000 MQDs
Platinum Medallion – 18,000 MQDs
Diamond Medallion – 35,000 MQDs

Raising the bar on Sky Club entry

Delta is limiting access to its popular Sky Club airport lounges through certain American Express credit cards after grappling with overcrowding at some of them, drawing complaints from travelers.
Instead of the current unlimited visits, starting Feb. 1, 2025, American Express Platinum and Platinum Business cardholders will get six visits a year, unless they spend $75,000 on the card in a calendar year.
Meanwhile, Delta SkyMiles Reserve and Reserve Business cardholders will get 10 Sky Club visits a year, a limit they can skirt by also spending $75,000 in a year.
Delta’s SkyMiles Platinum and Platinum Business American Express cards will no longer get club access through the cards itself, although customers can enter by buying a club membership or if they have elite status with Delta that allows them to pick a club membership as a perk.
“Some of the changes that we’re making ensures that we’re taking care of our most premium customers with our most premium assets, one of those being the Sky Club,” James said. He said the changes were made in conjunction with American Express.
The airline last year announced several changes to crack down on overcrowding at the clubs, including barring employees from using them when flying standby with company travel privileges, even if they had qualifying credit cards. It also raised prices for club memberships for regular customers.
Delta and its competitors are racing to build bigger and more modern lounges to accommodate customers. United Airlines, for example, on Wednesday opened a 35,000 square-foot club at its hub at Denver International Airport, the largest in its network, after opening a 24,000 square-foot club at the airport earlier this summer. More