The one and only enemy of UAW president Shawn Fain are the companies that employ 350,000 UAW workers, 150,000 for the big three.
Meet the Man Who Has Detroit on Edge
The Wall Street Journal says Meet the Man Who Has Detroit on Edge
When Shawn Fain glances at the wall of executive portraits at the United Auto Workers’ historic Black Lake conference center in Northern Michigan, there is one photo that always catches him off-guard. His own.
In recent weeks, he has been unusually outspoken about his frustrations with labor talks—at one point, making a public show of throwing Stellantis’s bargaining proposals in the trash—and has embraced fiery rhetoric that has riled up workers for a potential walkout and taken many auto executives aback.
At an event in March he said the union was fighting its “one and only true enemy: multibillion-dollar corporations.”
“How far are you willing to go to get the contract you deserve?” Fain yelled to a roaring crowd at a recent rally, after walking on stage to Eminem’s “Not Afraid.” Fain says he is a fan of ’90s hip-hop.
Circle September 14, On Your Calendar
The New Republic reports Labor Chief Shawn Fain Worries the Big Three—and the White House
If negotiators don’t agree on a contract by September 14, says UAW President Shawn Fain, 150,000 workers will walk off the job.
I asked Fain about reports that the UAW is withholding its expected endorsement of President Joe Biden, with whom Fain met in July. “It was a good meeting,” Fain said, but “we’ve made it clear that our endorsements are going to be earned, not freely given.”
UAW Files Unfair Labor Practice Charges Against GM, Stellantis
Reuters reports UAW Files Unfair Labor Practice Charges Against GM, Stellantis
The United Auto Workers union said on Thursday it filed unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board against General Motors and Chrysler-parent Stellantis, saying they have refused to bargain in good faith.
“We’re going to fight like hell to get our equitable share of justice for workers,” he said. “We can get there – but these companies better buckle down and they better get serious.”
GM manufacturing chief Gerald Johnson said the company strongly refuted the unfair labor charge. “We believe it has no merit and is an insult to the bargaining committees. We have been hyper-focused on negotiating directly and in good faith with the UAW and are making progress,” Johnson said.
Why a Big Union Is Snubbing Biden
Politico comments Why a Big Union Is Snubbing Biden, Doing Industry’s Dirty Work and Creating an Opening for Trump
On one key issue, the UAW has aligned itself closely with the executives it otherwise denounces: resistance to the crucially needed clean energy transition. It’s an embarrassing move that highlights the union’s short-term thinking, not just in light of the climate crisis, but because of the union’s own environmentalist roots and clear understanding that an electric future is coming.
The union’s ambivalence toward a clean energy future was made strikingly clear when the historically pro-Democrat UAW refused to endorse, for now, President Joe Biden’s re-election bid.
The decision came after the White House’s announcement of a $9.2 billion Department of Energy loan guarantee to Ford Motor Co. to help build a massive battery plant, BlueOval City, in Stanton, Tennessee, a so-called right-to-work state. The loan contains no language requiring Ford or its joint venture partner, South Korea’s SK On, a unit of a Korean chemical company, to ensure union involvement.
The jobs in Stanton will be “low road,” UAW president Shawn Fain predicted; Ford responded that wages paid will be “competitive,” which in a right-to-work state promises to be less encouraging than it’s meant to sound.
Trump himself has seen enough of an opening that he was moved to make a 3-minute campaign video where he inveighed with characteristic eloquence, “I hope United Auto Workers is listening to this, because I think you better endorse Trump because I’m going to grow your business and they are destroying your business. They are absolutely destroying your business.”
“EPA must recognize,” the union insisted in its plea to ease the proposed regulations, “that the current domestic auto assembly footprint is heavily weighted towards the profitable light-duty truck and SUVs that are tasked with funding the EV transition.”
Much of the Politico article is environmental fearmongering.
At the same time, all of this is hugely inflationary. EVs are more expensive, the need for minerals does not scale, and the push does not do a damn thing for the environment.
What a hoot. Fain’s demands are so preposterous that a strike appears unavoidable. Social and economic justice is another hoot.
How Likely is a Strike?
CNBC comments : A brief survey of 99 investors by Morgan Stanley found 58% believe a strike is “extremely likely.” That’s followed by 24% who said it’s “somewhat likely.” Just 16% said a strike was unlikely, while 2% said it was “neither likely not unlikely.”
I put the odds at 90 percent. The sides are too far apart, Fain is the most militant UAW leader ever, and the push for EVs will definitely cost jobs because EV engines have about 20 moving parts vs 2,000 or so for a standard internal combustion engine.
Jobs will vanish. Fain wants to stop that. He can’t no one can. And the faster the transition, the faster the jobs go.
This all plays into Trump’s hands. I expect a long, nasty strike. If the big three give into the preposterous demands of Fain, they are all headed for bankruptcy, GM for a second time.
Environmental Side of Things
- Two Elephants in the Climate Change CO2 Production Room
- Climate Stupidity Canadian Style
- The Shocking Truth About Biden’s Proposed Energy Fuel Standards
The third link above is another big hoot.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration NHTSA did an impact assessment of 4 fuel standard proposals and compared them to the cost of doing nothing.
