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    Restaurants Agree to Raise Pay to $20 an Hour in California

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    The deal will avoid a ballot fight over a law passed last year that could have resulted in higher pay and other changes opposed by restaurant companies and franchisees.Labor groups and fast-food companies in California have reached an agreement that will pave the way for workers in the industry to receive a minimum wage of $20 per hour.The deal, which will result in changes to Assembly Bill 1228, was announced by the Service Employees International Union on Monday, and will mean an increase to the minimum wage for California fast-food workers by April. In exchange, labor groups and their allies in the Legislature will agree to the fast-food industry’s demands to remove a provision from the bill that could have made restaurant companies liable for workplace violations committed by their franchisees.The agreement is contingent on the withdrawal of a referendum proposal by restaurant companies in California that would have challenged the proposed legislation in the 2024 ballot. Businesses, labor groups and others have often used ballot measures in California to block legislation or advance their causes. The proposed legislation would also create a council for overseeing future increases to the minimum wage and enact workplace regulations.Mary Kay Henry, the president of the S.E.I.U., said the measure in California would be a model for other states. “California fast-food workers’ fight for a seat at the table has reshaped what working people believe is possible when they join together,” she said.Sean Kennedy, the executive vice president of public affairs at the National Restaurant Association, said the deal also benefited restaurants. “This agreement protects local restaurant owners from significant threats that would have made it difficult to continue to operate in California,” he said. “It provides a more predictable and stable future for restaurants, workers and consumers.”Even so, some franchisees said they did not support the deal.“The real issue is who is this impacting the most? It’s the franchisees,” said Keith Miller, a Subway franchisee in Northern California who has become an advocate for the interests of others like him. “There was a lot of back-room dealing that made this happen and no time for anyone to really voice opposition.”Willie Armstrong, the chief of staff for Assemblyman Chris Holden, a Democrat, who is the sponsor of A.B. 1228, said the lawmaker expected the measure to be approved by the Legislature before its session ended on Thursday.Last year, the Legislature passed Assembly Bill 257, a measure Mr. Holden also sponsored, which would have created a council with the authority to raise the minimum wage to $22 per hour for restaurant workers. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed it on Labor Day last year.But the bill met fierce opposition from business interests and restaurant companies, and a petition received enough signatures to put a measure on the November 2024 ballot to stop the law from going into effect.Other business groups in California have successfully used that tactic to change or reverse legislation they opposed.In 2020, ride-sharing and delivery companies like Uber and Instacart campaigned for and received an exemption from a key provision of Assembly Bill 5, which was signed by Mr. Newsom and would have made it much harder for the companies to classify drivers as independent contractors rather than employees.Those companies collected enough signatures to get the issue on the ballot as Proposition 22, which passed in November 2020. More than $200 million was spent on that measure, making it the costliest ballot initiative in the state at the time.And in February, oil companies received enough signatures for a measure that aims to block legislation banning new drilling projects near homes and schools. That initiative will be on the 2024 ballot.In response to calls from advocacy groups who have said the referendum process unfairly benefits wealthy special-interest groups, and in an effort to demystify a system that many Californians say is confusing, Mr. Newsom signed legislation on Sept. 8 that aims to simplify the referendum process.Kurtis Lee More

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    Automakers and U.A.W. Remain Far Apart as Contract Deadline Nears

