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    UAW Standoff Poses Risk for Biden’s Electric Vehicle Commitment

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    A looming auto industry strike could test the president’s commitment to making electric vehicles a source of well-paying union jobs.President Biden has been highly attuned to the politics of electric vehicles, helping to enact billions in subsidies to create new manufacturing jobs and going out of his way to court the United Automobile Workers union.But as the union and the big U.S. automakers — General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis, which owns Chrysler, Jeep and Ram — hurtle toward a strike deadline set for Thursday night, the political challenge posed by the industry’s transition to electric cars may be only beginning.The union, under its new president, Shawn Fain, wants workers who make electric vehicle components like batteries to benefit from the better pay and labor standards that the roughly 150,000 U.A.W. members enjoy at the three automakers. Most battery plants are not unionized.The Detroit automakers counter that these workers are typically employed in joint ventures with foreign manufacturers that the U.S. automakers don’t wholly control. The companies say that even if they could raise wages for battery workers to the rate set under their national U.A.W. contract, doing so could make them uncompetitive with nonunion rivals, like Tesla.And then there is former President Donald J. Trump, who is running to unseat Mr. Biden and has said the president’s clean energy policies are costing American jobs and raising prices for consumers.White House officials say Mr. Biden will still be able to deliver on his promise of high-quality jobs and a strong domestic electric vehicle industry.The head of the United Automobile Workers, Shawn Fain, center, wants his union’s wages and labor standards to apply to nonunion workers who make electric vehicle components.Brittany Greeson for The New York Times“The president’s policies have always been geared toward ensuring not only that our electric vehicle future was made in America with American jobs,” said Gene Sperling, Mr. Biden’s liaison to the U.A.W. and the auto industry, “but that it would promote good union jobs and a just transition” for current autoworkers whose jobs are threatened.But in public at least, the president has so far spoken only in vague terms about wages. Last month, he said that the transition to electric vehicles should enable workers to “make good wages and benefits to support their families” and that when union jobs were replaced with new jobs, they should go to union members and pay a “commensurate” wage. He is encouraging the companies and the union to keep bargaining and reach an agreement, one of Mr. Biden’s economic advisers, Jared Bernstein, told reporters on Wednesday.A strike could force Mr. Biden to be more explicit and choose between his commitment to workers and the need to broker a compromise that averts a costly long-term shutdown.“Battery workers need to be paid the same amount as U.A.W. workers at the current Big Three,” said Representative Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California who has promoted government investments in new technologies.Mr. Khanna added, “It’s how we contrast with Trump: We’re for creating good-paying manufacturing jobs across the Midwest.”At the heart of the debate is whether the shift to electric vehicles, which have fewer parts and generally require less labor to assemble than gas-powered cars, will accelerate the decline of unionized work in the industry.Foreign and domestic automakers have announced tens of thousands of new U.S.-based electric vehicle and battery jobs in response to the subsidies that Mr. Biden helped enact. But most of those jobs are not unionized, and many are in the South or West, where the U.A.W. has struggled to win over autoworkers. The union has tried and failed to organize workers at Tesla’s factory in Fremont, Calif., and Southern plants owned by Volkswagen and Nissan.A Ford Lightning plant in Dearborn, Mich. The U.A.W. worries that letting battery makers pay lower wages will allow G.M., Ford and Stellantis to replace much of their current U.S. work force with cheaper labor.Brittany Greeson for The New York TimesAs a result, the union has focused its efforts on battery workers employed directly or indirectly by G.M., Ford and Stellantis. The going wage for this work tends to be far below the roughly $32 an hour that veteran U.A.W. members make under their existing contracts with three companies.Legally, employees of the three manufacturers can’t strike over the pay of battery workers employed by joint ventures. But many U.A.W. members worry that letting battery manufacturers pay far lower wages will allow G.M., Ford and Stellantis to replace much of their current U.S. work force with cheaper labor, so they are seeking a large wage increase for those workers.