Autoworkers are the latest to spotlight the power of US labor. What is the state of unions today?

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. labor unions are once again flexing the muscles in the national spotlight.

The United Auto Workers' tentative agreements with Detroit's Big Three automakers could end the union's six-week strike. Gridlock persists in Hollywood between actors and major studios, while hospitality workers in Las Vegas, Detroit, Southern California and beyond are fighting for better pay and protections.

But despite historic walkouts and record contract deals seen this year, there's a lot stacked against labor organizers. Union membership rates in the U.S. have been falling for decades due to changes in the economy, employer opposition, growing political partisanship and legal challenges.

“Even though we’re seeing stronger support for unions, (with) the highest popularity of union favorability in polls since at least the 1960s, translating the worker desire for representation into actual representation is really hard under our current system,” Alexander Colvin, dean of Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations, told The Associated Press earlier this month.

Still, some labor advocates see growing momentum. Here's where things stand.

WHAT'S DRIVING UNION ACTIVITY NOW?

Across the U.S., hundreds of thousands of workers have participated in strikes this year. Labor activism has surged in tandem with soaring costs of living and rising inequality, particularly the growing pay gap between workers and top executives. Those inequities only became more glaring during the COVID-19 pandemic as U.S. corporations raked in record profits.

“It’s kind of a perfect storm, (so) you see a lot of union movement these days,” said Eunice Han, an assistant professor at the University of Utah specializing in labor economics.

The tightest U.S. labor market in decades is also giving workers leverage to challenge their employers.

The unemployment rate in the U.S. is close to 50-year lows and there are now about 1.5 open jobs for every unemployed person, according to recent government data.

Open jobs means American workers are quitting in higher numbers because they are confident of landing a better paying job. The unemployment rate 3.8%, further signaling leverage for workers.

Success or partial victories in high-profile union fights can also inspire organizing across industries — and bring lessons for future contract talks. A takeaway from the UAW's strike, for example, "is to act aggressively and creatively” while finding allies, said Cathy Creighton, director of Cornell University’s Industrial and Labor Relations Buffalo Co-Lab and a former field attorney for the NLRB.

UAW President Shawn Fain “didn’t do things the same way that had been done in the past,” Creighton added, noting the tactic of hitting General Motors, Ford and Stellantis at once through a build-up of targeted strikes, which were communicated to members on platforms like Facebook Live. Support from government officials, including President Joe Biden, also strengthened the campaign.

UNION RATES HAVE BEEN FALLING FOR DECADES. WHY?

While pickets lines seem to be everywhere this year, union membership rates have been declining for decades. Only 6% of U.S. private-sector workers belong to unions today, a sliver of the 35% that were union members in 1953.

Todd Vachon, an assistant professor in the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations, points to the post-World War II Taft-Hartley Act, which restricted the power of labor unions — as well as factors like relocating manufacturing jobs overseas and an uptick in anti-union stances from both employers and lawmakers that grew in the 70s and 80s.

Vachon notes one pivotal moment in particular, when President Ronald Reagan fired all striking air traffic controllers in 1981.

“That sent a really clear signal to the business community that it’s a-okay to be completely anti-union and to be so in a very belligerent way, because even the president of the United States is doing it,” he said.

Separately, with the rise of the gig economy, some large companies have recategorized employees as “contractors,” making it harder for them to unionize. And growth in industries that haven't had a strong history of union membership, such as technology, has also contributed to the decline in unionization.

Last year, the number of both public- and private-sector U.S. workers belonging to unions actually grew by 273,000, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But the U.S. workforce grew at an even faster rate, meaning the percentage of those belonging to unions fell slightly.

WHAT LABOR LAWS IMPACT UNIONS TODAY?

The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 granted private-sector employees the right to unionize. A 1961 executive order from President John F. Kennedy allowed federal employees to organize. That came around the same era that states also began to pass labor laws for their own public workers.

