Automobiles

More stories

  • 163 Shares169 Views

    in Economy

    U.A.W. Will Not Expand Strikes at G.M., Ford and Stellantis as Talks Progress

    by

    The United Automobile Workers reported improved wage offers from the automakers and a concession from General Motors on workers at battery factories.The United Automobile Workers union said on Friday that it had made progress in its negotiations with Ford Motor, General Motors and Stellantis, the parent of Chrysler, and would not expand the strikes against the companies that began three weeks ago.In an online video, the president of the union, Shawn Fain, said all three companies had significantly improved their offers to the union, including providing bigger raises and offering cost-of-living increases. In what he described as a major breakthrough, Mr. Fain said G.M. was now willing to include workers at its battery factories in the company’s national contract with the U.A.W.G.M. had previously said that it could not include those workers because they are employed by joint ventures between G.M. and battery suppliers.“Here’s the bottom line: We are winning,” said Mr. Fain, wearing a T-shirt that read, “Eat the Rich.” “We are making progress, and we are headed in the right direction.”Mr. Fain said G.M. made the concession on battery plant workers after the union had threatened to strike the company’s factory in Arlington, Texas, where it makes some of its most profitable full-size sport-utility vehicles, including the Cadillac Escalade and the Chevrolet Tahoe. The plant employs 5,300 workers.G.M. has started production at one battery plant in Ohio, and has others under construction in Tennessee and Michigan. Workers at the Ohio plant voted overwhelmingly to be represented by the U.A.W. and have been negotiating a separate contract with the joint venture, Ultium Cells, that G.M. owns with L.G. Energy Solution.Ford is building two joint-venture battery plants in Kentucky and one in Tennessee, and a fourth in Michigan that is wholly owned by Ford. Stellantis has just started building a battery plant in Indiana and is looking for a site for a second.G.M. declined to comment about battery plant workers. “Negotiations remain ongoing, and we will continue to work towards finding solutions to address outstanding issues,” the company said in a statement. “Our goal remains to reach an agreement that rewards our employees and allows G.M. to be successful into the future”Shares of the three companies jumped after Mr. Fain spoke. G.M.’s stock closed up about 2 percent, Stellantis about 3 percent and Ford about 1 percent.The strike began Sept. 15 when workers walked out of three plants in Michigan, Ohio and Missouri, each owned by one of the three companies.The stoppage was later expanded to 38 spare-parts distribution centers owned by G.M. and Stellantis, and then to a Ford plant in Chicago and another G.M. factory in Lansing, Mich. About 25,000 of the 150,000 U.A.W. members employed by the three Michigan automakers were on strike as of Friday morning.“I think this strategy of targeted strikes is working,” said Peter Berg, a professor of employment relations at Michigan State University. “It has the effect of slowly ratcheting up the cost to the companies, and they don’t know necessarily where he’s going to strike next.”Here Are the Locations Where U.A.W. Strikes Are HappeningSee where U.A.W. members are on strike at plants and distribution centers owned by Ford, General Motors and Stellantis.The contract battle has become a national political issue. President Biden visited a picket line near Detroit last month. A day later, former President Donald J. Trump spoke at a nonunion factory north of Detroit and criticized Mr. Biden and leaders of the U.A.W. Other lawmakers and candidates have voiced support for the U.A.W. or criticized the strikes.When negotiations began in July, Mr. Fain initially demanded a 40 percent increase in wages, noting that workers’ pay has not kept up with inflation over the last 15 years and that the chief executives of the three companies have seen pay increases of roughly that magnitude.The automakers, which have made near-record profits over the last 10 years, have all offered increases of slightly more than 20 percent over four years. Company executives have said anything more would threaten their ability to compete with nonunion companies like Tesla and invest in new electric vehicle models and battery factories.The union also wants to end a wage system in which newly hired workers earn just over half the top U.A.W. wage, $32 an hour now, and need to work for eight years to reach the maximum. It is also seeking cost-of-living adjustments if inflation flares, pensions for a greater number of workers, company-paid retirement health care, shorter working hours and the right to strike in response to plant closings.In separate statements, Ford and Stellantis have said they agreed to provide cost-of-living increases, shorten the time it takes for employees to reach the top wage, and several other measures the union has sought.Ford also said it was “open to the possibility of working with the U.A.W. on future battery plants in the U.S.” Its battery plants are still under construction and have not hired any production workers yet.The union is concerned that some of its members will lose their jobs, especially people who work at engine and transmission plants, as the automakers produce more electric cars and trucks. Those vehicles do not need those parts, relying instead on electric motors and batteries.Stellantis’ chief operating officer for North America, Mark Stewart, said the company and the union were “making progress, but there are gaps that still need to be closed.”The union is also pushing the companies to convert temporary workers who now make a top wage of $20 an hour into full-time staff.Striking at only select locations at all three companies is a change from the past, when the U.A.W. typically called for a strike at all locations of one company that the union had chosen as its target. Striking at only a few locations hurts the companies — the idled plants make some of their most profitable models — but limits the economic damage to the broader economies in the affected states.It also could help preserve the union’s $825 million strike fund, from which striking workers are paid while they’re off the job. The union is paying striking workers $500 a week.G.M. said this week that the first two weeks of the strike had cost it $200 million. The three automakers and some of their suppliers have said that they have had to lay off hundreds of workers because the strikes have disrupted the supply and demand for certain parts.Santul Nerkar More