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    The United Auto Workers has said it is prepared to strike at General Motors, Ford and Stellantis if a deal is not reached before current contracts end on Thursday.The United Auto Workers union and the three established U.S. automakers remain far apart on wages and other issues with less than a week to go before contracts covering 150,000 union workers expire.So far, the companies — General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis, the parent of Chrysler — have offered to raise pay by 14 percent to 16 percent over four years. Their offers include lump sum payments to help ease the impact of inflation, and policy changes that would lift the pay of recent hires and temporary workers, who typically earn about a third less than veteran union members.But the union’s combative new president, Shawn Fain, has dismissed the offers as “insulting,” noting that the three manufacturers have been making near-record profits for almost a decade, and that pay packages of top executives have increased substantially. He has been seeking pay increases of about 40 percent and repeatedly warned that workers were ready to leave assembly lines when the current collective bargaining agreements with the automakers expire on Thursday.Mr. Fain has said the union is willing to strike at all three automakers simultaneously, a step it has never taken before. An across-the-board stoppage would deal a big blow to the economies of Michigan and other states.“We aren’t going to stand by and allow them to drag out the negotiations like they’ve done in the past,” Mr. Fain said Friday in a video on Facebook. “If we hit 11:59 on Thursday without a deal at any of the Big Three automakers, there will be a strike — at all three if need be.”A Summer of StrikesSee how a wave of labor activity in the United States this summer compares with decades past.The talks are taking place during a sweeping shift from combustion engine cars and trucks to electric vehicles, which require fewer parts and less labor to produce. U.A.W. leaders and members are increasingly worried that the transition will eliminate jobs and, over time, reduce wages and benefits.The automakers are also worried about the transition. G.M., Ford and Stellantis are spending tens of billions of dollars to build new factories and scour the world for battery raw materials like lithium. Company executives have argued that offering the U.A.W. members big raises could leave them at a significant cost disadvantage to Tesla, which dominates the U.S. electric car market and employs nonunion workers.The auto industry is the largest U.S. manufacturing sector, and accounts for about 3 percent of the nation’s economic output. The three Detroit automakers operate dozens of plants that make about 500,000 cars a month.The Anderson Economic Group, a research firm in East Lansing, Mich., estimated that a 10-day strike against the three companies would reduce the companies’ profits by $1 billion and wages by $900 million for U.A.W. members and workers employed by other companies that depend on the automakers.Aside from wages, the union and the companies remain far apart on several other matters, including measures to preserve jobs and discourage the closing of U.S. plants, increases in retirement benefits and cost-of-living adjustments, which were once standard in U.A.W. contracts.The union has made some progress in its discussions with Ford. In response to Mr. Fain’s demands, the automaker offered to increase wages by about 15 percent, through a 9 percent increase in base wages and one-time lump sum payments of $11,000 per worker. While Mr. Fain rejected that, the two sides have continued bargaining. He was scheduled to update U.A.W. members later on Friday about Ford’s latest offer.Talks with G.M. and Stellantis have proceeded more slowly. The U.A.W. filed a complaint last week with the National Labor Relations Board, saying the two manufacturers had refused to offer proposals in response to the union’s demands and were not negotiating in good faith.G.M. responded by offering a combination of base wage increases and lump sum payments that would lift worker pay by about 16 percent. “We have already said we want to reward and recognize our employees with wage increases,” Gerald Johnson, G.M.’s executive vice president for global manufacturing, said this week.Agreeing to all of the union’s demands would threaten G.M.’s ability to compete, he added.Mr. Fain said the wage offer didn’t go far enough to make up for the impact of inflation on workers’ take-home pay over the last decade, and was too little in light of the profits G.M. was making. The automaker reported profits of $7 billion in the first half of the year. Mr. Fain also complained that G.M. had rejected the union’s proposals on job security, retiree pay, cost-of-living adjustments and other issues.Stellantis submitted its proposal to the union Friday morning, offering a 14.5 percent rise in base wages with no lump-sum payments.“This is a responsible and strong offer that positions us to continue providing good jobs to our employees,” Mark Stewart, the chief operating officer of Stellantis’s North American operations, said in a statement. “With this offer, we are seeking a timely resolution to our discussions.”Stellantis, which is based in Amsterdam and was created by the merger of Fiat Chrysler and Peugeot in 2021, earned 11 billion euros ($12 billion) in the first half of the year, a record. More

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    Auto Strike Looms, Threatening to Shut Detroit’s Big 3

