Economy

Shawn Fain owes his rise within the United Automobile Workers to a group determined to make the union far more confrontational toward automakers.When Shawn Fain sought the presidency of the United Automobile Workers union last year, he ran on a platform that promised: “No corruption. No concessions. No tiers.”That pledge encapsulated many members’ frustrations with years of union scandal and concessions to the three big Detroit automakers, including the creation of a lower tier of wages for newer employees. The platform helped propel Mr. Fain to the top job — where he has led a mounting wave of walkouts in recent weeks to demand more favorable contract terms.But the platform largely predated Mr. Fain’s candidacy. It was devised by a group called Unite All Workers for Democracy, which was officially formed in 2020 as a caucus — essentially, a political party within the union.The group set out to topple the ruling party, known as the Administration Caucus, which had run the union for more than 70 years. In 2022, Unite All Workers hashed out its party line, recruited candidates and ramped up a campaign operation to elect them.When the dust settled, the slate had won half the seats on the union’s 14-member executive board, with Mr. Fain, previously a union staff member, as president. Unite All Workers’ role helps explain why the union has taken such a hard line with the automakers.“We had a platform we ran on, and we’re trying to push that platform forward,” said Scott Houldieson, a founder of the group and a longtime Ford Motor worker in Chicago. “Shawn has been really upfront about what we’re trying to accomplish.”The first fruits of that approach may have emerged Wednesday, when negotiators for the union and Ford agreed on terms for a new four-year contract, including a wage increase of roughly 25 percent over the four years, according to the union.“We hit the companies to maximum effect,” Mr. Fain said in a Facebook livestream. The deal is subject to ratification by the company’s union workers.Since at least the 1980s, U.A.W. members have formed groups to challenge the union’s top officials, or at least prod them to be more confrontational with automakers. The efforts took on added urgency in 2007, when the union accepted tiers as a way to stabilize the automakers’ financial footing. (General Motors and Chrysler later filed for bankruptcy anyway; Ford avoided it.)Scott Houldieson, a founder of United Auto Workers for Democracy, said, “We had a platform we ran on, and we’re trying to push that platform forward.”Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesBut the Administration Caucus always held a trump card: The union leadership wasn’t elected directly by members. Rather, future leaders were effectively chosen by existing leaders, then approved by delegates to a convention every four years.That changed after a corruption scandal in which two recent U.A.W. presidents were charged with embezzlement in 2020. As part of a consent decree with the federal government, members voted in a referendum on whether to directly elect union leaders. Unite All Workers, which was pressing for the change, waged an all-out campaign to persuade union members to support “one member one vote.”When the initiative passed by nearly a two-to-one ratio, Unite All Workers, whose members paid an annual fee, was poised to become a kingmaker of sorts in the union’s 2022 elections. The group had a budget of over $100,000, two full-time staff members and hundreds of volunteer organizers.“It was obvious that we could use the same infrastructure” of staff and volunteers to compete in the election, said Mike Cannon, a retired U.A.W. member who serves on the Unite All Workers steering committee. “The only question at that point was, were we going to have any candidates?”Unite All Workers announced that anyone who wanted to join its campaign slate would have to fill out a detailed questionnaire and attend at least one meeting with its members.The group wanted to ensure that the candidates it backed were committed to running the union with extensive input from rank-and-file members, and to driving a much harder bargain with employers. It wanted an end to wage tiers, which it said divided and demoralized workers, and a focus on organizing new members, especially among electric vehicle and battery workers.Among those responding to the call was Mr. Fain, then a staff member in the union division responsible for Stellantis, the parent of Chrysler, Jeep and Ram. During his interview process, Mr. Fain explained how, as a local official in Indiana in 2007, he had helped lead opposition to the two-tier wage structure the union had agreed to, and how he had argued for more favorable contract terms after joining the headquarters staff.Some members of the group were skeptical that an employee of the old guard could be a reformer. But other U.A.W. dissidents vouched for him. “I knew the claims were legit,” said