  • 138 Shares149 Views

    in Economy

    U.A.W. Chief Shawn Fain Has a Nonnegotiable Demand: Eat the Rich

    by

    For as long as anyone can remember, the Indiana city of Kokomo has been a conservative stronghold. Ronald Reagan crushed Walter Mondale in Kokomo. Bill Clinton lost twice. So did Barack Obama. The current mayor, a Republican, is running unopposed for re-election. It’s a town known for something it would prefer to forget: a Ku Klux Klan rally in 1923 that was the largest ever.Yet somehow Kokomo produced a union leader whose rhetoric is aimed at toppling the conservative and moneyed classes — a rebel who rejects the niceties of an earlier era in favor of a sharp-edged confrontation.“Billionaires in my opinion don’t have a right to exist,” says Shawn Fain, who is leading the United Automobile Workers in a multifront labor battle against the Big Three carmakers that has little precedent and is making a lot of noise.In interviews, in speeches and on social media, Mr. Fain hammers the wealthy again and again, making the cause of the union’s 150,000 autoworkers at General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis something much broader.“There’s a billionaire class, and there’s the rest of us,” he said at an impromptu news conference outside a Ford plant in Wayne, Mich. “We’re all expected to sit back and take the scraps and live paycheck to paycheck and scrape to get by. We’re second-class citizens.”Mr. Fain introduced President Biden on his visit to a U.A.W. picket line last month in Michigan.Pete Marovich for The New York TimesBefore Mr. Fain took over in March, the U.A.W. leadership did not so much scorn the billionaires as strive to emulate them. One executive spent $2 million in embezzled funds on gambling, cocaine and fancy cars. Another bought $13,000 worth of cigars in one day. A federal investigation won 17 convictions against the leadership.Mr. Fain defeated the incumbent by the thinnest of margins. That might have given another candidate an incentive to keep a low profile, secure an adequate contract and declare victory.Not this fellow. He is playing a very high-stakes game.First, there are the aggressive demands and the unusual tactics. The union wants a 40 percent pay raise over four years to make up for much smaller increases in past years, a four-day workweek, annual cost-of-living adjustments, paid health care for retirees and the elimination of a lower pay tier for newer workers. To secure these benefits, the U.A.W. is challenging all three companies at once, which it had never done, by staging a targeted, escalating walkout.Mr. Fain, 54, has made himself the face of the strike, which is in its third week. On Facebook Live in August, he literally threw away a contract proposal from Stellantis, the automaker that absorbed what was once Chrysler. “That’s where it belongs: the trash,” he explained.During a rally with President Biden last week, Mr. Fain invoked President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s hallowed phrase about American factories being the arsenal of democracy. “Today, the enemy isn’t some foreign country miles away — it’s right here in our own area,” he said, casting the automakers in the role of the Axis powers. “It’s corporate greed.”Since U.A.W. members began targeted walkouts over their contract demands, Mr. Fain has made himself the face of the strike.Brittany Greeson for The New York TimesWhether Mr. Fain’s fiery words will lead to effective negotiations is an open question. Fiery words can inspire, but they can also anger. Stellantis said the union leaders seemed “more concerned about pursuing their own political agendas than negotiating.” G.M. denounced the union’s “rhetoric and theatrics,” and Ford said the U.A.W. should focus on talks and not “planning strikes and P.R. events.”“I’m subtle as a hammer,” Mr. Fain acknowledged in an interview. “Probably always was. That’s in my work life. Privately, I’m more shy.” Even his official U.A.W. biography calls him “outspoken” and says he was “ostracized” for his contentious assertions in union meetings.The people who knew him in high school in Kokomo in the 1980s definitely did not see this rise to national prominence coming. They recall an easygoing guy with a lot of respect for authority.“I don’t think Kokomo was a breeding ground for radicals,” said Paul Nicodemus, another member of the class of 1987, adding that the city was “known for having the biggest tree trunk and the largest stuffed bull,” two longtime local tourist attractions. Malcolm X, whom Mr. Fain recently invoked, wasn’t on the curriculum.A closer look, however, reveals how Mr. Fain’s upbringing may have played a role in creating a confrontational figure who vilifies the automakers while alarming Wall Street. “Like watching a slow-moving car crash take place on black ice,” Wedbush analysts wrote as the strike expanded last week to more factories.Mr. Fain’s great-grandparents Gordon and Effie Fain were economic migrants, moving to Kokomo from Kentucky in the 1920s.Mr. Fain’s hometown, Kokomo, Ind., is a traditional Republican bastion.Lee Klafczynski for The New York Times“My grandparents came from poverty,” Mr. Fain said. “When I see people from Mexico or Venezuela being vilified, I see my grandparents. They were born in Kentucky and Tennessee rather than across the border, but I don’t see them as different.”When the Fains arrived, the auto industry in Kokomo was consolidating. In 1937, Chrysler bought a dormant auto plant to make transmissions. Stanley Fain, Shawn’s grandfather, worked for Chrysler for 35 years. Other relatives worked for General Motors.Shawn’s father, Rodger, broke with tradition. He was the Kokomo chief of police; his wife, Stella, was a nurse. In Rodger’s career, there are echoes of his son’s situation. He was hired to clean up a mess.Kokomo had several high-profile murders in the 1970s, making the populace more fearful, but it was also a time when relations between the police and the city were strained. There were allegations that the police were hostage to political whims, which led to a chief’s resignation. The police protested low wages by driving past the mayor’s house with sirens blaring and similar antics, according to a 2014 history of law enforcement in the county. They also went on strike for a day.The first Chrysler pay stub received by Mr. Fain’s grandfather Stanley Fain, a union member, in 1937.Sarah Rice for The New York TimesKokomo has a long automaking history. Chrysler took over a dormant plant in the 1930s and remained the dominant local employer when Mr. Fain was growing up.Lee Klafczynski for The New York TimesRodger Fain, who became chief in 1980, is credited with professionalizing the force and ending the acceptance of gratuities. When the Klan decided to march through town shortly after he took the job, it was a high-tension moment. There were vivid memories of a 1979 march in North Carolina where Klan members shot and killed five participants in a counterdemonstration organized by the Communist Party.The Kokomo march took place without incident, and Chief Fain got credit for an absence of violence. Still, the work wasn’t the sort of thing he wanted his son to do.“My father steered me away from a career in law enforcement,” Mr. Fain said. “When he retired in 1987, he told me that back in his day, you only had to worry about someone pulling a knife. Now everyone was arming themselves.”The 1987 yearbook for Taylor High School had the theme “… lovin’ every minute of it!” There was nothing Shawn loved more than sports. He played basketball all four years of high school. Football, golf, cross-country and baseball took up other seasons.