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    With their contract expiring Sept. 14, the United Auto Workers and the companies are far apart in talks. A walkout could take a big economic toll.The United Auto Workers union and the three Detroit automakers have less than two weeks to negotiate a new labor contract, and a strike of some sort seems increasingly likely.The union’s president, Shawn Fain, has primed rank-and-file members to be prepared to walk off the job if the union’s long list of demands for improved wages and benefits are not met.A strike against one of the companies, especially a prolonged stoppage, could send an economic jolt through several Midwestern states and crimp the profits of General Motors, Ford Motor or Stellantis. G.M. workers walked out for 40 days in 2019 before reaching an agreement.A strike against all three — a step the union has never taken but one Mr. Fain has said he is willing to call for this year — could have a noticeable impact on the broader U.S. economy.“If that happens, even a short strike would impact economies throughout Michigan and across the nation,” said Patrick Anderson, the chief executive of the Anderson Economic Group in East Lansing, Mich.The talks are playing out as automakers are spending tens of billions of dollars to transition to electric vehicles, which require fewer workers to assemble than traditional gasoline-powered cars and trucks. The terms of the new contract will determine how both autoworkers and the companies fare in an E.V.-centric industry.At the same time, significant wage and benefit gains could provide a tailwind for a union movement that has been gaining strength across several industries.There are political stakes as well. President Biden has declared that “the U.A.W. deserves a contract that sustains the middle class” and has named a White House liaison to the union and the automakers. But the U.A.W. has withheld an endorsement of his re-election bid so far, partly because of concern over the union’s share of E.V.-related jobs created with federal subsidies.An agreement before the contracts expire on Sept. 14 is still possible, and talks could continue beyond that date without a walkout. But Mr. Fain has repeatedly said he views Sept. 14 as a deadline — the day a strike could begin. He was elected to the U.A.W. presidency last year as an insurgent, ousting the incumbent on a vow to take a more combative and confrontational approach in the talks than his recent predecessors.“President Fain has declared war, and that usually means there’s going to be a battle, and that battle would be a strike,” said Sam Fiorani, the vice president of global vehicle forecasting at Auto Forecast Solutions, a market researcher. “The U.A.W. leadership is in a position now where they have to prove to the members that they are fighting for them, so it’s pretty unlikely there won’t be a strike.”The auto industry as a whole, including foreign-owned companies with operations in the United States, makes up about 3 percent of the country’s gross domestic product. A 10-day strike against the three Detroit automakers would result in total wage losses of $859 million and manufacturers’ losses of $989 million, according to estimates by Mr. Anderson’s firm.In August, Mr. Fain sent each company a list of demands, including higher wages, improved benefits, a resumption of regular cost-of-living wage bumps to ward off the impact of inflation and an end to a wage structure that leaves newer hires making a third less than veteran workers. Mr. Fain suggested as much as a 40 percent wage increase, noting that the chief executives of each of the companies had their compensation packages rise substantially in the last four years.He also called for contract provisions that would require the automakers to pay workers to do community service if their plant closes, describing it as a way to deter the companies from shuttering factories and to protect towns and local economies from being ravaged by the loss of a major employer.“The manufacturers can absolutely afford some of those demands, but the more they get, the less competitive the companies are going to be,” Mr. Fiorani said.In a video message streamed on Facebook on Thursday, however, Mr. Fain said the union and the automakers remained far apart. Ford, he said, offered wage increases and other provisions that were “insulting” to the U.A.W.In a statement, Ford said it had offered a 9 percent wage increase and one-time lump-sum payments that, combined, would increase a worker’s income by 15 percent over the four-year contract. Mr. Fain said lump-sum payments helped but did not improve a worker’s income over a long period.The U.A.W. and Ford are also at odds over profit-sharing bonuses, the use of temporary workers, cost-of-living wage increases, retiree health care and several other matters.Mr. Fain said that G.M. and Stellantis had not provided counteroffers to the union’s proposals, and that the U.A.W. had filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board