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Could the Union Victory at VW Set Off a Wave?

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Some experts say the outcome at a plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., may be organized labor’s most significant advance in decades. But the road could get rockier.By voting to join the United Automobile Workers, Volkswagen workers in Tennessee have given the union something it has never had: a factory-wide foothold at a major foreign automaker in the South.The result, in an election that ended on Friday, will enable the union to bargain for better wages and benefits. Now the question is what difference it will make beyond the Volkswagen plant.Labor experts said success at VW might position the union to replicate its showing at other auto manufacturers throughout the South, the least unionized region of the country. Some argued that the win could help set off a rise in union membership at other companies that exceeds the uptick of the past few years, when unions won elections at Starbucks and Amazon locations.“It’s a big vote, symbolically and substantively,” said Jake Rosenfeld, a sociologist who studies labor at Washington University in St. Louis.The next test for the U.A.W. will come in a vote in mid-May at a Mercedes-Benz plant in Alabama.In addition, at least 30 percent of workers have signed cards authorizing the U.A.W. to represent them at a Hyundai plant in Alabama and a Toyota plant in Missouri, according to the union. That is the minimum needed to force an election, though the union has yet to petition for one in either location.“People only take action when they believe there is an alternative to the status quo that has a plausible chance of winning,” said Barry Eidlin, a sociologist at McGill University in Montreal.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    VW Workers in Tennessee Vote for Union

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    The Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga is set to become the first unionized auto factory in the South not owned by one of Detroit’s Big Three.In a landmark victory for organized labor, workers at a Volkswagen plant in Tennessee have voted overwhelmingly to join the United Automobile Workers union, becoming the first nonunion auto plant in a Southern state to do so.The company said in a statement late Friday that the union had won 2,628 votes, with 985 opposed, in a three-day election. Two earlier bids by the U.A.W. to organize the Chattanooga factory over the last 10 years were narrowly defeated.The outcome is a breakthrough for the labor movement in a region where anti-union sentiment has been strong for decades. And it comes six months after the U.A.W. won record wage gains and improved benefits in negotiations with the Detroit automakers.The U.A.W. has for more than 80 years represented workers employed by General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis, the producer of Chrysler, Jeep, Ram and Dodge vehicles, and has organized some heavy-truck and bus factories in the South.But the union had failed in previous attempts to organize any of the two dozen automobile factories owned by other companies across an area stretching from South Carolina to Texas and as far north as Ohio and Indiana.With the victory in Chattanooga, the U.A.W. will turn its focus to other Southern plants. A vote will take place in mid-May at a Mercedes-Benz plant in Vance, Ala., near Tuscaloosa. The U.A.W. is hoping to organize a half-dozen or more plants over the next two years.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    VW Workers in Tennessee Start Vote on U.A.W., Testing Union Ambitions

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    The United Automobile Workers hopes contract gains at the Big Three carmakers will provide momentum in a broad effort to organize nonunion plants.Last fall the United Automobile Workers union won big pay increases from the Detroit automakers, and the impact rippled quickly through the nonunion auto plants scattered across the South.Afterward, Toyota, Honda, Volkswagen, Nissan, Hyundai and Tesla raised wages for their own hourly workers in the United States, none of whom are unionized. On production lines in Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky and elsewhere, those pay increases have been referred to as the “U.A.W. bump.”Now 4,300 workers at Volkswagen’s plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., will test whether the union can achieve an even greater bump. On Wednesday, they begin voting on whether to join the U.A.W., and the prospects of a union victory appear high. About 70 percent of the workers pledged to vote yes before the union asked for a vote, according to the U.A.W.“I think our chances are excellent,” said Kelcey Smith, 48, who has worked in the VW plant’s paint department for a year and is a member of a committee working to build support for the U.A.W. “The energy is high. I think we are going to nail it.”Volkswagen has presented reasons it believes a union is not needed at the plant, including pay that is above average for the Chattanooga region. But it has also said it encourages all workers to vote in the election, which is to conclude on Friday, and decide for themselves. “No one will lose their job for voting for or against the union,” a company spokesman said.The stakes go beyond the Tennessee plant, Volkswagen’s only U.S. factory. A victory there would add fuel to the U.A.W.’s push to extend its presence to the more than two dozen nonunion auto plants in the United States, mostly clustered in Southern states where union resistance has been strong historically, and where right-to-work laws make it hard for unions to organize workers.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Why Better Times (and Big Raises) Haven’t Cured the Inflation Hangover