“In Indiana, you have one option, and that’s basketball,” Mr. Fain said. “It was religion. Fathers pushed their sons and even their daughters to play basketball. I had a pretty hard-core basketball coach, in your face all the time, and I adopted a lot of that mentality.”Mr. Fain was an avid athlete in high school, with a particular passion for basketball. In Indiana, “it was religion,” he said.Paul Sancya/Kokomo TribuneThat aggressive attitude on the court served him and the team well, to an extent. The yearbook put a good face on it, calling it an “educational” season, but the record was 5-16.His teammates remember the good parts.“There was one game when we were down by one,” Brian Tate said. “The ball came back to us, I dribbled the length of the court, looked to my right, saw Shawn was open. I said, ‘This is the guy.’ I got it to him, and he nailed it at the last second — game over. He was clutch.”Dr. Tate, now an endodontist, does not recall any budding activists.“We were pretty simple kids,” he said. “I don’t ever remember Shawn by any stretch expressing a political opinion. We never talked about billionaires.”There weren’t many billionaires to talk about. In 1982, Forbes found only 13 when it started listing the country’s richest people. In 1986, there were 26. In 1987, Forbes listed 49.In Kokomo, the non-billionaires were not doing as well. The economy had recovered from the devastating recession of the early 1980s, when one in four workers in the area was unemployed. But it wasn’t moving forward. Local average wages were stagnant, the Labor Department reported.A high school yearbook photo of Mr. Fain, second from right in the back row. “We were pretty simple kids,” a classmate recalled.Lee Klafczynski for The New York Times“Some of them may grow up knowing what they want to do,” Mr. Fain said of teenagers, “but I wasn’t one of them.”Lee Klafczynski for The New York TimesMr. Fain had no idea what to do with his life. “A lot of young teenagers are pushed to pick out a career in the eighth grade, but they haven’t experienced life, they haven’t experienced reality,” he said. “Some of them may grow up knowing what they want to do, but I wasn’t one of them.”He attended the Kokomo branch of Indiana University, not a top-tier basketball school. He got some attention for a good game or two, but dropped out before getting a degree.There were hard times. Mr. Fain married a high school classmate in 1991 and had two girls. “When you go through hardship and are laid off, live on $80-a-week unemployment, apply for government aid to get formula and diapers for your child, it makes you realize what it takes to survive in this world,” he said. (The marriage ended in divorce. He is engaged to Keesha McConaghie, a financial analyst for the U.A.W.)It was a neighbor in the electricians’ union who set Mr. Fain on a viable path. “If you had asked me, ‘Do you want to be an electrician?’ — I probably would have laughed. I knew nothing about that trade. I applied, got in, and the rest is history.” He began working for Chrysler in 1994.His father provided a final element that shaped the future union leader. Rodger Fain ran for the Indiana legislature as a Democrat in 1986. His platform included supporting economic development, attracting high-paying jobs and tearing down the “walls” between labor and management. The vote was close, but as usual Kokomo went for the Republican.Mr. Fain talking to U.A.W. members at a Michigan plant during his run for the union presidency early this year.Jim West/AlamyShawn Fain, raised to be active in the community, ran for the school board in 1998. He wasn’t elected but liked the idea of service.“Some people, when they see things happening they disagree with, let it happen,” Mr. Nicodemus, the former classmate, said. “And there are others like Shawn. Instead of sitting back, he steps up and says, ‘I’ll be the guy.’”That was what happened at the U.A.W., even if for the longest time the union leadership didn’t want the guy.“I didn’t like the way things were going in my plant, was elected, and the rest was history,” Mr. Fain said, who won five terms as a skilled trades committeeman and held other posts.In 2007, he was a leader in a grass-roots campaign to reject a contract with Chrysler that would pay new workers at a lower rate and made other concessions. In accepting the deal, he told U.A.W. leadership, “you might as well get a gun and shoot yourself in the head.”The contract was approved, but Mr. Fain gained a reputation as a rebel. Eleven years ago, he moved from Kokomo to Detroit to work directly for the union. In the ensuing years, corruption scandals at the top of the U.A.W. ended with two successive union presidents in prison, along with a mandate from a court-appointed monitor for the top posts to be elected by popular vote for the first time.It was an opening for reformers, and Mr. Fain led an insurgent ticket that ousted the old guard. He pledged not only to end corruption but also to jettison a go-along, get-along approach that he denounced as “company unionism.” One of his first public acts was to decline the traditional handshake with the automakers at the start of negotiations in July.“I never planned on running for U.A.W. president,” Mr. Fain said. “It wasn’t on my radar. But things change.”Brittany Greeson for The New York TimesHe calls his caustic attitude “a migration,” something he took on “just from experience.” Likewise with his political journey. “I never planned on running for U.A.W. president,” he said. “It wasn’t on my radar. But things change.”The inexorable rise of the billionaires offered more motivation. There are an estimated 750 of them in the United States now, and they are quite a bit richer than they were. “We’re all fed up with seeing the rich get richer,” Mr. Fain declared recently. (His own income last year was $160,000; the U.A.W. lists the president’s base salary at $207,000.)Nelson Lichtenstein, a labor historian, said he saw Mr. Fain as a throwback.“He is using more forceful rhetoric than any U.A.W. leadership in a long while, reaching back to the 1930s and 1940s,” Mr. Lichtenstein said. “The idea of mutual accommodation with the companies is gone.”Mr. Fain took Senator Bernie Sanders, the progressive Vermont independent, to a September rally and cites Walter Reuther, the U.A.W. leader during the postwar years, as an inspiration, along with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the “pyramid of success” developed by John Wooden, the coach who produced a U.C.L.A. basketball dynasty. The Wooden principles include at the apex a suggestion about “enjoyment of a difficult challenge.”A strike is a double-edged sword, said Patrick Anderson, chief executive of Anderson Economic Group in East Lansing, Mich. The greater the number of striking workers, the more pressure on the employer. But as the strike goes on, the people who will feel it the worst are those very workers, which gives them an incentive to settle. The automakers know this, of course, which makes for a difficult challenge indeed.Mr. Fain copes with stress by working out and listening to music, cranking up selections from the entire spectrum — hip-hop, ’80s rock, Metallica, Frank Sinatra. He’s still getting used to the job, and to the fact that Shawn Fain from Kokomo Local 1166 is the U.A.W. president.“Surreal,” he calls it. If anything will keep him grounded, he figures it might be this: “U.A.W. leaders in the past tended to forget who they’re here to represent. I don’t forget.” More