Some states in the South and lower Midwest “will allow police and firefighters to collectively bargain, but not state employees. Or they’ll let state employees bargain, but they can only bargain over wages,” Vachon said. “That shows you how important the labor law is. It really sets the framework for which workers can either organize a union successfully or not.”

A handful of states also have “right to work” laws which, in unionized workplaces, require unions to represent everyone regardless of whether individuals choose to pay dues or formally join. Such legislation has been criticized for undermining the financial resources and bargaining power of unions.

Attitudes towards unionization have become increasingly partisan, too, and also divided geographically. Politically “blue” states tend to have higher unionization rates than “red” states. Several states have also dialed back on union protections in recent years, Han said.

MORE CHALLENGES ORGANIZING TODAY

Unionization efforts have expanded but many are taking place where there is little history of organized labor, creating a higher bar for workers.

Colvin points to Starbucks workers who have seen union drives clipped in the last year. Starbucks has been accused of chilling organization by closing unionized stores and firing pro-union workers.

There are also limits for organizers under current labor law. That means that what worked in auto workers' labor campaign, for example, may not be possible for other industries.

“We have a labor law that was designed in the era in the 30s and 40s, when auto plants of 10,000 workers (were organizing)," he said. Starbucks is “split into these small coffee shops of 15 workers. ... They need to join together to have any kind of bargaining power against a big employer. But our labor law isn’t structured to help them do that,” Colvin said.

Service jobs can also be hard to organize due to part-time work and high turnover rates. The same can be said for Amazon warehouses, where there have been pushes for unions.

According to a Gallup poll, public approval of stronger unions now stands at 67%, down slightly from the 71% last year, but mirroring levels last seen in the 1960s. Creighton and others add that young people in particular are leading today's charge.

But the desire to organize can only go so far without policy change, experts say.

“We’re absolutely at a turning point in people’s consciousness,” Vachon adds. “Whether that translates into actual a change of direction for union density, I think, is going to depend a lot on how that consciousness plays out in the political arena.”

Wyatte Grantham-philips, The Associated Press

Three Young Activists Who Never Worked in an Auto Factory Helped Deliver Huge Win for the UAW

Story by Nora Eckert • The Wall Street Journal

LONG READ

In hard-nosed negotiations, the United Auto Workers in recent weeks shocked Detroit automakers with public swipes at CEO pay, a renewed focus on the rank-and-file and a bold plan for sudden strikes. The aggressive strategy was driven by a band of young outsiders—who have never clocked in a day of work at an auto factory.

The three 30-something labor activists were brought in by new UAW President Shawn Fain to remake the union into a more independent, media savvy and creative challenger to car companies.

They included a communications specialist who helped craft campaigns for Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York labor attorney who once wrote on progressive labor issues and a former reporter who later would help win major concessions from the New York Times for the NewsGuild of New York.

At the UAW, one of the country’s largest unions, they were given a national platform during one of the most active years for strikes in nearly a generation. The result was a sharper and more bitter collective-bargaining battle with Detroit—and one of the biggest wins in decades.

After a more than six-week strike that put 45,000 workers on the picket lines, the UAW came to tentative deals with Ford, Chrysler-parent Stellantis and General Motors that increase wages 25% over 4½ years—more than the total increase in the past 22 years—plus the return of cost-of-living adjustments. The contracts are the most lucrative since the 1960s, union leaders said.

Related video: GM, UAW reach tentative deal, sources say (FOX 2 Detroit) 

Duration 5:04   View on Watch

MSNBC

UAW strike set to end after union reaches agreement with GM

2:07

The Wall Street Journal  

GM Reaches Tentative Deal With UAW

0:38

WTVF Nashville,   TN

UAW members strike for a second day in Spring Hill ahead of tentative agreement with GM

2:20

Fain, a former electrician who made an unexpected ascent to the top role this spring, and his team deployed a pugnacious strategy that hit directly at criticism that the UAW has long been too chummy with carmakers.

“I thought it was important to bring in people that weren’t ingrained in the system,” Fain told The Wall Street Journal in August.