Martha Grevatt, a longtime Chrysler employee on the steering committee of Unite All Workers.Martha Grevatt said she had found Mr. Fain’s pledges to shake up the union “legit” even though he had been a staff member under the previous leadership.Daniel Lozada for The New York TimesThe group backed Mr. Fain and six other candidates for the union’s 14-member executive board, and all seven won.As president, Mr. Fain has appointed critics of the former leadership as his top aides, including one who served on the Unite All Workers steering committee. Board members, including Mr. Fain, have attended some of the group’s monthly membership meetings and taken part in one of its WhatsApp chats.Many of the group’s priorities became demands in the union’s contract negotiations, and Mr. Fain has indicated that he hopes to use momentum from the strike to organize nonunion companies like Tesla and Honda, a key objective of Unite All Workers.But for all the connections between the group and the union leadership, they are not one and the same.Some board members who ran on the Unite All Workers slate have at times taken positions in tension with the group’s priorities. In recent weeks, Margaret Mock, the union’s second-ranking official, has expressed concern to fellow board members about the walkout’s cost to the union’s budget. At a special board meeting last week, she offered a proposal intended to scale back spending on organizing during the strike, according to two people familiar with the meeting. The board set aside the proposal; Ms. Mock did not respond to a request for comment.For its part, Unite All Workers considers itself accountable to rank-and-file members, not an extension of the leaders it helped elect. On a tentative deal with any of the three large automakers, Unite All Workers plans to appoint a task force to provide an assessment of the proposal to the union’s members. The group’s members will then decide whether to support it.“I would say it’s not automatic that the caucus endorses” an agreement, said Andrew Bergman, who serves on the Unite All Workers steering committee.Still, as a practical matter, the group is highly unlikely to oppose an agreement, since Mr. Fain has forcefully pressed for its core priorities.“For years, we’ve been playing defense at every step, and we’ve been losing,” Mr. Fain said in a video streamed online on Friday, explaining why the strike would continue. “When we vote on a tentative agreement, it will be because your leadership and your council thinks we’ve gotten absolutely every dollar we can.” This week, the union expanded the strike to the largest U.S. factories at Stellantis and General Motors.The approach has raised concerns among employers and business groups. John Drake, a vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said that the Detroit automakers could struggle to remain competitive after the strike, and that Mr. Fain appeared to be overreaching in extracting concessions.“It feels like there’s not really a strategy here,” Mr. Drake said. “It’s like pain is the goal.”Mr. Fain has indicated that he hopes to use momentum from the strike to organize nonunion companies like Tesla and Honda, a key objective of the insurgent group that endorsed his candidacy.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesThe best analogy for Unite All Workers may be to a group called Brand New Congress, created by supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders, the progressive Vermont independent, to help elect congressional candidates beginning in 2018.Not long after the 2016 presidential election, Brand New Congress urged an obscure New York bartender and activist named Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to challenge a longtime incumbent in a Democratic congressional primary. A sister group provided her with training and campaign infrastructure. After she won, two people involved with the groups joined her staff.Ms. Ocasio-Cortez has since become far more prominent than those early backers, and in principle she could take positions at odds with their progressive stands. But in practice, it’s unlikely. The worldview is embedded in her political identity.Mr. Fain’s story is similar: a once-obscure progressive who was catapulted to a position of power by a group of insurgents and was determined to enact their shared principles once he got there. Except that, in backing him and his colleagues, Unite All Workers helped win not just a few legislative seats, but the reins of an entire union.After Vail Kohnert-Yount, a Unite All Workers steering committee member, seconded Mr. Fain’s nomination for president at the union’s convention last year, he spoke to her about relying on government assistance as a new parent decades ago.“I remember thinking this guy has not forgotten where he came from — he’s very much stayed that person,” Ms. Kohnert-Yount said. “We did our best to endorse a candidate we believed in.” More