  • 88 Shares179 Views

    in Economy

    U.A.W. Expands Strikes at Ford and G.M.

    by

    The United Automobile Workers union said 7,000 more of its members would walk off the job two weeks after it began strikes at the Big Three automakers.The U.A.W.’s president, Shawn Fain, called on an additional 7,000 workers at Ford and General Motors to go on strike until progress is made at the negotiating table for higher pay and benefits.Bill Pugliano/Getty ImagesThe United Automobile Workers union increased the pressure on Ford Motor and General Motors by extending its strike to two more car assembly plants on Friday, saying the companies had not moved far enough to meet its demands for higher pay and benefits.The move is the second escalation of strikes that started on Sept. 15 at three plants, one each owned by G.M., Ford and Stellantis, the parent of Chrysler, Jeep and Ram. The union said it would not expand the strike against Stellantis this week because of progress in negotiations there.The U.A.W.’s president, Shawn Fain, said workers at a Ford plant in Chicago and a G.M. factory in Lansing, Mich., would walk off the job on Friday. G.M. makes the Buick Enclave and Chevrolet Traverse sport-utility vehicles at the Lansing plant. Ford makes the Explorer, the Police Interceptor Utility and Lincoln Aviator in Chicago.“Ford and G.M. have refused to make meaningful progress at the bargaining table,” Mr. Fain said in a live-streamed video.Ford’s Chicago plant employs about 4,600 U.A.W. members and G.M.’s Lansing plant has 2,300 union workers. Including the workers who walked off the job earlier, more than 25,000 U.A.W. members at the three companies have been called on to stop working. The three automakers together employ nearly 150,000 U.A.W. members.A week ago, workers walked out at 38 spare-parts distribution centers owned by G.M. and Stellantis. The U.A.W. did not expand its strike at Ford because, the union said at the time, it had made significant progress in contract negotiations with that company.The U.A.W. is seeking a substantial wage increase for workers and opened the talks by demanding a 40 percent raise, pointing to the substantial profits all three companies have generated over the last decade and to the size of the pay increases for their chief executives over the last four years.The companies have each offered roughly 20 percent over four years. Ford and the union have reached agreements on some other demands, including cost-of-living adjustments if inflation surges again, and the right to strike if the company closes plants.“Fain is out-negotiating the car companies, and he is having fun making them dance while he calls them names,” said Erik Gordon, a business professor at the University of Michigan who follows the auto industry. “One week he gets Ford to give more in the hope of not being targeted for another closure. The next week he tells Ford they haven’t given enough and closes one of their plants.”Picketing outside Ford’s Chicago Assembly Plant on Friday after the U.A.W. expanded its walkouts to new sites.Taylor Glascock for The New York TimesBut if the companies agree to most of the union’s demands, they could struggle to compete in the fast-growing market for electric vehicles, which is dominated by Tesla, a nonunion automaker, Professor Gordon said. “The union will enjoy big gains for a few years until the companies’ inability to compete causes job losses,” he said.The parties have met regularly, and on Thursday the union presented its latest counteroffer to Stellantis, the union said. Negotiating teams from the U.A.W. and G.M. met on Wednesday in a session attended by Mr. Fain.The union leader’s online remarks on Friday were delayed for nearly half an hour by what he called “a flurry of interest from the companies in addressing some serious bargaining issue.” He did not provide details.Ford’s chief executive, Jim Farley, said on Friday that the company and the U.A.W. were “very close” to a deal but remained apart on potential contract terms for workers at four electric vehicle battery factories the company is building. “If the U.A.W.’s goal is a record contract, they already have that,” he told reporters on a conference call.In the company’s view, discussions about the battery plants should not hold up the negotiations on a new four-year contract because they won’t be completed for two years or more.The U.A.W. sees things differently. Union leaders are concerned that automakers will use the transition to electric vehicles to lower wages and reduce the number of unionized workers they employ.The union wants to include the workers at battery factories owned partly or fully by automakers in their national contracts with the U.A.W. Mr. Fain has said the workers at battery factories are exposed to more dangerous working conditions yet are paid much less than union members at vehicle assembly plants.The automakers have said that they cannot include battery factory workers in their national contracts because most of the plants are set up as joint ventures with foreign companies like LG Energy Solution and SK On.Among the three automakers, only G.M. has started producing batteries, at a plant it jointly owns with LG Energy Solution in Lordstown, Ohio. Ford is building three battery plants in Kentucky and Tennessee with SK On.Ford said this week that it would halt work on another battery plant, wholly owned by the automaker, that it had planned to build in Marshall, Mich. because it was not certain that it could make products there at a competitive price. “We will decide how big or small Marshall will be,” Mr. Farley said, once Ford has a better idea of how much it will cost to make batteries there.Mr. Farley said the start of production at battery plants would not result in the loss of U.A.W. jobs elsewhere at Ford. The company employs 57,000 U.A.W. members, more than at G.M. and Stellantis.In a statement, Mr. Fain disputed Ford’s characterization of the talks. He said that the U.A.W. was waiting for a response from the company to a “comprehensive proposal” the union made on Monday. Mr. Fain said the two sides were still “far apart” on retirement benefits and workers’ job security in the transition to electric vehicles. “Name the time and the place you want to settle a fair contract for our members, and we’ll be there,” Mr. Fain said.G.M.’s chief executive, Mary T. Barra, criticized the union for “upping the rhetoric and the theatrics” and said that the U.A.W.’s leaders had “no real intent to get to an agreement.”“We need the U.A.W. leadership at the bargaining table with the clear intent of reaching an agreement now,” she said in a statement. “For them to do otherwise is putting our collective future at stake.”The U.A.W. president, Shawn Fain, greets union members at the General Motors plant in Lansing, Mich., where workers walked out on Friday.Bill Pugliano/Getty ImagesStellantis said that it had made progress in the talks but that “gaps remain.” The company said it “has been intensely working with the U.A.W. to find solutions to the issues that are of most concern to our employees while ensuring the company can remain competitive.”Tensions on the picket lines have flared this week. The union said five strikers on the picket line suffered minor injuries when they were hit by a car outside a G.M. plant in Flint, Mich. Other confrontations occurred at picket lines in California, Massachusetts and Michigan, the union said.“We will not be intimidated into backing down,” said Mr. Fain, who has frequently compared the strike to a “war on corporate greed.”In a statement on Thursday, Stellantis criticized Mr. Fain’s characterization of the negotiations, and blamed the union for violence, saying that some strikers had slashed tires on trucks and harassed nonstriking employees at parts warehouses.“The deliberate use of inflammatory and violent rhetoric is dangerous and needs to stop,” Stellantis said. “The companies are not ‘the enemy’ and we are not at ‘war.’ We respect our employees’ right to advocate for their position, including their right to peacefully picket. But the violence must stop.”The strategy of striking at only a limited number of locations, but spreading the walkouts to plants owned by all three automakers, is a break from U.A.W.’s traditional approach of idling most or all operations at one company. In 2019, union workers went on strike at G.M. for 40 days before a tentative agreement was reached.Mr. Fain has said the strategy is intended to keep the companies guessing about what parts of their operations would be hit next, in hopes of improving the union’s negotiating position. The first three plants hit by the strike make some of the automakers’ most profitable vehicles, including the Chevrolet Colorado, Ford Bronco and Jeep Wrangler.A limited strike also dents the companies’ profits while limiting damage to their suppliers, local businesses and the national economy.Expanding the strike also increases the financial cost to the union. It is paying striking workers $500 a week out of its $825 million strike fund.Santul Nerkar More