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    Frustrated by higher prices, many Pennsylvanians with fresh pay raises and solid finances report a sense of insecurity lingering from the pandemic.A disconnect between economic data and consumer sentiment is being felt by Pennsylvania residents, including, from left, Donald Woods, a retired firefighter in West Philadelphia; Darren Mattern, a nurse in Altoona; and Lindsay Danella, a server in Altoona.Left: Caroline Gutman for The New York Times. Center and right: Ross Mantle for The New York TimesIn western Pennsylvania, halfway through one of those classic hazy March days when the worst of winter has passed, but the bare trees tilting in the wind tell everyone spring is yet to come, Darren Mattern was putting in some extra work.Tucked at a corner table inside a Barnes & Noble cafe in Logan Town Centre, a sprawling exurban shopping complex in Blair County, he tapped away at two laptops. His work PC was open with notes on his clients: local seniors in need of at-home health care and living assistance, whom he serves as a registered nurse. On his sleeker, personal laptop he eyed some coursework for the master’s degree in nursing he’s finishing so he can work as a supervisor soon.Mr. Mattern, warm and steady in demeanor, says the “huge blessing” of things evident in his everyday life at 35 — financial security, a home purchase last year, a baby on the way — weren’t possible until recently.He had warehouse jobs for most of his 20s, making a few dollars above minimum wage (in a state where that’s still $7.25 an hour), until he took nursing classes in the late 2010s. Shortly after becoming certified, he pushed through long days in a hospital during the height of the Covid pandemic at a salary of $40,000. Today, he has what he calls “the best nursing job pay-wise I’ve ever had,” at $85,000.Mr. Mattern’s trajectory is one bright line in a broad upward trend that hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians, and millions of other Americans, have experienced since the pandemic recession — a comeback in which unemployment has been below 4 percent for the longest stretch since the 1960s, small-business creation has flourished and the stock market has reached new heights.There’s a disconnect, however, between the raw data and a national mood that is somewhat improved but still sour. A surge in average weekly pay and full-time employment has helped offset the demoralizing effects of a two-year bout of heavy inflation as the global economy chaotically reopened. But it has not neutralized them.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    3 Facts That Help Explain a Confusing Economic Moment

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    3 Facts That Help Explain a Confusing Economic Moment

    The path to a “soft landing” doesn’t seem as smooth as it did four months ago. But the expectations of a year ago have been surpassed.April 13, 2024The economic news of the past two weeks has been enough to leave even seasoned observers feeling whipsawed. The unemployment rate fell. Inflation rose. The stock market plunged, then rebounded, then dropped again.Take a step back, however, and the picture comes into sharper focus.Compared with the outlook in December, when the economy seemed to be on a glide path to a surprisingly smooth “soft landing,” the recent news has been disappointing. Inflation has proved more stubborn than hoped. Interest rates are likely to stay at their current level, the highest in decades, at least into the summer, if not into next year.Shift the comparison point back just a bit, however, to the beginning of last year, and the story changes. Back then, forecasters were widely predicting a recession, convinced that the Federal Reserve’s efforts to control inflation would inevitably result in job losses, bankruptcies and foreclosures. And yet inflation, even accounting for its recent hiccups, has cooled significantly, while the rest of the economy has so far escaped significant damage.“It seems churlish to complain about where we are right now,” said Wendy Edelberg, director of the Hamilton Project, an economic policy arm of the Brookings Institution. “This has been a really remarkably painless slowdown given what we all worried about.”The monthly gyrations in consumer prices, job growth and other indicators matter intensely to investors, for whom every hundredth of a percentage point in Treasury yields can affect billions of dollars in trades.But for pretty much everyone else, what matters is the somewhat longer run. And from that perspective, the economic outlook has shifted in some subtle but important ways.

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    Change in prices from a year earlier in select categories
    Notes: “Groceries” chart shows price index for food at home. “Furniture” includes bedding.Source: Bureau of Labor StatisticsBy The New York Times

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    The unemployment rate
    Source: Bureau of Labor StatisticsBy The New York Times

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    The federal funds target rate
    Note: The rate since December 2008 is the upper limit of the federal funds target range.Source: The Federal ReserveBy The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Immigrants in Maine Are Filling a Labor Gap. It May Be a Prelude for the U.S.

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    Maine has a lot of lobsters. It also has a lot of older people, ones who are less and less willing and able to catch, clean and sell the crustaceans that make up a $1 billion industry for the state. Companies are turning to foreign-born workers to bridge the divide.“Folks born in Maine are generally not looking for manufacturing work, especially in food manufacturing,” said Ben Conniff, a founder of Luke’s Lobster, explaining that the firm’s lobster processing plant has been staffed mostly by immigrants since it opened in 2013, and that foreign-born workers help keep “the natural resources economy going.”Maine has the oldest population of any U.S. state, with a median age of 45.1. As America overall ages, the state offers a preview of what that could look like economically — and the critical role that immigrants are likely to play in filling the labor market holes that will be created as native-born workers retire.Nationally, immigration is expected to become an increasingly critical source of new workers and economic vibrancy in the coming decades.It’s a silver lining at a time when huge immigrant flows that started in 2022 are straining state and local resources across the country and drawing political backlash. While the influx may pose near-term challenges, it is also boosting the American economy’s potential. Employers today are managing to hire rapidly partly because of the incoming labor supply. The Congressional Budget Office has already revised up both its population and its economic growth projections for the next decade in light of the wave of newcomers.In Maine, companies are already beginning to look to immigrants to fill labor force gaps on factory floors and in skilled trades alike as native-born employees either leave the work force or barrel toward retirement.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Mercedes-Benz Workers in Alabama Ask for Unionization Vote