“What we want is for the E.V. jobs to be U.A.W. jobs under our master agreements,” said Scott Houldieson, chairperson of Unite All Workers for Democracy, a group within the union that helped propel Mr. Fain to the presidency.The union’s officials have pressed the auto companies to address their concerns about battery workers before its members vote on a new contract. They say the companies can afford to pay more because they collectively earned about $250 billion in North America over the past decade, according to union estimates.But the auto companies, while acknowledging that they have been profitable in recent years, point out that the transition to electric vehicles is very expensive. Industry executives have suggested that it is hard to know how quickly consumers will embrace electric vehicles and that companies needed flexibility to adjust.Even if labor costs were not an issue, said Corey Cantor, an electric vehicle analyst at the energy research firm BloombergNEF, it could take the Big Three several years to catch up to Tesla, which makes about 60 percent of fully electric vehicles sold in the United States.A strike could force Mr. Biden to choose between his commitment to workers and the need to avert a costly shutdown of the U.S. auto industry.Bill Pugliano/Getty ImagesData from BloombergNEF show that G.M., Ford and Stellantis together sold fewer than 100,000 battery electric vehicles in the United States last year; in 2017, Tesla alone sold 50,000. It took Tesla another five years to top half a million U.S. sales. (The Big Three also sold nearly 80,000 plug-in hybrids last year.)The three established automakers had hoped to use the transition to electric cars to bring their costs more in line with their competitors, said Sam Fiorani, vice president of global vehicle forecasting at AutoForecast Solutions, a research firm. If they can’t, he added, they will have to look for savings elsewhere.In a statement, Stellantis said its battery joint venture “intends to offer very competitive wages and benefits while making the health and safety of its work force a top priority.”Estimates shared by Ford put hourly labor costs, including benefits, for the three automakers in the mid-$60s, versus the mid-$50s for foreign automakers in the United States and the mid-$40s for Tesla.Ford’s chief executive, Jim Farley, said in a statement last month that the company’s offer to raise pay in the next contract was “significantly better” than what Tesla and foreign automakers paid U.S. workers. He added that Ford “will not make a deal that endangers our ability to invest, grow and share profits with our employees.”Mr. Biden and Democratic lawmakers had sought to offset this labor-cost disadvantage by providing an additional $4,500 subsidy for each electric vehicle assembled at a unionized U.S. plant, above other incentives available to electric cars. But the Senate removed that provision from the Inflation Reduction Act.Such setbacks have frustrated the U.A.W., an early backer of Mr. Biden’s clean energy plans. In May, the union, which normally supports Democratic presidential candidates, withheld its endorsement of Mr. Biden’s re-election.“The E.V. transition is at serious risk of becoming a race to the bottom,” Mr. Fain said in an internal memo. “We want to see national leadership have our back on this before we make any commitments.”The next month, Mr. Fain chided the Biden administration for awarding Ford a $9.2 billion loan to build three battery factories in Tennessee and Kentucky with no inducement for the jobs to be unionized.A BMW battery plant in South Carolina. The U.A.W. has struggled to unionize autoworkers in the South.Juan Diego Reyes for The New York TimesMr. Biden tapped Mr. Sperling, a Michigan native, to serve as the White House point person on issues related to the union and the auto industry around the same time. By late August, the Energy Department announced that it was making $12 billion in grants and loans available for investments in electric vehicles, with a priority on automakers that create or maintain good jobs in areas with a union presence.Mr. Sperling speaks regularly with both sides in the labor dispute, seeking to defuse misunderstandings before they escalate, and said the recent Energy Department funding reflected Mr. Biden’s commitment to jump-start the industry while creating good jobs.Complicating the picture for Mr. Biden is the growing chorus of Democratic politicians and liberal groups that have backed the autoworkers’ demands, even as they hail the president’s success in improving pay and labor standards in other green industries, like wind and solar.Nearly 30 Democratic senators signed a letter to auto executives this summer urging them to bring battery workers into the union’s national contract. Dozens of labor and environmental groups have signed a letter echoing the demand.The groups argue that the change would have only a modest impact on automakers’ profits because labor accounts for a relatively small portion of overall costs, a claim that some independent experts back.Yen Chen, principal economist of the Center for Automotive Research, a nonprofit group in Ann Arbor, Mich., said labor accounted for only about 5 percent of the cost of final assembly for a midsize domestic sedan based on an analysis the group ran 10 years ago. Mr. Chen said that figure was likely to be lower today, and lower still for battery assembly, which is highly automated.Beyond the economic case, however, Mr. Biden’s allies say allowing electric vehicles to drive down auto wages would be a catastrophic political mistake. Workers at the three companies are concentrated in Midwestern states that could decide the next presidential election — and, as a result, the fate of the transition to clean energy, said Jason Walsh, the executive director of the BlueGreen Alliance, a coalition of unions and environmental groups.