Commercial real estate markets in the U.S. and China are economic pain points to monitor in a higher-for-longer rate environment, said Singapore’s United Overseas Bank.
But the bank remains optimistic about one key region, citing investment flows particularly in the new economy area such as sustainability.

Commercial real estate markets in the U.S. and China are economic pain points to monitor in a higher-for-longer rate environment, said Singapore’s United Overseas Bank. But the bank remains optimistic about one key region.
“The U.S. commercial real estate remains a hotspot, especially with the low occupancy rates that we have,” Lee Wai Fai, chief financial officer of UOB told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia.”

Vacancy rates for office buildings climbed to a record high of 18.2% in late 2022.
“The other hotspots will be China, there [are] worries about the quality and whether they can manage the property uncertainty in China,” he added.
China’s property market has struggled with faltering consumer confidence as major developers like Evergrande and Country Garden remain mired in debt problems.
Lee added the world is heading into a more “uncertain environment” and the impact of higher-for-longer interest rates is starting to filter through the economy.

The world’s central banks have hiked interest rates aggressively over the past 18 months or so in a bid to rein in soaring inflation, with varying degrees of success.

“China recovery has yet to come about. And of course, the recent geopolitical tension has added to the volatility,” he added.

ASEAN’s resilience

That being said, in spite of a bumpy macroeconomic environment, Lee expects the ASEAN region to remain resilient, citing investment flows particularly in new economy areas such as sustainability.
“But [for] our regional fundamentals, we are confident, because we still have low unemployment and robust consumption,” he said, adding that supply chains are also shifting into Southeast Asia.
Foreign direct investment flows to Southeast Asia have “increased by a factor of nine over the last two decades, with over half of these going to Singapore,” philanthropic organization Hinrich Foundation noted in a February report.
UOB on Thursday posted a core net profit of $1.5 billion for the third quarter of financial year 2023 ending Sept. 30, rising 5% from a year ago. More

(Reuters) -Australia’s Coles Group (OTC:CLEGF) posted a marginal rise in its first-quarter sales on Thursday, boosted by higher contribution from its supermarkets section, owing to strong food volume growth as consumers increasingly opted for at-home consumption.Shares of the grocer were trading 0.2% higher, as at 0037 GMT. Stock slipped as much as 1% earlier in the day to A$14.820, its lowest since March 13, 2020.The Supermarkets division, Coles’ biggest revenue-generator, logged sales revenue of A$9.19 billion for the quarter, a 4.7% growth from a year-ago period, as easing prices boosted volumes.Still, the revenue growth missed Jefferies’ expectation of a 5.8% rise and E&P Capital’s 5% estimate, and was also below bigger rival Woolworths’ Australian Food’s growth of 6.4%.Consumers are increasingly opting for in-house consumption as 12 interest rate hikes since May 2022 exerted high living cost pressures on the consumers.However, inflation at Supermarkets declined to 3.1% during the quarter owing to easing prices of fruits and vegetables, meat, seafood and bakery items, boosting volumes.As a result, Coles’ group sales revenue came in at A$10.25 billion ($6.46 billion) for the 13-week period ended Sept. 24, higher than the A$9.89 billion reported a year ago.The grocer added that it ramped up security measures to reduce total loss from stock loss, waste and markdown across supermarkets during the first quarter, and this will continue into the second quarter.”Commentary in the release implies that while waste and markdown has improved, theft has not yet improved and may have continued to worsen,” analysts at Jefferies said.Providing a preview into the second quarter, Coles said in the early part its Supermarkets and liquor divisions logged sales revenue growth broadly in line with the first quarter.Woolworths, the country’s largest grocer, on Wednesday logged an increase in food sales in the first quarter as value-conscious shoppers seized on cheaper meat, fruit and vegetables, but warned of continuing living cost pressures.($1 = 1.5855 Australian dollars) More

Westpac Chief Economist Luci Ellis said the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) was now likely to lift its cash rate by a quarter point to 4.35% at its next meeting on Nov. 7, changing her earlier call for a steady outlook.”Inflation is declining, but not fast enough for the RBA to hold rates unchanged,” said Ellis, who until recently was the head of economics at the RBA. “It is going to be a finely balanced decision and a decision to hold still can’t be ruled out entirely.” More

The measure, which is part of Finance Minister Fernando Haddad’s plan to erase the primary budget deficit next year, was approved by 323 votes against 119 and now needs Senate approval.While it represents a victory for the administration of leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the bill ended up with lower tax rates than designed by the government, which initially aimed to raise 20 billion reais ($4 billion) in 2024.Closed-end funds provide attractive investment opportunities by taxing earnings only when distributed to investors. With the proposal, they will now be required to pay semi-annual tax over gains, similar to the current practice for regular funds.Regarding the taxation of offshores, the government’s measure aimed to prevent Brazilian individuals with assets in tax havens from indefinitely deferring the payment of income tax on their earnings. Initially, the government proposed a 22.5% tax rate for profits exceeding 50,000 reais annually, but the version approved by the lower house would establish a levy of 15%. More