Guess what.
Spoken like a true upper-level Marxist apparatchik.
i wish i was an appartchik. you have BEEN HAD OLD SPORT. no go back to the pro wrestling seats.
if you are still hung up on D v R game you are really stupid. like a pro wrestling fan that thinks it’s real.
We warned everyone about Voting for the Democrats in 2020. If you love higher prices of Taxes, Food, Rent, Gas, Insurance, Health care Bills, Car repair bills, utilities, (water, gas, electricity) $$Billions wasted on foreign nations, (now Ukraine) $$Billions wasted on illegals….$$Trillions wasted tying to control the weather. $$Billions wasted forcing our children to accept Sodomy, against the parents wishes. Than keep voting for the Democratic ticket. And yet here we are with the equivalent of the SS Nazi climate change party, trying to force America to eat bugs..I’m all for the Auto workers strike,they have finally seen the light of what the Democratic party has become. Enough is enough of being forced to accept lower wages, to build extremely expensive EVs, enough is enough with high inflation because of the Democrats war on fossil fuels…Back in 1980 a $5 dollar job an hour, was enough for a single person, to live comfortably. Today thanks to the Democrats, one needs to make $100 Dollars an hour to enjoy the same standard of living, and that’s barely enough to support a family + save money…The DFL party used to stand for Labor and Farmers, Now they stand for Freaks and Illegals. Go Auto workers stick it to Diaper Joe, and the Queer party of Insanity….
Let’s not forget the genius of defunding the police and he decriminalization of shoplifting and open air drug dealing.
I smell higher inflation, less tax receipts and higher deficits if a strike occurs.
Japan/Korea to make up for lower auto inventory? Toyota/ Hyundai/Nissan.
With labor participation rates in the tank, will really make the coming Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid discussionions generationally interesting.
‘When you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose’ will be the Millenials battle cry on these programs.
You want to see a strike? You ain’t seen nothing yet!
It’s a war between workers and mgt. It’s all about power.
The gov is for re-shoring, not for busting the Automobile Industry again, because it’s fair, because UAW is against multibilion dollar corp, the only one true enemy.
Biden will push for a compromise, but if mgt cannot get along he might be on
the side of Ford &GM, because their death will spillover to every other industry, to our industrial capacity.
Biden supports blue collar worker. The bailout buck stops at the white house. Trump
is on the wrong side.
You mean like how Biden supported the blue collar railroad workers when he broke their strike?
Coming to America?
https://archive.ph/tNOob#selection-2293.4-2297.95
“The electric car debacle shows the top-down economics of net zero don’t add up
Fundamentals of supply and demand are ignored by Britain’s ‘cart before the horse’ approach”
“Sadiq Khan’s controversial Ultra-Low Emissions Zone scheme for London was supposed to put the rocket-boosters under electric car demand.”
“In fact, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the car industry has misjudged the scale of demand quite badly. Vertu, which is one of Britain’s biggest car dealerships, has become the latest big name to admit that the sector is already suffering from a dramatic oversupply of battery-powered vehicles.
Indeed supply is outstripping demand to such an extent, that prices are tumbling rapidly.
The warning follows the extraordinary decision of German car titan Volkswagen in July to halt electric vehicle production at its sprawling Emden factory in north-west Germany and lay off a fifth of its 1,500 employees after sales of electric models fell 30pc short of forecasts.
Unwanted electric cars are piling up on American forecourts too leaving some dealers to refuse further deliveries until the backlog has eased.”
“One hopes politicians the world over are paying attention because what we are witnessing is another example of how the top-down economics of net zero increasingly don’t stack up: with the introduction of an entirely arbitrary 2030 ban on petrol and diesel cars, the Government is forcing manufacturers to churn out millions of vehicles, regardless of whether the market actually exists or not.
The deadline should be scrapped without further ado. This “cart before the horse” approach of trying to stimulate demand by creating supply is the wrong way round and almost never works in business.”
“The Government’s policy on wind energy has proved to be similarly divorced from fact. The Contracts for Difference scheme, which guarantees a fixed price for the electricity that is produced for 15 years, is an effective incentive during more benign times but when overheads are surging, as they are now, it quickly becomes an impediment to progress.
With ministers showing little willingness to bend on prices in the face of rampant cost increases, major projects are being ruthlessly abandoned.
The biggest setback has come off the Norfolk coast after Vattenfall announced it would shut down construction of its Boreas wind farm. The 1.4 gigawatt development was set to power around 1.5m homes but the Swedish energy outfit insists a 40pc surge in costs, driven by inflation, supply issues and rising wages means it is no longer viable.
Without more generous state subsidies others will surely follow suit, shattering Britain’s stated ambitions to nearly quadruple offshore wind capacity from 14GW currently to 50GW by the end of the decade.
Yet perhaps nothing underlines the Alice in Wonderland disconnection of ministers more than the campaign to force the population to green their homes with heat pumps.”
The auto industry is certainly entering a period of govt regulated disruption and the society also has also entered an uncertain period of govt regulated net zero insanity.
Called the greatest mal-investment in history is an understatement.