“The economic effects of doing that are enormously harmful,” he said. “The political consequences would be disastrous.” More

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    Auto Strike by U.A.W. Could Have Wide Economic Effects

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    An extended walkout by the United Auto Workers in a contract dispute could raise car prices and affect jobs at the companies’ suppliers.Two years after the auto industry survived the supply-chain upheaval of the pandemic, another disruption — the prospective strike by the United Auto Workers — threatens to upend the production and distribution of new cars, and the impact could be wide-ranging.A U.A.W. strike against one or more of Detroit’s Big Three — Ford Motor, General Motors and Stellantis, which owns Chrysler, Jeep and Ram — is likely to quickly affect the U.S. economy, particularly in the Midwest. And a prolonged strike, by crimping the availability of new vehicles, could lead to soaring car prices. The combination of slower growth and higher prices could complicate matters for the Federal Reserve, which has sought to bring down inflation while maintaining job growth.“We’ve been counting on vehicle prices coming down, adding to the disinflation and taking pressure off the Fed so the Fed doesn’t have to keep on raising interest rates,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “This makes that much more difficult.”According to an August report from the Anderson Economic Group, a 10-day strike against all three automakers would result in total economic losses of $5.6 billion. Around $3.5 billion of that would result from lost wages and production, with the remaining $2.1 billion borne by consumers, who wouldn’t be able to get necessary repairs and replacement parts, and by dealers and their employees.Mr. Zandi said a six-week strike would have a “measurable but ultimately modest” effect on overall gross domestic product, perhaps a decline of two- or three-tenths of a percentage point. But he said damage would start to mount, given economic headwinds like rising interest rates, the return of student-loan repayments and a potential government shutdown in October.If the strike lasted through the end of the year, Mr. Zandi said, “that would be enough to push this economy close to the edge of a recession, given everything else that’s going on.”A 40-day strike against General Motors in 2019 had limited economic effects. One key difference this time is inventories. Total domestic car inventories, which includes new and used cars, have increased from a record low in February 2022 but are less than a quarter of what they were in September 2019.“In 2019, General Motors could look at their inventory and say, ‘We can take a 10-day strike, and hardly anybody who wants one of our cars is going to be unable to get it,” said Patrick Anderson, the principal and chief executive of the Anderson Economic Group. “That’s not the case in 2023.”A strike could also have a spillover effect on the automotive supply chain. Gabriel Ehrlich, an economic forecaster at the University of Michigan, said the automakers’ suppliers — the businesses that make brakes, headlights and catalytic converters — would begin to be felt after about two weeks, with employers cutting back on employment and, as a result, those laid-off workers reducing their own spending.In Michigan, the auto industry has slipped in prominence but still contributes meaningfully to the economy. Mr. Ehrlich’s analysis, which assumes a six-week strike against just one automaker, forecasts a slowdown in payroll growth in the fourth quarter.How the individual automakers weather the storm could vary. Stellantis will be able to satisfy consumer demand longer than Ford or General Motors because it has greater inventories, according to Pat Ryan, the chief executive of Co-Pilot, a car-shopping app that tracks the inventories of car dealers. The result will still be higher prices for consumers, Mr. Ryan said, for both used and new vehicles.Ultimately, the automakers will be able to make up for lost production, and selling their vehicles at higher prices — in addition to not paying wages during the strike — will help for a time. But things will become more challenging if automakers are forced to stop making their most profitable and popular cars, which are already in short supply.“If you’re a G.M. dealer or G.M., you’re going to feel a lot of pain if the Tahoe line shuts down,” Mr. Ryan said. 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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    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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    G.M.’s Sales Jumped 19% in the Second Quarter