The group includes Chris Brooks, a 39-year-old labor activist recruited early this year to manage the new president’s transition team who then became a top aide. He helped overhaul the 88-year-old union, bringing a renewed militancy and empowering rank-and-file workers by pushing for frequent rallies and events where Fain heard them out.







Part of his strategy has also been to make sure nonunion workers at factories in the South were listening. Fain indicated on Sunday that the union would turn to organizing at automakers such as EV leader Tesla and foreign car companies.

New communications director Jonah Furman, 33, coordinated a publicity campaign to make Fain and coverage of the strike ubiquitous in the media. Fain shared details of the contract talks on weekly livestream updates, a tactic that stunned auto executives accustomed to behind-closed-doors discussions.

New York labor attorney Ben Dictor, 36, was heavily involved in the union’s biggest break from the past: holding talks with the three big automakers simultaneously. For decades, the UAW had picked one company to negotiate a new contract, and then used those terms as a template for the other two automakers. This time, the union combined talks to pit the companies against one another and accelerate deals with all three.

Longtime UAW members also worked closely with the new leader to shape its current strategy. Members must vote to approve the deals in coming weeks.

Adversarial talks

Contract talks with the three Detroit automakers, which happen every four years, are always contentious. But auto executives say these have been the most adversarial they can remember.

“The UAW’s leaders have called us the enemy in these negotiations,” Ford Executive Chair Bill Ford said in an October speech before the agreement with the union was solidified. “I will never consider our employees as enemies.”


He signaled that the union’s demands could hurt the company. “Ford’s ability to invest in the future is not just a talking point. It’s the absolute lifeblood of our company,” he said. “And if we lose it, we will lose to the competition. America loses. Many jobs will be lost.”

Higher labor costs in the past prodded carmakers to open factories in Mexico and elsewhere, part of the reason the UAW’s ranks are down more than 70% from their peak in the 1970s.

In the wake of GM and Chrysler’s government-led restructurings in 2009, priority was put on bringing their labor costs more in line with foreign rivals.

Wall Street and politicians, including President Biden and former President Donald Trump, closely monitored the UAW strike. Also paying attention were executives at foreign automakers in the U.S., who worried that the spillover effect from big contracts in Detroit could put upward pressure on their own wages.


Some company executives questioned whether Fain’s team would rather let a high-profile strike play out than work hard to get a deal.

“It is clear Shawn Fain wants to make history for himself, but it can’t be to the detriment of our represented team members and the industry,” GM Chief Executive Mary Barra said in a statement Sept. 29.








Fain, an Indiana native, emerged from a reform faction of the union for a surprise win in March, the first time in more than 70 years that a challenger defeated a presidential candidate from the UAW’s longtime ruling party. UAW leadership had long been regarded as insular, predictable and guarded, composed of union lifers who rose up from the auto-factory floor and spent years on negotiation teams before taking the lead.

Fain, 55, won after a change in rules let members, instead of chapter officials, vote directly for their leadership. The voting revision came after a corruption scandal that became public in 2017. A sprawling federal investigation led to convictions of more than a dozen UAW officials, and sent two former presidents to prison.

The new president and the reform slate, called Unite All Workers for Democracy, or UAWD, vowed to return the UAW to its powerhouse stature when it set the wages and benefits for the auto industry.

Brooks, a former labor journalist from Tennessee, has been described as the nucleus of Fain’s team. He previously led the contract campaign during the NewsGuild of New York’s two-year battle with the New York Times that ended in May with an at least 10.6% wage increase.

In the past, he had criticized the UAW as overly cooperative with the automakers and too quick to give concessions. In a 2016 op-ed in Dollars & Sense magazine, he lamented the UAW’s “top-down brand of business unionism, which has led to its deeply concessionary approach to collective bargaining and new organizing.”

Brooks was central to Fain’s chaos-inducing strike strategy, in which select facilities at each of the Detroit automakers were taken down with little notice. Fain said the approach, which he escalated during the strike by adding more and more facilities, allowed the union to be nimble and apply pressure at key profit centers that hurt the automakers. It was a change from the all-company walkouts that were previously typical—and had never been tried before by the UAW at all three companies.