From severe shortages of all minerals required (all mined & processed outside United States), to tripling an electrical infrastructure (producing unreliable & intermittent power) to an insane of amount of money required while at the same time ironically creating a permanent structural increase in the amount of fossil fuels such as coal.
It is interesting that Europe after spending hundreds of billions of dollars on net zero (basically unrealiable & intermittent) power is now at a crossroads and looks to be entering at a pivot point. America has yet to do so.
Britain looks to be in deep doo doo betting on wind power which is now in disarray. I follow a blog called Turbulent Times and others may be interested in the experience they are going through. If anyone has any other blogs focusing on Europe, please say so. I am in full agreement with the author of this article that the dream has ended for Europe and the nightmare stage is about to begin.
https://www.turbulenttimes.co.uk/news/front-page/net-zero-crumbling/
“With the Climate Change Committee already complaining that progress on net-zero is too slow, we see a commentary in The Times lamenting that the political consensus around how we reach the targets is now fracturing as politicians on the right start to reject existing policies.
The writer calls for “clear policy decisions from the UK government”, but we’re getting to the stage where policy is not enough. As the technical problems accumulate, in the face of uncertain financial commitments, political consensus is the least of the problems.
Net-zero is crumbling under the weight of its own inconsistencies. All that the government, alongside the politicians, can do is recognise the inevitability of failure. Those businesses which have been foolhardy enough to have invested in this mad project will take the hit, and we will all have to pay.
The dream is over. The nightmare stage is about to begin.”
“The decision came after the White House’s announcement of a $9.2 billion Department of Energy loan guarantee to Ford Motor Co. to help build a massive battery plant, BlueOval City, in Stanton, Tennessee, a so-called right-to-work state. The loan contains no language requiring Ford or its joint venture partner, South Korea’s SK On, a unit of a Korean chemical company, to ensure union involvement.”
Do I read it right that South Korea is providing the technology while Ford is providing government financing for the project? All contrary to WTO rules, but who cares these days.
“I expect a long, nasty strike.”
The writers strike is past 100 days, already.
That’s because almost no one cares about the writers or their strike.
Now that football season is here followed shortly by baseball playoffs and the NHL/NBA starting up, I imagine even fewer people will care.
There is virtually unlimited amount of sports and streaming options (British, Australian etc) so this strike could go on a year and I bet most people wouldn’t care.
There is so much content out there already, you can easily spend a lifetime watching it… provided you’re not too picky about what you watch.
The ability to record things will eventually suffocate most art forms.
Yea! Greedy bastards driving inflation higher.
They get $4200 /WEEK minimum but they are unhappy that the way their industry is structured, they don’t have 52 week jobs. Tough on them. Go drive for Uber in-between gigs.
Because everybody else but themselves figured out that they are irrelevant. BS scripts can only be copied so many times.
This is what a free market is all about. If people want to band together, join a union and demand better work pay & “social justice” so be it. Ford and GM can opt to go bankrupt like Yellow if it wants.
A prudent investor may want to buy puts on GM or Ford and go long their competitors.
US auto companies should pay union members with shares of stock. It won’t eliminate conflict, but it should make the union think twice in the future about requesting self-inflicting wounds.
GM (Government Motors) already did that in 2008 when they went bankrupt. The union essentially got a percentage of the company after it emerged from bankruptcy.
They are in essence partly striking against themselves.
If the big 3 would be allowed to truly go bankrupt I suspect they’d do it in a heartbeat.
A proper bankruptcy would allow them to get out of all their union contracts, pensions etc. They could freely downsize workers, automate and move production to states and countries where it cost less to make vehicles.
However as we saw with GM in 2008 the Democrats would never allow that bankruptcy to happen.
Well, whenever they shriek that they are on the verge of going bankrupt, they get a bailout. Which the management pigs divvy up among themselves.
The status quo works much better for them than actually going bankrupt.
How dare they resist the whims of their betters! Since Jesus’ teachings became inconvenient, we worship The Megacorp. By His Light.
Message from management: How would you like to see all your jobs replaced by robots? Keep biting the hands that feed you and see how fast we automate your jobs away.
Management has been a parade of morons for more than 50 years, from Roger Smith to Mary Barra. Start with the robots replacing them.
The only “Robots” UAWs employers will be “investing” in, are the ones “building” the various bailouts which is all they, anymore, live off.
If the illiterates in “management” could competitively build cars, they would do so. Selling them like hotcakes in non-rigged, non-home markets. Which they never, ever will; as long as they are stuck answering to Fed-Welfare-Queen “investors”, politicians, ambulance chasers and other useless, negative-intellect-as-well-as-productivity dregs.
Building cars competitively is hard. Which resolves to: It’s flat out impossible, if you’re simultaneously forced to listen to such singularly destructive stupidification devices as “hedge fun managers” and “PE funds” for even a millisecond per century.
Who’s gonna buy the cars then?
Whenever I hear the words “social justice” I know the speaker is making some unjustified demand.
Fair and justice : GM might import Lyriq from China. Ford might sacrifice the
“Lightning”.
Fain’s family, upon seeing the photo and his joyful appearance, says, who is that?
Dad never smiles.