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    General Motors, Toyota and other automakers sold more trucks and sport utility vehicles as supply chain problems eased and demand remained strong despite rising interest rates.Some of the country’s biggest automakers reported big sales increases for the second quarter on Wednesday, the strongest sign yet that the auto industry was bouncing back from parts shortages and overcoming the effects of higher interest rates.General Motors, the largest U.S. automaker, said it sold 691,978 vehicles from April to June, up 19 percent from a year earlier. It was the company’s highest quarterly total in more than two years.Automakers have struggled in the last two years with a shortage of computer chips that forced factory shutdowns and left dealers with few vehicles to sell. More recently, rising interest rates have made auto loans more expensive, causing some consumers to defer purchases or opt for used vehicles.“I’m not saying we are on the cusp of exciting growth here,” said Jonathan Smoke, chief economist at Cox Automotive, a research firm. “But we are now at a turning point where the auto market returns to more balance. It’s the beginning of returning to normal.”The easing of chip shortages has allowed automakers to restock dealer lots, making it easier for car buyers to find the models and features they want, Mr. Smoke said. At the end of June, dealers had about 1.8 million vehicles in stock, nearly 800,000 more than at the same point in 2022, according to Cox data.Sales have also been helped by strong job creation and rising wages, Mr. Smoke said.At the same time, however, higher interest rates and higher car prices have put new-car purchases out of reach of many consumers. In the first half of the year, the average price paid for a new vehicle was a near-record $48,564. The average interest rate paid on car loans in the first six months of 2023 was 7.09 percent, up from 4.86 percent a year earlier, according to Cox. The average monthly payment in the first half was $784, up from $691.“Demand will be limited by the level of prices and rates, which are not likely to come down enough to stimulate more demand than the market can bear,” Mr. Smoke said.Cox estimated that total sales of new cars and trucks rose 11.6 percent in the first half of the year, to 7.65 million. The firm now expects full-year sales to top 15 million, which would be a rise of 8 percent.Several automakers reported solid quarterly sales on Wednesday. Toyota said its U.S. sales rose 7 percent, to 568,962 cars and light trucks. Stellantis, the company that owns Jeep, Ram, Chrysler and other brands, reported a 6 percent rise, to 434,648 vehicles.Honda, which had been severely hampered by chip shortages, said its sales rose 45 percent to 347,025 cars and trucks. Hyundai and Kia, the South Korean automakers, each sold more than 210,000 vehicles, posting gains of 14 percent and 15 percent.Electric vehicles remain the fastest-growing segment of the auto industry. Rivian, a maker of electric pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles, said on Monday that it delivered 12,640 in the second quarter, a 59 percent jump from a year earlier. And on Sunday, Tesla reported an 83 percent jump in global sales in the second quarter.Cox estimated that more than 500,000 electric vehicles were sold in the United States in the first six months of the year, and that more than one million would be sold in 2023, setting a record for battery-powered cars and trucks in the country.Tesla, which does not break out its sales by country, remains the largest seller of E.V.s in the U.S. market. Cox estimated that the company sold more than 161,000 electric cars in the second quarter in the United States. Ford Motor, which offers three fully electric models., reports its quarterly sales on Thursday.G.M. sold more 15,300 battery-powered cars and trucks, but nearly 14,000 were the Chevrolet Bolt, a smaller vehicle that the company will stop making at the end of the year. The company also sold 1,348 Cadillac Lyriq electric S.U.V.s and 47 GMC Hummer pickup trucks. Chevrolet will soon start delivering a new electric Silverado pickup truck, which uses the same battery technology as the Lyriq and Hummer. More

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    Auto Sales Withstand Higher Interest Rates, So Far