Brooks also encouraged pop-up events across the country where Fain met with members and spoke alongside Sanders and union leaders. The rallies were new for many longtime UAW workers.

Often at Brooks’s side was Dictor, who has worked with the NewsGuild and local chapters of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

Dictor, who graduated from the University of Florida and got his law degree in New York, received national attention for being the first attorney to question Trump under oath after he left the White House, in a lawsuit brought by protesters in 2015 who said they were attacked by Trump tower security guards.




As the union’s top attorney on the labor negotiations, he advised about working under an expired contract, a byproduct of the union’s strike strategy that had some workers on strike while others at the same company remained on the job. “You are the union’s eyes and ears in your facility. We are asking you to be on alert for any changes the company may be making now that the contract has expired,” Dictor advised members in a September video.

Furman, who had worked for Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez and was the lead singer and bassist in a Boston indie-rock band named Krill, spearheaded the union’s bare-knuckle social-media strategy, where it updated members on negotiations and frequently posted videos taunting company executives about their pay.

“Jim Farley took in $21 million last year,” said Fain in a livestream, referring to Ford’s chief executive. “We need him to do two things right now: Look in the mirror and look in Ford’s bank account.”

Fain said GM factory workers would have to log years on the job to make what CEO Barra earns in one week. He chided Stellantis Chief Executive Carlos Tavares for the “pathetic irony” of him not showing up at the negotiating table after the executive said the company was struggling with absenteeism.

The executives at times responded with sharply worded written statements and comments in interviews but overall kept a lower profile than Fain.

In September, automakers seized on leaked messages purported to be from Furman’s account on X, formerly Twitter, where he referenced keeping the companies “wounded for months” and damaging their reputations. His remarks incensed company executives and fed their view that union leaders were more interested in spotlighting their ideology than reaching agreements.

Election mandate

For more than 70 years, the UAW had been ruled by one dominant caucus, started by former president Walter Reuther, who in the 1950s and ’60s built the union into one of the nation’s most powerful labor groups.

In the past few decades, though, the UAW has lost membership and influence. Its active membership has fallen to around 400,000 workers, from 1.5 million during the 1970s. The Detroit automakers began losing market share to Toyota and other foreign competitors, and closed dozens of factories and other facilities since the early 2000s.

The union has added members from other sectors, including higher-education and legal services, but hasn’t been able to meaningfully expand its automotive ranks. Organizing campaigns at southern factories owned by foreign automakers such as Volkswagen and Nissan Motor in recent years have failed.




Today, the UAW’s 146,000 automotive members at the Detroit Three account for a fraction of the nation’s more than one million auto-factory jobs.

The recent corruption scandal further eroded the UAW’s standing. Officials were found to have used union funds to pay for private villas, high-end liquor, golf outings and other luxuries.

The reform-minded UAWD caucus grew from a cross-section of sectors the union represents and vowed to root out corruption.

When Fain sought the UAWD’s endorsement, the reformers weren’t sold on him as a change agent. Some were concerned he might be too connected to the establishment way of bargaining.

“We were skeptical,” said Scott Houldieson, who works at Ford’s Chicago Assembly factory and is chair of the reform group’s steering committee. “‘Is this guy a plant?’” he recalled wondering.

Fain convinced committee members he was serious about moving the union past its corruption-scarred past to elevate the voices of rank-and-file workers—who had made concessions in past negotiations as a result of what Fain called weak leadership.

In March, he edged out incumbent Ray Curry by less than 500 votes in a runoff election. Curry had taken over in 2021 after serving as the union’s secretary-treasurer, the No. 2 position. During the campaign, Curry’s team said Fain lacked experience and pointed out that some of his supporters weren’t union members.

All seven candidates for union leadership posts endorsed by the reform caucus won, a sign members were ready for change.



Brooks was top of mind for many leaders within UAWD, some of whom he worked with previously. He had helped workers at Volkswagen’s Chattanooga, Tenn., plant who tried unsuccessfully to unionize in 2014.