  • 125 Shares179 Views

    in Economy

    Drivers and Dealers Could Soon Feel Impact of U.A.W. Strikes

    by

    Lengthy and expanding walkouts by the United Automobile Workers union against Ford, General Motors and Stellantis could strain a fragile supply chain.More than a week into its targeted strike at the three established U.S. car companies, the United Automobile Workers union has poked holes in a supply chain that has still not fully recovered from the pandemic.The companies and the union remain far apart in negotiations, and the U.A.W. could expand its strikes to more locations as soon as Friday. Depending on how long the strikes last, it could exact a heavy toll on autoworkers and the three companies — General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis, the parent of Chrysler and Jeep. But the work stoppages could also be painful to drivers, car dealers and auto-parts suppliers.A long and expanding strike will reduce the number of new cars on dealer lots, make it harder for people to repair their vehicles and reduce demand for parts needed to make new vehicles.So far, the economic damage has been limited because the U.A.W. has struck only a small number of plants and warehouses, but the pain could worsen if work stoppages grow to include many more locations and last weeks or months.“The economic spillovers from the U.A.W. strike remain contained as we near the two-week mark,” said Gabriel Ehrlich, an economic forecaster at the University of Michigan. “We are seeing some layoffs among automotive suppliers, ranging from seat makers to steelworkers. We would expect these impacts to accumulate as the strike persists and additional targets are announced.”When the union started walkouts at assembly plants, it appeared to target plants that make popular models, like the Ford Bronco, the Jeep Wrangler and the Chevrolet Colorado. It widened the strike on Sept. 22 to include parts distribution centers at G.M. and Stellantis.As those popular models become more scarce, dealers are likely to push up prices.“They took out the ones that are going to hurt the most,” said Jeff Rightmer, a professor at Wayne State University who specializes in supply chain management. “At this point, they’re not going to be able to get that production back.”New-car sales are expected to rise this month, despite the strike and high interest rates, according to Cox Automotive. And for now, overall inventories for the three companies remain stable, except for the most popular models, according to data from CoPilot, a firm that tracks dealer inventories.As of Sept. 24, G.M. had enough vehicles on dealer lots to meet demand for 40 to 70 days across its four brands. Ford had enough cars and trucks for 74 days. And Stellantis had more than 100 days across three of its four divisions; Jeep had less than 100 days.Jeep Wranglers at the Stellantis Toledo Assembly Complex in Toledo, Ohio, at the beginning of the strike.Evan Cobb for The New York TimesAmong the 10 models affected by the first set of U.A.W. strikes, supply for four models has dwindled to less than one month’s sales.“Once that dries up, they’re not building anything, so it’s important that the strike is as short as possible,” said Wes Lutz, a car dealer in Jackson, Mich., who sells Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and Ram models.He has been getting cars from other plants, including large pickup trucks imported from Mexico. But he is worried that an expanding strike could reduce the supply of more models.An even bigger concern, Mr. Lutz said, is that the strikes at G.M. and Stellantis parts warehouses could soon make it hard to repair vehicles, leaving some drivers stranded. He said that he was working with other dealers to trade spare parts among themselves to keep their service departments going.Servicing and repairing vehicles is generally the most profitable part of car dealerships. Service departments bring in so much money that they can cover most or all of the costs of running dealerships, said Pat Ryan, chief executive of CoPilot.That’s why a parts shortage could deal a bigger blow to dealers than not having enough vehicles to sell. If parts are hard to come by for weeks or months, some dealers may suspend repairs and lay off mechanics.Another group of businesses exposed to the strikes are the companies that make parts and components like batteries and mufflers for new vehicles. Nearly 700 auto suppliers could be hurt by the strike, according to Resilinc, a supply chain monitoring company.CIE Newcor, an auto components maker, notified workers on Sept. 21 that it expected to lay off 300 employees at four Michigan plants starting Oct. 2. The extent of the layoffs will be “determined by the length of the potential U.A.W. — Detroit 3 strike,” the company said in a regulatory filing.Much of the auto industry practices “just in time” production, meaning materials are delivered and parts are built and sent to car factories as they are needed.If smaller suppliers go more than a few weeks without selling products to customers, some may have to seek bankruptcy protection, said Ann Marie Uetz, a Detroit-based partner at the law firm Foley & Lardner who represents auto suppliers. “There is definite strain in the supply chain, and you’re going to see some of them suffer as a result of the strike if it lingers for a month or more.” More