contending that the two companies were not negotiating in good faith.An assembly line for the Ford F-150 Lightning electric truck. Automakers are spending billions in the transition to electric vehicles, which require fewer workers to make than gasoline-powered cars and trucks.Brittany Greeson for The New York Times“I know this update is infuriating, and believe me when I say I’m fed up,” he said. “Our goal is not to strike. Our goal is to bargain a fair contract, but if we have to strike to win economic and social justice, we will.”G.M. said it was “surprised by and strongly refutes” the charges in the N.L.R.B. complaint. “We have been hyper-focused on negotiating directly and in good faith with the U.A.W. and are making progress,” Gerald Johnson, G.M.’s vice president of global manufacturing, said in a statement.Stellantis was “disappointed to learn that Mr. Fain is more focused on filing frivolous legal charges than on actual bargaining,” the company said in a statement. “We will vigorously defend this charge when the time comes, but right now, we are more focused on continuing to bargain in good faith for a new agreement.”In recent weeks, workers have organized several dozen rallies and other gatherings to prepare for picketing. “I think the membership is energized,” said Christine Bostic, a battery tester at a G.M. electric vehicle plant in Detroit. “The facts are on our side. If it comes to a strike, I’m ready for that.”To soften the impact of a stoppage, the union has amassed a strike fund of $825 million. It plans to pay striking workers $500 a week and cover their health insurance premiums while they are out of work.In recent days, Mr. Fain has joined the union’s negotiating teams in their talks with each of the automakers, an unusual step. Normally, the U.A.W. president does not take a direct role until the final days or hours of negotiations.On Wednesday, he took part in discussions with Stellantis, where tensions between the two sides have been high. When Stellantis responded to Mr. Fain’s demands with a list of cost concessions it wanted from the union, Mr. Fain took to Facebook to denounce them, dropping the document into a wastebasket.Decades ago, when the U.A.W. had more than a million members and the Big Three — G.M., Ford and Chrysler, now part of Stellantis — had almost no foreign competition, a strike by the union could shut down a significant portion of the United States economy.Today, the union is much smaller. G.M., Ford and Stellantis employ about 150,000 U.A.W. workers, and those companies make only a little more than 40 percent of the cars and trucks sold in the U.S. market.But the union entered this year’s talks in a much stronger negotiating position than it had in years. In the past, the Detroit companies were struggling badly against foreign rivals that operate nonunion plants in the South, like Toyota and Honda, and had a significant cost advantage. In most of the last several contracts, G.M., Ford and Stellantis had to get concessions on wages and benefits to survive.Over the last 10 years, however, all three companies have rung up record profits, thanks in part to the concessions they won from the union as well as the shift in consumer preferences to high-margin trucks and large sport utility vehicles.In the first half of this year, Ford made $3.7 billion and G.M. made $5 billion. Stellantis reported profits of 11 billion euros (about $11.9 billion).In the past, the U.A.W. has chosen one company — it was G.M. four years ago — as the “target” to focus on in the talks. Mr. Fain has said the union could target all three companies this time around, but many analysts think the union will eventually choose Stellantis. In addition to the strains between the company and the union, their talks involve a plant in Belvidere, Ill., that Stellantis has idled and that the union wants the company to reopen.Getting Stellantis to reopen the plant is a critical task for Mr. Fain. Four years ago, G.M. closed a plant in Ohio and the U.A.W. failed in its efforts to push the company to reopen it. In his campaign for the presidency, Mr. Fain promised members that his tougher approach would prove successful this time.The union could get a hand in this battle from the federal government. On Thursday, the Energy Department said it had made $2 billion in grants and $10 billion in loans available to auto companies to convert existing factories that build gasoline-powered cars and trucks into plants that produce hybrid and electric vehicles.Stellantis, like G.M. and Ford, aims to introduce several more electric models over the next few years and will probably have to retool some plants to make them. It is already building a battery plant in Indiana for its E.V. push.Mr. Fiorani suggested that Stellantis could decide to overhaul the Belvidere plant to make electric models. “Stellantis could find a product to go in there,” he said. “For the U.A.W. to truly win something, though, it has to be electric vehicles that Stellantis would plan on making for several years.” More