Five years later, he covered a UAW organizing drive at the VW factory as a reporter for Labor Notes, an online publication that describes itself as a voice for union activists. He also closely covered the UAW’s corruption scandal for the publication.

At the NewsGuild of New York, Brooks led the union’s contract campaign and had a knack for channeling the sentiment of the rank-and-file workers, said Jon Schleuss, president of the main NewsGuild-CWA union. Brooks works with a regimented intensity—at the NewsGuild he kept detailed online spreadsheets for workers to plan activities, including a rare one-day strike in December of more than 1,100 New York Times journalists and other union members.

Some early members of the Fain team left in part due to concerns Brooks was too inexperienced and was espousing strategies that were too aggressive, people familiar with the matter said.

Other newcomers joined the staff, including a contingent in the legal and communications department who had worked with the Service Employees International Union, a big healthcare union.

The newly assembled group prioritized swift decision-making and responses to the companies, which required cutting through bureaucracy that had impeded previous bargaining rounds, people familiar with the union’s inner workings said. The UAW pumped out pamphlets and videos to communicate with members—key to ensuring buy-in amid a strike that affected workers unevenly.




“What has moved the needle is our willingness to take action, to be flexible, to be aggressive when we have to,” Fain said in an early October livestream to members.

Fain also recruited union longtimers to join his team, including people in research and organizing who were knowledgeable about the group’s history and had relationships with local chapters. They were key to identifying strike targets that would both cause pain to companies and be supported by workers.

Bold opening

The union began contract negotiations this summer with leverage from a tight labor market, inflationary pressures and an especially profitable recent run for the companies. It made clear things were different by opening with demands that included a 40% wage increase over the four-year contract.

The union further stunned the automakers a few weeks later when Fain appeared on a livestream address to outline a detailed list of the union’s demands, a rare public airing of the state of play from the bargaining table.

On another livestream in August, Fain threw Stellantis’ first contract offer in a trash can.

In September, the union made one of its most visible departures from its past practices by walking out on all three companies at once for the first time. Leaders didn’t call a full strike but instead implemented a start-small strategy by hitting select facilities, and expanded walkouts when they perceived little movement at the bargaining table.

On social media, Fain’s team seemed to relish the disarray the pop-up strikes have caused the car companies. One meme posted in advance of a Fain video to declare fresh walkouts used a GIF from the movie “The Hitman’s Bodyguard,” with a well-known line from actor Samuel L. Jackson: “Tick tock motherf—.” Another post referenced reality TV show “The Bachelorette,” saying stay tuned to find out which company would get the rose.

Not all UAW members have liked the tactics, indicating the stances were too extreme or flippant—some union leaders got complaints from workers after Fain wore an “Eat the Rich” shirt on a livestream.

“We want the public to understand our fight, and to side with us,” Fain said in an early October livestream. “It’s not about theatrics. It’s about power.”

Write to Nora Eckert at nora.eckert@wsj.com and Mike Colias at mike.colias@wsj.com

US auto workers union reaches tentative deal with GM

New York (AFP) – The US auto workers union reached a tentative agreement with General Motors on a new labor contract Monday, a source close to negotiations told AFP, paving the way to ending a six-week strike at major car manufacturers.

General Motors and the United Auto Workers union have come to an in-principle deal on a new labor contract after weeks of striking, according to a source close to negotiations © BILL PUGLIANO / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File

The GM deal makes it the final "Big Three" automaker -- after Stellantis and Ford -- to come to a pact with the United Auto Workers (UAW) union.

The UAW launched the strike on September 15, marking the first simultaneous work stoppage of the three carmakers.

Workers were pushing for higher wages and other improvements, in particular relating to the transition to making electric vehicles.

Asked on Monday if a preliminary agreement had been reached between both sides, a source familiar with the talks replied "yes," without providing further details.

Negotiations with GM took place on Sunday night and into the early morning, according to CNBC.