LONDON (Reuters) – A number of major European cycling teams have been exploring plans to create a new competitive league in a move that could reshape the sport’s landscape and allocate more funding for participants, three people familiar with the matter told Reuters.External investors could help finance the project, two of the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the discussions are private. The venture could amalgamate new and existing races, one of the people said.About five teams around Europe including Ineos Grenadiers are involved in the early-stage talks and more could join, the people said. Tour de France champion Jonas Vingegaard’s Jumbo-Visma team is also involved in the talks, one of them said.Spokespeople for Ineos Grenadiers and Jumbo-Visma declined to comment.Big Four accounting and consulting firm EY is seeking expressions of interest from potential investors for the project and has set a deadline for indications this week, two of the people said. A spokesperson for EY declined to comment.Reuters was not able to ascertain how long the discussions have been going on for. An agreement is not imminent and a deal may not proceed, one of the people said.Among those showing interest is CVC Partners, the former owner of Formula One motor racing, two of the people said. A spokesperson for CVC declined to comment.The project aims to distribute some of the gains from cycling events amongst the teams, which currently rely largely on external sponsorship for funding, the people said.It is a response to the teams concerns that the lion’s share of profits from the main cycling races including the Tour de France, La Vuelta and the Giro d’Italia go to their organisers, people familiar with the plans said.Amaury Sports Organisation (ASO) controls the Tour de France and La Vuelta while the Giro d’Italia is controlled by RCS Sports.Any deal would follow a trend in other global sports such as golf and tennis, where investors have poured in new capital and attracted players and clubs to compete with the older, established events.This is not the first time cycling teams have explored a new cycling league project. Eight teams founded a league project called World Series Cycling (WSC) at the end of 2012 but the plans failed to materialise. More

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – European Union leaders meet on Thursday to grapple with the conflict between Israel and Hamas while also aiming to show continuing support for Ukraine in its war against Russia’s invasion.The summit in Brussels will be the first in-person meeting of the EU’s 27 national leaders since the deadly Oct. 7 assault on Israel by Palestinian militant group Hamas, which prompted Israel to bombard and blockade Hamas-run Gaza.While EU countries have all strongly condemned the Hamas attack, leaders have struggled to stick to the same message beyond that, with some stressing Israel’s right to self-defence and others emphasising concern about Palestinian civilians.In the lead-up to the summit, EU countries were wrangling over whether to call for a “humanitarian pause”, with some arguing such a measure was vital to get aid into Gaza while others said it could limit Israel’s ability to defend itself.Diplomats said the EU appeared to be coalescing around a compromise call for “pauses” in the plural, as this suggested short breaks in fighting for specific missions such as hostage releases or aid convoys, rather than a formal ceasefire.EU leaders including French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have visited the Middle East to express solidarity with Israel and bolster diplomatic efforts to prevent the conflict spiralling into a regional war.While the EU’s influence on the conflict is modest, officials fear that an escalation could have grave consequences for Europe, including a rise in tensions between communities, possible Islamist militant attacks and a large flow of refugees.”Our meeting comes at a time of great global instability and insecurity, exacerbated most recently by developments in the Middle East,” said Charles Michel, president of the European Council of EU leaders, in an invitation letter to the summit.”These developments require our immediate attention, without distracting us from our continued support to Ukraine.”Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy will address the summit by video link and support for Kyiv will have first place in the summit declaration.The EU and its member countries have provided billions of euros in assistance to Ukraine since Russian forces invaded in February last year.But some officials and diplomats have voiced fears that Ukraine may now struggle to get the same political attention and resources from the West, particularly the United States, due to the new crisis in the Middle East.The summit will not be able to sign off on multi-year plans for 50 billion euros in financial aid and up 20 billion euros for military aid for Ukraine, as they are part of a broader budget battle that officials hope to conclude by year’s end.At the summit, the leaders will have their first debate on that budget package, which diplomats expect to be contentious.”It’s hard to ask for more money for the EU budget when national budgets are getting squeezed,” said one EU diplomat.Diplomats say there is broad support for more money for Ukraine but other elements of the proposal by the European Commission – the bloc’s executive – are more contentious, as countries clash over priorities and sources of funding.The Commission has asked for 15 additional billion euros to deal with migration and further money to cover increased borrowing costs for joint EU debt as interest rates rise. More

TOKYO (Reuters) -Japanese finance minister Shunichi Suzuki maintained a warning to investors against selling the yen on Thursday, saying authorities were closely watching moves after the currency fell beyond 150 yen against the dollar.”I’m watching market moves with a sense of urgency, as before,” Suzuki told reporters at his ministry, when asked about renewed weakness in the yen.The dollar rose to 150.32 yen, its highest since October last year when Japan last intervened in the market to support the local currency. The greenback last traded at 150.08 yen.The 150 yen line is perceived by investors as a danger zone that may trigger intervention. Suzuki made no comments about intervention.Pressure is mounting on the Bank of Japan to change its bond yield control as global interest rates rise. A hike to an existing yield cap set just three months ago is being discussed as a possibility in the run-up to next week’s policy meeting, Reuters cited sources as saying this week. More