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    Starting with Hollywood, It’s Been a Summer of Labor Strikes

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    By The New York Times This year, workers across industries in the United States have increasingly walked off the job or threatened to do so. In July, tens of thousands of actors joined screenwriters on the picket line, bringing Hollywood to a halt. Meanwhile, a summertime strike of more than 300,000 United Parcel Service workers […] More

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    Impact of Hollywood Strikes on Jobs Goes Beyond the Strikers

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    Walkouts by screenwriters and actors have meant less work in fields that cater to the TV and film industry.One reason the August employment report wasn’t stronger: Television and movie production has largely halted since a deadlock in contract negotiations between major studios and unions that represent screenwriters and actors.The motion picture and sound recording industry subtracted 16,800 jobs in August. That’s not a huge share of its approximately 438,000-person work force, but it underestimates the total impact of the labor stoppages, given how much spending power the film industry creates in Los Angeles specifically.The shutdown started when 11,500 members of the Writers Guild of America went on strike in May. In the second quarter alone, according to Los Angeles’s film office, activity was down 28.8 percent from a year earlier.The stoppages spread when SAG-AFTRA, which represents more than 160,000 actors and broadcasters, struck in July after its contract with the largest film and television studios expired.Striking actors and writers, however, don’t translate one for one into payrolls. For one thing, many of SAG-AFTRA’s members work for television news stations and aren’t on strike. Those who do act in movies and TV shows usually sign contracts, sometimes for a day or a week, rather than entering into a continuing employment relationship.Between intermittent gigs, they’re used to taking second jobs, like waiting on tables or designing websites. During the strike, they’re also allowed to work in theater and commercials, as well as on a handful of independent projects that have agreed to abide by the union’s demands.Even with no work, most earn at least some money through residuals — although that revenue has shrunk with the rise of streaming, and will fade as the months drag on.“We’re used to being freelancers, and just being able to go along,” said Jodi Long, president of SAG-AFTRA’s Los Angeles local. “For now, what’s really going to affect the job market is the people on set — the hair and makeup people, the gaffers and the grips and the people in production.”Ms. Long is right: The support services required to make movies and shows have largely shut down. Some serve other industries as well, but many have grown up around the needs of film production. Even if the industry becomes very busy when the strike ends as studios restock their pipelines, months of income will be hard to replace.Take Limelight Catering. Its owner, Steve Michelson, mostly mothballed the business in May when the writers’ strike started, laying off 50 staff members, nearly all of them represented by the Teamsters. Since then, he has been repairing trucks and doing other maintenance at his facility in the northern reaches of the Los Angeles area.“We’re kind of the side effect,” Mr. Michelson said. “We depend on the film industry, but we get nothing out of this. The actors and the writers, hopefully they’ll get a nice raise, but we get nothing out of it.”Unlike striking workers in California, those who lose their jobs as collateral damage of labor disputes are eligible for unemployment insurance. (New York State does allow workers on strike to collect unemployment checks.)That’s what most of Mr. Michelson’s workers are doing. Many of those who were in more physical jobs, like carrying heavy cameras and lights around, are using the time to take care of occupational injuries by claiming disability benefits.Bill Bridges, a member of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, has worked as a grip for 25 years. Getting through the Covid-19 shutdown was hard enough, he said, and then he needed a year off for a total knee replacement. During that time, Mr. Bridges became licensed to drive a truck, and applied for jobs with the long-haul freight lines — but he said they paid only $650 a week for someone with no experience.After recovering from surgery, he was able to drive film trucks, and sometimes earned $1,600 a day. That stopped when the talent went on strike. This time, he’s back on disability to get bunion surgery.Mr. Bridges supports the strikers, but said he was way behind on bills, barely sustaining his wife and 11-year-old son. The union has started a mutual aid food pantry and a GoFundMe appeal for its members.“This is probably financially the lowest point in my life,” he said. He worries about his own union’s contract negotiations, coming up next year: “If there’s another strike, I don’t know what I’m going to do.” More

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    West Coast Dockworkers Ratify Contract

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    The six-year agreement is expected to increase traffic at Pacific ports, which had sagged because of the prospect of a walkout.Dockworkers at ports along the West Coast have ratified a new contract, securing a sweeping agreement set to last six years and expected to ease tensions after cargo shipments were diverted to other regions.The contract between the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the Pacific Maritime Association, which operates the terminals, covers 22,000 dockworkers at 29 ports from Los Angeles to Seattle.The contract was approved by 75 percent of members who voted, the union said late Thursday. Details of the agreement were not released publicly, and the union declined to comment. Unionized workers at the ports have average salaries in the low six figures.The maritime association did not respond to a request for comment.The two sides announced in June that they had reached a tentative agreement after a year of negotiations that prompted intervention from the Biden administration and coincided with a decline in the volume of cargo at several major ports along the West Coast.During the negotiation period, as workers staged a series of slowdowns, including at the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, some shipping companies diverted freight to ports along the Gulf and East Coasts and then never returned to their old routes.And the movement of goods continued to lag into the summer.At the Port of Los Angeles, the amount of cargo imported in July was down 25 percent from a year earlier. But at Port Houston, where some companies rerouted cargo, officials reported its best July on record in processing cargo.Geraldine Knatz, a former head of the Port of Los Angeles and now professor of the practice of policy and engineering at the University of Southern California, said she expected the contract’s ratification to give some shippers the level of comfort they needed to return to their old routes.“Everyone is expecting we will see an increase in volume,” she said of cargo handled on the West Coast.Matthew Shay, president of the National Retail Federation, said the West Coast ports played a critical role in the vitality of the business community nationwide.“Now that an agreement has been ratified by all parties, the millions of businesses and employees who rely on their operations can be assured that long-term stability will remain at the West Coast ports,” Mr. Shay said.Santul Nerkar More