The deal's terms are generally similar to earlier agreements with Ford and Stellantis, including a 25 percent hourly pay raise and cost-of-living adjustments, Bloomberg reported, citing sources.

GM and the union declined to comment when contacted by AFP.

At its height, the strike mobilized more than 45,000 of the UAW's 146,000 members working for the Big Three automakers.

"For months we've said that record profits mean record contracts," UAW President Shawn Fain said in an earlier statement, after the preliminary deal with Ford was reached.

"And UAW family, our Stand Up Strike has delivered," he added.

Ratification

In the case of Stellantis, some 5,000 jobs will be added by the Jeep maker over the course of the latest contract, according to Fain previously.

This was a turnaround from job cuts the automaker was pursuing before the negotiations.

The tentative contract includes a 25 percent raise in base wages by 2028. Cost of living adjustments will cumulatively raise the top wage by 33 percent, to over $42 an hour, the union said.

While the wage increases in the tentative agreements are lower than the 40 percent sought by Fain when UAW launched the strike, they are considerably higher than the nine percent rise Ford initially proposed in August.

This month, Ford estimated the strike has cost it some $1.3 billion.

In September, President Joe Biden joined striking workers on the picket line in Michigan, becoming the first sitting president to do so.

The in-principle pacts still need to be ratified by workers in a vote, in a process that could take two weeks, a source close to negotiations earlier said.

With the Ford and Stellantis deals, members were cleared to return to work at grounded factories.

Issued on: 30/10/2023 - 

© 2023 AFP

Factbox-Highlights of UAW deal with General Motors
Story by Reuters • 3h

FILE PHOTO: A United Auto Workers On Strike sign is seen outside the Ford Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne, Michigan U.S. October 25, 2023. 

REUTERS/Rebecca Cook/File Photo© Thomson Reuters

(Reuters) -The United Auto Workers (UAW) reached a tentative agreement with General Motors on Monday, the latest in a series of hard-fought deals with the Detroit Three automakers that will help its members win record pay hikes following six weeks of a coordinated strike.

The union reached similar deals with Ford Motor and Chrysler-owner Stellantis over the last few days, in what amounts to significant victories for auto workers after years of stagnant wages and painful concessions made by the union following the 2008 financial crisis.

Following are some of the terms highlighted by UAW leaders:

* The agreement grants 25% in base wage increases through April 2028 and will cumulatively raise the top wage by 33% compounded with estimated cost-of-living adjustments to over $42 an hour

* The starting wage will increase by 70% compounded with estimated cost-of-living adjustments to over $30 an hour

* Deal brings two groups into the UAW GM Master Agreement at Ultium Cells and GM Subsystems LLC

* GM has agreed to make five payments of $500 to current retirees and surviving spouses

* Improves retirement for current retirees, those workers with pensions, and those who have 401(k) plans

* Agreement reinstates benefits lost during the Great Recession, including cost-of-living allowances, a three-year wage progression and ends wage tiers in the union

* Right to strike over plant closures

(Reporting by David Shepardson, Joseph White, Peter Henderson and Manya Saini; Editing by Jamie Freed and Anil D'Silva)

UAW reaches deal with GM, ends coordinated strikes against Detroit automakers

Story by Reuters • 3h

Striking United Auto Worker union members picket outside the Ford Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne, Michigan U.S., October 25, 2023. REUTERS/Rebecca Cook© Thomson Reuters

(Reuters) - The United Auto Workers (UAW) union reached a tentative agreement with General Motors on Monday, signaling an end to walkouts that have cost the No. 1 Detroit automaker more than $400 million a week.

The union has also reached agreements with Ford Motor and Chrysler-owner Stellantis over the last few days, in what is seen as significant victories for auto laborers after years of stagnant wages and painful concessions made by the union following the 2008 financial crisis.

Reuters
Ford strikes tentative deal to end auto strike
View on WatchDuration 1:51

Here is a timeline of events beginning with the election of Fain in March:

Date Development

March 25 Shawn Fain wins the race for UAW

president; vows to take a tough stance

against the Big Three automakers.


