On Sunday, September 3, 2023 at 3:06:18 PM UTC, ltlee1 wrote:
Fain’s ascent to the UAW’s top office has taken the entire auto industry by surprise.
...
The new president and his executive board, many of whom ran as part of the same reform-minded caucus as Fain, are negotiating new labor contracts for about 146,000 hourly workers at , and , the global car company that now owns Jeep, Ram and Chrysler.
The existing contracts expire Sept. 14, and if a deal isn’t reached by then, Fain has said he is ready to strike—potentially not just one automaker but all three.
...
Under Fain, the union has brought forward a set of demands that includes winning back benefits that workers gave up in past talks to help the companies survive.
Fain, who started his union career as an electrician at a Chrysler plant in Kokomo, Ind., is also pushing for a shorter, 32-hour workweek and a 46% hourly wage increase over the four-year contract, which would be the largest in recent memory.
...
Many in the industry worry he is setting workers’ expectations too high, which could make it difficult to get a deal ratified.
The White House, too, is on edge. Biden said last week that he was concerned about the possibility of a strike, which would be costly for the automakers and economically disruptive.
Jim Cramer, the host of CNBC’s investing show “Mad Money,” said the union’s demands were so aggressive they’d significantly weaken the U.S. auto companies. “This man studied Trotsky,” Cramer said during a broadcast this summer, referring
to the Russian revolutionary.
When asked about Cramer’s comments, Fain said he didn’t know much about Trotsky and joked, sarcastically, how central Indiana is known as a “fertile ground for cornfields and communism.” "
https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/uaw-union-strike-shaw-fain-detroit-president-eb1bdd3f
Five Clues to Where the UAW Strike Is Headed Next
"1. A Ford deal first
The company likely to reach a new labor deal with the UAW first is Ford.
The UAW’s decision Friday to spare Ford while calling more strikes at the other two automakers signaled that a tentative agreement could be close, although both sides said significant gaps remain on key issues.
Ford and the UAW have historically had a relatively positive relationship, in part due to some key differences with crosstown rivals GM and Stellantis. For one, Ford employs more hourly unionized workers in the U.S. than its competitors.
Ford also builds its brand around supporting its factory workforce. William Clay Ford Jr., the executive chair of the company and great-grandson of Henry Ford, plays ice hockey with UAW members.
...
2. The wild-card carmaker
The UAW could confront its biggest challenge at Stellantis, a company with a globe-trotting chief executive, Carlos Tavares, who has shown he is willing to play hardball in negotiations and has the leverage of a diversified manufacturing business that
spans five continents.
Stellantis, created out of the merger of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and PSA Group in 2021, is the world’s fourth-largest automaker and is less reliant on North American than Ford and GM, which generate the bulk of their sales in the U.S.
Last year, it was the most profitable of the three car companies in North America—a change from Chrysler, which had historically been the smallest and most financially challenged of the Detroit rivals. That gives the union some leverage to argue that
it can afford to give back more to the workers.
Still, Stellantis also has excess manufacturing capacity in Mexico and Canada, giving it flexibility to consider moving some work to those countries if labor costs in the U.S. get too high.
...
3. Parts suppliers
Automotive suppliers could be more vulnerable to a prolonged strike than the carmakers.
While rising car prices have fueled record profits at automakers, the same hasn’t been true for their parts suppliers. That is because parts makers sign up for long-term supply contracts at a fixed price, which means they have been squeezed by rising
prices for raw materials and labor with little ability to pass along those higher costs.
“The supply base is not in good shape going into this,” said Sheldon Klein, a Troy, Mich., based attorney at law firm Butzel Long, who represents auto-industry clients.
...
4. Clues in UAW rhetoric
...
The union for the first time has a leader directly elected by its members—not by a group of local union leaders—and he has a reinvigorated labor movement at its back. It has also decided to ditch the traditional pattern-bargaining method of reaching
a deal with one automaker first, followed by the other two. Instead, he is holding parallel talks with all three to keep the pressure on simultaneously.
Fain is keeping everyone on edge, and how the UAW capitalizes on this moment could have lasting implications for the U.S. auto industry for years to come.
5. New cars on dealership lots
he auto industry has been recovering from more than two years of severe new-vehicle shortages, which nearly wiped out dealerships’ inventories and resulted in American car shoppers paying top dollar.
The factory disruptions could send the market back into a vehicle famine, but not right away. GM, Ford and Stellantis have rebuilt their depleted stocks more quickly than most other carmakers, even though their inventories remain well below historical
norms."
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)