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    UAW Votes to Authorize Strikes if Negotiations Fail

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    The United Auto Workers union is seeking big raises and other gains in contract talks with General Motors, Ford and Stellantis.The United Auto Workers union said on Friday that 97 percent of its members had voted to authorize strikes against General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis if the union and companies were unable to negotiate new labor contracts.The result gives the union’s president, Shawn Fain, the power to tell workers to walk off the job once the current contracts expire on Sept. 14.Strike authorization votes are normally formalities that pass by significant margins and do not ensure strikes. But this vote comes as the newly energized U.A.W. takes a more assertive stance with automakers, part of a larger shift in organized labor.G.M., Ford and Stellantis have posted strong profits for about a decade. That has emboldened Mr. Fain and his members to call for substantial wage increases, cost-of-living adjustments, and improved pensions and health care benefits.“This is our time to take back what we are owed,” he said on Facebook Live on Friday. “We are united, and we are not afraid,” he added.Mr. Fain, who was narrowly elected president this year in the union’s first direct election of its top leaders, appears to have united the union’s members. He appeared at rallies with workers in Detroit on Wednesday and in Louisville, Ky., on Thursday and Friday. About a dozen similar events are planned over the next two weeks. Such events were rare in contract talks over the last 20 years.“There’s nervousness, but there’s excitement,” Luigi Gjokaj, a vice president at U.A.W. Local 51, said at the Detroit rally. “If the company comes to the table and they’re fair, we’ll have an agreement. If it has to go to a strike, we are prepared.”Mr. Fain spoke to about 100 workers at that rally from the bed of a pickup truck just outside a Stellantis plant that makes the Jeep Wagoneer, a highly profitable sport utility vehicle.“We’re not asking to be millionaires,” he said to loud cheers. “We just want our fair share.”In a statement after the result of the strike vote was announced, Ford said it hoped to work with the U.A.W. toward “creative solutions during this time when our dramatically changing industry needs a skilled and competitive work force more than ever.”This month, Mr. Fain sent the companies a list of demands, including the possibility of working only four days a week and wage increases of 40 percent, noting that the chief executives of G.M., Ford and Stellantis have been awarded bigger compensation packages over the last four years. New hires at auto plants start at about $16 an hour and over several years can work their way up to the $32 an hour earned by veteran workers.G.M., Ford and Stellantis have suggested they will probably agree to some form of higher wages. In a fresh indication of how the talks may go, an Ohio battery plant owned jointly by G.M. and LG Energy Solution, a South Korean battery maker, agreed on Thursday to increase the wages of 1,900 U.A.W. workers by 25 percent on average.Mr. Fain had repeatedly criticized wages at the plant, which had started at about $16 an hour, as being too low. The plant is covered by a separate bargaining agreement from the one the union is negotiating for workers in G.M.’s wholly owned plants. Wages there will now start at about $20 an hour.The three manufacturers aim to minimize increases in labor costs in any new contract because they are spending tens of billions of dollars on a momentous transition to electric vehicles. The companies have suggested that agreeing to all or most of Mr. Fain’s demands would leave them at a competitive disadvantage against Tesla, the dominant maker of electric cars, and European and Asian automakers that operate nonunion plants in the United States.President Biden told reporters on Friday that he was “concerned” about a potential strike by autoworkers. “I’m talking with the U.A.W.,” he said.Mr. Biden said the transition to electric vehicles should not shortchange workers. “I think that there should be a circumstance where jobs that are being displaced are replaced with new jobs,” he said, adding that the pay for those new jobs “should be commensurate.”Former President Donald J. Trump, who is the leading candidate for the Republican nomination, has seized on autoworkers’ unease about the switch to electric vehicles to court the U.A.W., which typically backs Democrats but has declined to endorse Mr. Biden so far.Despite the costs of investing in electrification, the three automakers are enjoying healthy profits.G.M. said in July that it expected to earn more than $9.3 billion this year, about $1 billion more than a previous forecast. Stellantis, which is based in Amsterdam and owns Chrysler, Jeep, Ram and other auto brands, made 11 billion euros (about $11.9 billion) in the first half of this year, a record. Ford expects earnings before taxes of $11 billion to $12 billion this year. All three companies make most of their profits in North America.“Regardless of what other opinions might be, business profits enable future investments, which support long-term job security and opportunities for all,” said Gerald Johnson, G.M.’s executive vice president for global manufacturing and sustainability, in a video message to employees last week.The U.A.W. typically names one company that it will focus on in negotiations and make the target of a strike if it cannot reach an agreement. The union has not done so thus far, although Mr. Fain has publicly sparred the most with Stellantis.After Mr. Fain presented his demands, Stellantis responded with proposals that would increase how much workers contributed to the cost of health care, reduce the company’s contributions to retirement accounts and allow the company to close plants temporarily with little advance notice.In a Facebook video, Mr. Fain angrily denounced the Stellantis proposals and tossed a copy in a wastebasket. “That’s where it belongs, the trash, because that’s what it is,” he said.Stellantis’s chief operating officer for North America, Mark Stewart, said in a letter to employees that he was “incredibly disappointed” by Mr. Fain’s remarks. “The theatrics and personal insults will not help us reach an agreement,” Mr. Stewart said.Tensions between the U.A.W. and Stellantis, which was formed in the 2021 merger of Fiat Chrysler and Peugeot S.A., have been simmering since the automaker idled a Jeep plant in Illinois. One of Mr. Fain’s key objectives is getting the company to reopen the factory. More