July 10 The union says it will open contract talks

with Detroit's Big Three automakers starting

July 13.

July 11 Fain says the union is not afraid to hold a

strike at any of the automakers without a

fair contract.

July 19 Fain meets President Joe Biden at the White

House as the union briefs the staff on

contract talks with the automakers.

Aug. 1 The UAW presents demands to Stellantis, says

the union is seeking ambitious benefit

increases from the Detroit Three, including

double-digit pay rises and defined-benefit

pensions for all workers.

Aug. 2 The union presents contract demands to

General Motors.


Aug. 3 The union presents contract demands to Ford

Aug. 8 Fain angrily tosses contract proposals from

Stellantis in a trash can, citing numerous

concessions that the Chrysler parent is

seeking in labor talks.

Aug. 25 The UAW says 97% of voting members were in

favor of authorizing a strike at the Detroit

Three if an agreement is not reached before

Sept. 14.

Aug. 31 The union says it has filed unfair labor

practice charges with the National Labor

Relations Board (NLRB) against GM and

Stellantis, saying they have refused to

bargain in good faith.

Aug. 31 Ford makes a contract offer to the UAW,

providing hourly employees with 15%


guaranteed combined wage increases, lump-sum

payments and improved benefits over the life

of the contract.

Sept. 1 The NLRB says it will investigate the charges

filed by the UAW.

Sept 6 The UAW makes a labor contract

counterproposal on economic issues to Ford.

Sept. 7 GM makes a counteroffer to the UAW that

includes a 10% wage hike and two additional

3% annual lump-sum payments over four years.

Fain calls the offer "insulting."

Sept. 8 Stellantis says it offered U.S. hourly

workers a 14.5% wage hike over four years but

no lump-sum payments.

Sept. 8 Fain says UAW expects to go on strike against

all three automakers the following week if


they do not improve their contract offers.

Sept. 11 Stellantis says it plans to make a new

counteroffer to the UAW after the union made

its own revised offer on Sunday ahead of the

expiration of the current four-year labor

deal Thursday night.

Sept. 13 The UAW rejects counteroffers from the

automakers and outlined plans for strikes

targeting individual U.S. auto plants in what

would be its first-ever simultaneous strike

against the Detroit Three.

Sept. 15 The UAW launches simultaneous strikes that

will halt production of some popular models

at three factories owned by GM, Ford and

Stellantis.

Sept. 16 Negotiators for the UAW and Ford have


"reasonably productive discussions" toward a

new contract, while officials at Stellantis

say a proposal to resume work at an idled

Illinois factory has fallen through.

Sept. 18 UAW says it will announce strikes at more

plants on Sept. 22 if no serious progress is

made in talks.

Sept. 20 UAW says 90 workers go on strike at

Mercedes-supplier ZF's plant in Alabama.

Sept. 22 UAW will expand its strikes against GM and

Stellantis, but has made real progress in

talks with Ford Motor, the union says.

Sept 24. Ford says despite progress in some areas, it

still has "significant gaps to close" on key

economic issues before it can reach a new

labor agreement with UAW.

Sept. 28 The UAW makes a new counter-proposal to

Stellantis, just one day before it was set to

strike at additional Detroit Three

facilities.

Sept. 29 The UAW will walk off the job at an

additional plant at General Motors and at

Ford, says Fain. The new strike will not

extend to Stellantis, which called before the

scheduled 10 a.m. ET announcement to make

significant changes in its contract proposal.

Oct.2 GM and Ford say they are laying off another

500 workers at four Midwestern plants.

Separately, the UAW confirms it presented a

new contract offer to GM. GM says it has

received the counterproposal "but significant

gaps remain."

Oct. 3 Ford says it had made a new contract offer

but says a dispute over battery plants

remained unresolved. Ford says the new offer

boosts wages for temporary workers, increases

company 401(k) contributions and further

shrinks time needed to get to the top wage

rate.

Oct. 6 The UAW holds off on additional strikes

against Detroit Three auto plants, citing

GM's unexpected willingness to allow workers

at joint-venture battery plants to be covered

by union contracts.