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    General Motors and several rivals cited robust demand in the first quarter. But affordability is a growing challenge for many buyers.Automakers have mostly overcome the supply-chain challenges that upended production early in the pandemic. Now they are trying to weather a new challenge: higher borrowing costs for their customers.General Motors and several other automakers reported on Monday that new-vehicle sales increased substantially in the first three months of the year, thanks to improved supplies of key components and firm demand from both consumers and commercial customers.But the steady interest rate increases in the last 12 months have raised questions about whether the industry can maintain its sales momentum throughout 2023.Jonathan Smoke, the chief economist at the market research firm Cox Automotive, said higher rates were already starting to put new vehicles out of the reach of buyers with lower incomes or weaker credit scores.According to Cox, “subprime” borrowers — those with weaker credit profiles — make up just under 6 percent of all new-car purchases, down from 18 percent five years ago. Car buyers paid an average interest rate of 8.95 percent last month, up from 5.66 percent in March 2022.The average monthly payment on new vehicles was $784 in February, compared with $681 a year earlier, Cox calculated.“Affordability challenges are limiting access to the vehicle market,” Mr. Smoke said. “Higher interest rates are having a huge impact.”Sticker prices have also challenged buyers. Auto prices — for new and used vehicles alike — have been a prominent driver of inflation over the last two years, although there are signs they are cooling off. The average price for a new car or light truck in February was $48,763, according to Cox — up from $46,297 a year earlier, but down from $49,468 in January.Mr. Smoke said automakers got off to a strong start in January and February, but saw credit tighten somewhat in March after the banking industry was shaken by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank.G.M. said its new-vehicle sales in the United States rose 18 percent in the first three months of the year, to 603,208 cars and trucks. Sales to consumers rose 15 percent and sales to rental, corporate and government fleet customers increased 27 percent.In the last several months, G.M. has been able to keep its factories humming as a result of steadier supplies of computer chips and other critical parts. The company ended the quarter with 412,285 vehicles in dealer stocks, up slightly from what it had at the end of 2022, but nearly 140,000 more than it had a year earlier.Honda Motor reported that its U.S. sales increased 7 percent to 284,507 cars and trucks, while Nissan saw a gain of 17 percent, to 235,818. Hyundai said its U.S. sales rose 16 percent to 184,449.Toyota Motor, however, has continued to suffered from parts shortages that have left its dealers with slim inventories. Its first-quarter sales fell 9 percent to 469,558 cars and trucks. Stellantis, formed through the merger of Fiat Chrysler and Peugeot SA, also reported a decline. Its sales fell 9 percent to 368,327 cars and trucks.Ford Motor is scheduled to report its latest sales figures on Tuesday.G.M. has forecast a rapid increase this year in sales of electric vehicles; so far, it is off to an uneven start. The company sold 19,700 Chevrolet Bolt compacts in the first quarter, more than three times the total a year earlier, but other models have yet to make a splash.Sales of the Cadillac Lyriq, an electric sport-utility vehicle, totaled just 968, and G.M. sold only two GMC Hummer E.V.s, down from 99 in the first quarter of 2022.G.M. started production last summer at a new plant in Ohio that is supposed to provide battery packs for the Hummer E.V., the Lyriq and several other vehicles scheduled to arrive in showrooms this year. They include electric versions of the Chevrolet Silverado pickup and the Chevy Equinox and Blazer S.U.V.s. More

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    Which Electric Vehicles Qualify for Federal Tax Credits?

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    Here is a partial list of electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles that will qualify for federal tax credits in 2023.The Treasury Department on Thursday published a partial list of new electric and plug-in hybrid cars that will qualify for tax credits of up to $7,500. The list is expected to be updated over the coming days and weeks.The credits will apply to sedans that cost no more than $55,000 and sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks that cost up to $80,000. In addition, only buyers who earn less than $150,000 a year as an individual or $300,000 a year as a couple can claim the credits.The list could change in March, when new rules take effect that require automakers to use battery raw materials and components from North America or a trade ally. Those rules are still being formulated, and it’s not clear exactly when they will start to apply.Here are the cars on the list, by automaker:AudiQ5 TFSI e Quattro plug-in hybridFord MotorFord Escape Plug-in HybridFord E-TransitFord F-150 LightningFord Mustang Mach-ELincoln Aviator Grand Touring plug-in hybridLincoln Corsair Grand Touring plug-in hybridNissanLeafRivianR1TR1SStellantisChrysler Pacifica plug-in hybridJeep Wrangler 4xe plug-in hybridJeep Grand Cherokee 4xe plug-in hybridTeslaModel 3Model YVolkswagenID.4VolvoVolvo S60 plug-in hybrid More