  • 113 Shares129 Views

    in Economy

    U.A.W. Says It Could Expand Auto Strikes on Friday

    by

    The United Automobile Workers union said the strikes against General Motors, Ford and Stellantis could grow on Friday if negotiators don’t make enough progress.The United Automobile Workers union said on Wednesday that it planned to expand its strike against the big three Michigan automakers on Friday if negotiators failed to make substantial progress on new contracts.The union ordered workers to walk off the job nearly two weeks ago at three vehicle assembly plants — each owned by one of the companies, General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis, the parent of Chrysler and Jeep. Last Friday the union broadened the strike to include spare parts-distribution centers owned by G.M. and Stellantis, saying it had made progress in its talks with Ford.The U.A.W. president, Shawn Fain, is scheduled to update members in a video streamed live on Facebook on Friday morning.The union is seeking a substantial wage increase to make up for much smaller raises over the last decade. Each of the companies has offered to lift wages by roughly 20 percent over four years, about half of what the U.A.W. is seeking. The union has demanded other measures including cost-of-living adjustments, the right to strike to protest plant closures, pensions for more workers and company-paid health care for retirees.The three plants that have been shut down by the strike include a G.M. factory in Wentzville, Mo., a Ford plant in Wayne, Mich., and a Stellantis complex in Toledo, Ohio. They make some of the manufacturers’ most profitable models, including the GMC Canyon pickup truck, the Ford Bronco sport-utility vehicle, and the Jeep Wrangler.The second wave of the strike idled 20 Stellantis parts-distribution centers and 18 owned by G.M. More than 18,000 U.A.W. workers are now on strike. The union represents about 150,000 workers employed by G.M., Ford and Stellantis.The union and the companies started negotiating new collective bargaining agreements in July, but made little progress until this month. Their contracts expired on Sept. 14 and Mr. Fain called on the first round of work stoppages the following day. More

  • 163 Shares199 Views

    in Economy

    U.A.W. Widens Strikes at G.M. and Stellantis, but Cites Progress in Ford Talks

    by

    The union designated 38 spare-parts distribution centers as additional strike targets at General Motors and Stellantis.The United Automobile Workers union on Friday significantly raised the pressure on General Motors and Stellantis, the parent of Jeep and Ram, by expanding its strike against the companies to include all the spare-parts distribution centers of the two companies.By widening the strike to the distribution centers, which supply parts to dealerships for repairs, the union is effectively taking its case to consumers, some of whom might find it difficult or impossible to have their cars and trucks fixed. The strategy could pressure the automakers to make more concessions to the union, but it could backfire on the union by frustrating car owners and turning them against the U.A.W.Shawn Fain, the union’s president, said Friday that workers at 38 distribution centers at the two companies would walk off the job. He said talks with two companies had not progressed significantly, contrasting them with Ford Motor, which he said had done more to meet the union’s demands.“We will shut down parts distribution centers until those two companies come to their senses and come to the bargaining table,” Mr. Fain said.Where Autoworkers Are Walking Out More