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    UPS Workers Avert Strike by Approving New Contract

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    The vote by members of the Teamsters union removes a potential threat to the economy.Averting a strike that could have shaken the U.S. economy, the union representing more than 300,000 United Parcel Service employees announced Tuesday that its members had ratified a new labor agreement with the shipping giant.The union, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, said that its UPS members approved the five-year contract with more than 86 percent support.The Teamsters have said that the agreement includes wage gains of at least $7.50 an hour for current employees over its five-year term. It also raises the minimum pay for part-time workers to $21 an hour from under $17, and raises the top rate for full-time delivery drivers to about $49 on average.Under the previous contract, which expired on Aug. 1, full-time drivers made an average of about $42 an hour after four years on the job.In a statement, the union’s president, Sean O’Brien, said the contract was the most lucrative ever at UPS and would serve as a model for other workers that the union is seeking to organize. “This is the template for how workers should be paid and protected nationwide, and nonunion companies like Amazon better pay attention,” Mr. O’Brien said.The Teamsters have made unionizing Amazon a top priority in recent years, and Mr. O’Brien said while running for the union’s presidency in 2021 that doing so would first require big, concrete gains at other companies.Despite the ratification, the new UPS contract will not take effect immediately. The union said in its statement that a group of workers in Florida voted down a supplement to the national contract that covers about 175 members — one of 44 supplements that the union also negotiated.The union said its negotiators would immediately meet with UPS to resolve the remaining issues so that those Florida members can vote again. The national contract will take effect once the supplement is approved.UPS declined to comment beyond a brief news release noting the ratification vote and stating that the Florida supplement would be “finalized shortly.”The Teamsters had been aggressive in mobilizing members and ratcheting up pressure on the company in recent months, including picket-line practice and training sessions for strike captains. Mr. O’Brien has frequently referred to corporate leaders as a “white-collar crime syndicate” and argued that “this multibillion-dollar corporation has plenty to give American workers — they just don’t want to.”UPS moves about one-quarter of the tens of millions of packages shipped in the United States each day, according to the Pitney Bowes Parcel Shipping Index. Its adjusted net income rose more than 70 percent from 2019 to last year, reaching more than $11 billion.The negotiations on a national contract began in April, and the union announced in mid-June that its members had voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike.The two sides resolved many key issues by early July, including eliminating a lower-paid category of full-time driver that had angered many UPS employees, and requiring air conditioning in new trucks to improve heat safety. But then negotiations broke down, with the Teamsters arguing that the company had not offered sufficient improvements in pay for part-time workers, who make up more than half of the union’s UPS members.Mr. O’Brien and the union spent the next few weeks condemning what they sometimes referred to as “part-time poverty” jobs, before the sides resumed negotiating in late July and quickly finalized a tentative deal.UPS employees represented by the union began voting on the agreement in early August. While some part-time workers continued to argue that the wage gains should have been even larger and urged a “no” vote, the final margin suggested that most were satisfied with the deal. More