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    The United Automobile Workers union is mounting its most ambitious effort to gain an industry foothold beyond Detroit’s Big Three.Workers at a Mercedes-Benz factory in Alabama have petitioned federal officials to hold a vote on whether to join the United Automobile Workers, the union said on Friday, a step forward for its drive to organize workers at car factories in the South.The union is trying to build on the momentum from the contracts it won last year at Ford Motor, General Motors and Stellantis, which gave workers at the three Detroit carmakers their biggest raises in decades.The U.A.W. is also trying to organize workers at a Volkswagen factory in Tennessee and a Hyundai factory in Alabama, establishing a bigger presence in states that have drawn much of the new investment in automobile manufacturing in recent decades. A vote at the Volkswagen plant is scheduled for April 17 to 19.The drive has taken on added importance as Southern states like South Carolina and Georgia attract billions of dollars in investment in electric vehicle and battery manufacturing. The U.A.W. is trying to ensure that jobs created by electric vehicles do not pay less than jobs at traditional auto factories.A large majority of workers at the Mercedes plant, near Tuscaloosa, had earlier signed cards expressing support for a vote. On Friday they formally petitioned the National Labor Relations Board to hold an election on whether to be represented by the U.A.W., the union said.Mercedes, which makes luxury sport utility vehicles in Alabama, said in a statement that it “fully respects our team members’ choice whether to unionize” and that it would ensure that workers had “access to the information necessary to make an informed choice.”Southern states have traditionally been difficult territory for unions, in some cases because of legislation unfavorable to organized labor or because elected officials openly campaigned against unions. The lack of a strong union presence is probably one reason the region has attracted a big share of auto industry investment.Attempts in 2014 and 2019 to organize Volkswagen’s factory in Chattanooga, where the German company makes the Atlas sport utility vehicle and ID.4 electric S.U.V., failed in part because of opposition from Republican elected officials in Tennessee.Toyota, Volkswagen and other carmakers raised hourly wages after the union won pay increases for Ford, G.M. and Stellantis workers. Still, the nonunion workers tend to earn less. In many cases, pay is less of an issue than work schedules, health benefits and time off.In a video on Friday, the U.A.W. president, Shawn Fain, said workers were fighting for “work-life balance, good health care you can afford, a better life for your family.”The union has complained to the National Labor Relations Board that Mercedes has retaliated against organizers in Alabama. The carmaker denied the accusations, saying it “has not interfered with or retaliated against any team member in their right to pursue union representation.” More

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    U.S. Employers Added 303,000 Jobs in 39th Straight Month of Growth

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    The March data increased confidence among economists and investors that robust hiring and rising wages can continue to coexist while inflation eases.Another month, another burst of better-than-expected job gains.Employers added 303,000 jobs in March on a seasonally adjusted basis, the Labor Department reported on Friday, and the unemployment rate fell to 3.8 percent, from 3.9 percent in February. Expectations of a recession among experts, once widespread, are now increasingly rare.It was the 39th straight month of job growth. And employment levels are now more than three million greater than forecast by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office just before the pandemic shock.The resilient data generally increased confidence among economists and market investors that the U.S. economy has reached a healthy equilibrium in which a steady roll of commercial activity, growing employment and rising wages can coexist, despite the high interest rate levels of the last two years.From late 2021 to early 2023, inflation was outstripping wage gains, but that also now appears to have firmly shifted, even as wage increases decelerate from their roaring rates of growth in 2022. Average hourly earnings for workers rose 0.3 percent in March from the previous month and were up 4.1 percent from March 2023.Wage growth continues to slowYear-over-year percentage change in earnings vs. inflation More

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    Poor Nations Are Writing a New Handbook for Getting Rich

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    Economies focused on exports have lifted millions out of poverty, but epochal changes in trade, supply chains and technology are making it a lot harder.For more than half a century, the handbook for how developing countries can grow rich hasn’t changed much: Move subsistence farmers into manufacturing jobs, and then sell what they produce to the rest of the world.The recipe — customized in varying ways by Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and China — has produced the most potent engine the world has ever known for generating economic growth. It has helped lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, create jobs and raise standards of living.The Asian Tigers and China succeeded by combining vast pools of cheap labor with access to international know-how and financing, and buyers that reached from Kalamazoo to Kuala Lumpur. Governments provided the scaffolding: They built up roads and schools, offered business-friendly rules and incentives, developed capable administrative institutions and nurtured incipient industries.But technology is advancing, supply chains are shifting, and political tensions are reshaping trade patterns. And with that, doubts are growing about whether industrialization can still deliver the miracle growth it once did. For developing countries, which contain 85 percent of the globe’s population — 6.8 billion people — the implications are profound.Today, manufacturing accounts for a smaller share of the world’s output, and China already does more than a third of it. At the same time, more emerging countries are selling inexpensive goods abroad, increasing competition. There are not as many gains to be squeezed out: Not everyone can be a net exporter or offer the world’s lowest wages and overhead.Robotics at a car factory in China. Today, manufacturing accounts for a smaller share of the world’s output, and China already does more than a third of it. Qilai Shen for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More