  • 125 Shares189 Views

    in Economy

    For Tesla and Musk, Auto Strike Carries Benefits and Risks

    by

    Elon Musk, the Tesla chief executive, may be able to exploit his rivals’ weaknesses, but the United Automobile Workers union also has the electric carmaker in its sights.The United Automobile Workers strike against the Michigan automakers would seem to be nothing but good news for Tesla, the electric vehicle maker that has upended the industry and stolen customers from Ford Motor, General Motors and Stellantis, which owns Jeep and Ram.Unencumbered by an activist union, Tesla can take advantage of the work stoppages to add to its substantial lead in battery technology and software. As the three established automakers face increases in labor costs and struggle to master electric vehicles, Tesla can twist the knife by lowering car prices because it is much more profitable than most automakers.But the U.A.W.’s determination to secure a big victory for its members, amid a nationwide resurgence in union activism, harbors risks for Tesla and Elon Musk, its chief executive, who has attacked and ridiculed unions on his social media network, X, formerly Twitter.The U.A.W., which has failed to organize Tesla’s factory workers in the past, is gearing up for another attempt, a top union official said.“There is a group of Tesla workers who are actively talking about forming a union and creating the best representation they can for themselves and their co-workers through collective bargaining,” said Mike Miller, the director of the U.A.W.’s Region 6, which includes California and Nevada, where Tesla makes cars and batteries. Tesla also has a large factory in Austin, Texas, not too far from a unionized G.M. factory in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.In an interview, Mr. Miller declined to provide more details or identify the Tesla workers, saying they needed time to prepare before going public. This union organizing effort is separate from a campaign at a Buffalo plant where Tesla makes electric vehicle chargers and employs data entry workers.But as representatives of the national union demand 40 percent wage increases from the Detroit automakers, along with significant gains in benefits, they are certainly thinking about the signal that any deal would send to nonunion workers at Tesla.Tesla has upended the industry and stolen customers from Ford Motor, General Motors and Stellantis and dominates the market for electric vehicles.Jim Wilson/The New York Times“Clearly the narrative out there is that this can’t be good for the Big Three, and if it’s not good for the Big Three, it’s good for Tesla,” said Rahul Kapoor, a professor of management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.But he added, “If I’m an autoworker with wages lower than what Ford and G.M. are paying, and I hear there is a substantial increase, it’s very likely I would want to take that into account.”The president of the U.A.W., Shawn Fain, fired a warning shot at Mr. Musk Sunday on CBS News’s “Face the Nation.”“Most of these workers in those companies are scraping to get by so that greedy C.E.O.s and greedy people like Elon Musk can build more rocket ships and shoot theirself in outer space,” he said.A lot has changed since 2016, when a group of workers at Tesla’s auto assembly plant in Fremont, Calif., began an organizing drive that never acquired enough momentum to come to a vote.Back then, Tesla was a struggling upstart flirting with bankruptcy. Now, Tesla dominates the market for electric vehicles, with a 60 percent share in the United States. It is worth vastly more on the stock market than the three established U.S. automakers combined. It is arguably in a better position to reward workers than its rivals.Yet labor organizing is arduous. Activists must get at least 30 percent of workers to sign union cards and force a vote overseen by the National Labor Relations Board. Companies often do all they can to dissuade workers from joining, hiring lawyers and consultants who specialize in defeating union campaigns.Even if a majority of workers cast ballots in favor of a union, winning pay increases and better benefits comes only after negotiations that can drag for years. Amazon workers at a Staten Island warehouse voted in April 2022 to unionize, but Amazon has challenged the result and has yet to begin bargaining on a contract.Still, Tesla would be a tempting target for unions. The company reported profit of $2.7 billion on sales of $25 billion in the second quarter, giving it a profit margin of about 11 percent. That profit margin is more than that of Ford or G.M., even after an exceptionally profitable period for those companies. Stellantis, which was created by the 2021 merger of Fiat Chrysler and Peugeot, reported an 11 percent profit margin in the first six months of the year, but lost market share in the United States.Tesla’s stronger financial performance has allowed it to significantly cut car prices, making it harder for the established carmakers to gain ground in electric vehicles. The least expensive Model 3 sedan costs about $33,000 after federal tax credits, less than comparable gasoline vehicles.The climate for organized labor is better than it has been for years. President Biden is a big supporter of unions. Hollywood writers and actors are on strike, a high-profile manifestation of labor activism. In August, United Parcel Service employees won their biggest raises ever in a contract negotiated by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.Tesla did not respond to a request for comment, but Mr. Musk seemed to acknowledge the union threat last week, saying on X that his workers were better off than employees of G.M., Ford and Stellantis. “We pay more than the U.A.W.,” he said, although he added that “performance expectations are also higher.”A Hummer electric vehicle on display at the Detroit Auto Show. G.M. and the other two established U.S. automakers have struggled to master electric vehicles.Brittany Greeson for The New York TimesThe traditional automakers quarreled with Mr. Musk’s math, saying that they pay their workers substantially more and that a big raise would only widen the gap and undermine their ability to invest in electric vehicle and battery factories. Ford says its hourly employees make an average of $112,000 per year including benefits, compared with about $90,000 at Tesla.The Ford figures do not include stock options that Tesla grants employees, and that can be worth a lot. Mr. Musk has said that some production workers have become millionaires from their shares in the company.Stock options can be lucrative but also risky. Tesla has not detailed how often or in what amount it distributes options to rank-and-file workers. In regulatory filings, the company has said the options that those workers receive have a vesting period, meaning that employees must remain at the company for a certain period to cash them in.Tesla workers may lose their options if they are fired or forced to quit because of injury or poor health, said Bryan Schwartz, a lawyer in Oakland, Calif., who has represented the company’s employees in lawsuits against the company.“There are lots of issues with options to the degree workers can really count on them,” Mr. Schwartz said.Stock awards fluctuate in value along with Tesla’s share price. The stock peaked at more than $400 in late 2021, plummeted to a little more than $100 last year and rebounded this year to $270. The uncertainty may be unsettling for workers trying to make mortgage payments and pay for child care.“If I was a Tesla worker, with all these other companies making E.V.s, I would prefer a wage,” said Rick Eckstein, a professor of sociology at Villanova University who follows labor issues.Tesla has a reputation as a tough place to work, with long hours and punishing deadlines. Mr. Schwartz has sued Tesla on behalf of Black employees who say they faced discrimination in promotions and work assignments and were subject to racist abuse. Tesla has denied the accusations.Any union drive would face forceful opposition from Mr. Musk. The National Labor Relations Board has found that Mr. Musk illegally threatened employees in 2018 by implying they would lose their stock options if they voted to unionize. The labor board also found that Tesla illegally fired one of the lead organizers.An appeals court upheld the board’s decision. Tesla, which argues that Mr. Musk and the company did nothing wrong, is appealing the court ruling.Without doubt, the strike poses huge risks for the Detroit automakers, which were slow to take Tesla seriously and stand to lose precious time they need to catch up.“The real winner in the U.A.W. strike will likely be the auto company that has been winning all along,” Gary Black, managing partner of the Future Fund, an investment firm that owns Tesla stock, said on X.But any schadenfreude among Tesla investors could be brief.“The strike could be a bellwether,” said Mr. Eckstein of Villanova. “It’s a hot time in the labor movement.” More

  • 163 Shares139 Views

    in Economy

    Ford Averts Auto Strike in Canada as UAW Talks in U.S. Inch Along

    by

    The United Auto Workers union is threatening to expand strikes on Friday if it does not make significant progress in talks with General Motors, Ford and Stellantis.Negotiations between each of the three large U.S. automakers and the United Auto Workers union remain far from being resolved, but one of the companies — Ford Motor — has averted a second strike in Canada.Late on Tuesday, the company reached a tentative labor agreement with Unifor, Canada’s main auto union. The deal was announced minutes before an 11:59 p.m. deadline set by the union for a strike by its 5,600 members at Ford.Neither side disclosed the terms of the agreement, but Unifor said the company had made a “substantive offer.”“We believe that this agreement will solidify the foundations on which we will continue to bargain gains for generations of autoworkers in Canada,” Unifor’s national president, Lana Payne, said in a statement.Unifor’s talks with Ford, General Motors and Stellantis, which owns Chrysler, Jeep and Ram, started on Aug. 10 but have been overshadowed by the U.A.W. contract talks in the United States.Ford has an assembly plant and two engine plants in Canada. Unifor selected Ford as the “target” of its talks, meaning it focused on securing the best deal it could from the company before turning to the other two automakers. Now, it will seek to strike similar agreements with G.M. and Stellantis.Ford’s deal in Canada appears to have little bearing on the U.A.W. strikes in the United States.Last Thursday, the U.A.W. told nearly 13,000 workers to leave their jobs at three U.S. plants: a G.M. pickup truck factory in Wentzville, Mo.; a Ford truck and sport utility vehicle plant in Wayne, Mich.; and a Stellantis S.U.V. plant in Toledo, Ohio.The talks appear to have progressed only a little since the strikes began on Friday. On Wednesday, the U.A.W. said it was reviewing a new offer from Stellantis but declined to provide details.Josh Boyd, with his daughter, is an auto mechanic at the headquarters’ technical center. He said he was ready to walk out if asked by the union.Nick Hagen for The New York TimesThe union is seeking a 40 percent increase in wages over four years, saying the pay of the automakers’ chief executives rose by roughly that much over the previous four years. The companies have offered raises of just over 20 percent.The U.S. union also wants more workers to qualify for pension plans, company-paid health care for retirees, shorter working hours and other improvements. And the U.A.W. is seeking an end to a practice under which new hires are paid about $17 an hour — a bit more than half the top union wage of $32 an hour.At $32 an hour, a U.A.W. member working 40 hours a week is paid about $67,000 a year. In recent years, the companies have paid workers profit-sharing bonuses of $9,000 to $15,000.Outside Stellantis’s North American headquarters in Auburn Hills, Mich., on Wednesday, workers who are not on strike picketed in support of the work stoppage, chanting, “No justice, no Jeeps.”Josh Boyd, 36, an auto mechanic who works at the headquarters’ technical center, said he was ready to walk out if asked by the union. “There’s always uncertainty, but there’s also excitement,” he said. “I think we’re going to get a good contract.”Mr. Boyd, who carried his young daughter on his shoulder, said that he earned $32 an hour, but that his family of three was stretched. “Day care is $250 a week,” he said. “I’ve got a mortgage. My wife is in school, so we are on one income.”LaShawn English, a regional U.A.W. director, said the wage increases offered by the automakers would apply to most but not all workers.Nick Hagen for The New York TimesLaShawn English, who was elected this year as the director of the U.A.W.’s Region 1, which includes parts of Michigan and Canada, said the wage increases offered by the automakers would apply to most but not all workers. Among those who would not get the same raises are temporary workers who make up about 12 percent of Stellantis’s unionized work force of 43,000.“It’s not just about the higher-wage workers,” she said. “We have to move everybody forward. We can’t leave people behind.”Earlier on Wednesday, Stellantis presented a new offer to the union but did not disclose details other than to say it primarily addressed issues other than wages. The company also said it had to lay off 68 workers at a machining plant in Ohio, and might have to lay off 300 more in Indiana because of the U.A.W.’s strike at its Toledo plant, which makes Jeeps.On Tuesday, the U.A.W. president, Shawn Fain, said the union might expand the strike to additional plants this week if it did not make significant progress toward an agreement. Mr. Fain is expected to announce additional strike locations Friday morning with workers leaving their jobs at noon.In the past, the U.A.W. typically struck at all locations of one automaker at a time. Mr. Fain was elected president of the union this year on promises to take a more combative approach. His unusual strike strategy, frequent media appearances and strident criticisms of management appear to have caught the automakers off guard.On Friday, Mr. Fain appeared at a rally of several hundred workers in Detroit along with Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent.On Wednesday, G.M.’s second-highest-ranking executive, its president, Mark Reuss, sought to rebut Mr. Fain’s criticisms in an opinion essay in The Detroit Free Press.He said G.M. had offered to increase wages 20 percent over the next four years, which would lift the top wage to more than $39 an hour, or about $82,000 a year, based on a 40-hour workweek. Entry-level workers now earning $17 an hour would reach $39 an hour after four years.“U.A.W. leadership claims G.M. pays its team members ‘poverty’ wages,’” Mr. Reuss wrote. “This is simply not true.”While G.M. is making near-record profits — it made almost $10 billion in 2022 — Mr. Reuss said the company was investing heavily to make the transition to electric vehicles, including $11 billion this year. He added that the company could not afford to pay what the U.A.W. was seeking if it wanted to remain competitive and healthy.“The fundamental reality is that the U.A.W.’s demands can be described in one word — untenable,” he wrote, adding, “As the past has clearly shown, nobody wins in a strike.”Separately, the U.A.W. said on Wednesday that 190 union members went on strike at a Tuscaloosa, Ala., plant owned by ZF, a company that supplies axles to Mercedes-Benz. More