Oct. 11 GM, Ford and Stellantis all agree to raise

base wages by between 20% and 23% over a

four-year deal. Ford and Stellantis agree to

reinstate cost-of-living adjustments, or

COLA.

Oct. 12 The UAW shuts down Ford's biggest plant

globally, saying the automaker refused to

move further in bargaining. UAW negotiators

are expected to turn their attention to talks

with Stellantis.

Oct. 13 Fain says the union will not expand its

strike at the moment, but warns that members

would now walk out of additional facilities

without warning rather than wait until

Fridays to announce new plans.

Oct. 13 A senior Ford executive says the automaker is

"at the limit" of what it can spend on higher

wages and benefits for the UAW. Stellantis

and Ford say they will temporarily lay off

1,250 employees due to the impact of the UAW

strike.

Oct. 16 Ford executive chairman Bill Ford urges the

UAW union to end a 32-day strike and reach a

new labor agreement, and warns of the growing

impact to the automaker and the U.S. economy.

Oct. 20 General Motors and Stellantis raise their

offer to striking auto workers, matching

Ford's proposed 23% wage hike. Fain says

"there is more to be won."

Oct. 23 An additional 6,800 UAW members go on strike

at Stellantis's largest assembly plant.

Oct. 24 General Motors withdraws its 2023 profit

outlook just ahead of a new UAW walkout at

its Arlington, Texas, factory.

Oct. 25 UAW and Ford announce tentative agreement on

labor deal that will last 4-1/2 years and

provide a record pay increase.

Oct. 26 Ford withdraws full-year results outlook due

to "uncertainty" over pending ratification of

its deal with the union, and warned of

continued pressure on electric vehicles.

Oct. 28 Stellantis and UAW reach tentative agreement

on new labor contract, the union said.

Oct. 28 UAW expands strike against General Motors to

include an engine plant, in a move that could

stall GM's large pickup production.

Oct. 30 GM and the UAW union reached a tentative

agreement, with union members winning record

pay hikes to end six weeks of a coordinated

strike against the Detroit Three automakers.

(Reporting By Reuters Staff; Editing by Cynthia Osterman, Shounak Dasgupta, Shinjini Ganguli and Anil D'Silva)

Coastal GasLink pipeline fully installed: TC Energy

© Provided by The Canadian Press

CALGARY — The Coastal GasLink pipeline, one of the largest energy infrastructure projects in recent Canadian history, is physically complete.

TC Energy Corp., the company behind the project, said Monday it has finished installing pipe along the entire 670-km route from Dawson Creek, B.C. to Kitimat, B.C. — a milestone that marks the culmination of over five years of construction and 10 years of planning.

The final weld was completed Oct. 7 at the base of Cable Crane Hill near Kitimat, TC Energy said.

The company said mechanical completion of the pipeline, which involves final documentation, engineering analysis and testing, will be done before the end of the year.

Monday's news was broadly hailed by the Canadian energy sector and industry watchers, who called it a significant step forward.

The Coastal GasLink pipeline is one of two major pipelines — the second being the Trans Mountain oil pipeline — expected to come online in the coming months. Both are viewed by Canada's energy sector as potentially transformative, in terms of their ability to improve access to markets and to allow oil and gas companies to expand their production.

The Coastal GasLink pipeline will transport natural gas from western Canada to the Shell-led LNG Canada processing and export facility currently being built in Kitimat — opening up new Asian markets for domestic natural gas drillers.

"First of all, just getting a pipeline to tidewater is huge," said Heather Exner-Pirot, director of energy, natural resources and environment for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

"I think the last time we did this was the 1950s. So this (pipeline completion) is just stunning to think of in itself, for Canada."

"But it also means we finally see some light at the end of the tunnel in terms of getting into the LNG (liquefied natural gas) game," she added.

"We have just this incredible Montney reserve, this incredible reserve of natural gas, and now we can finally get some out to our own tidewater."

The LNG Canada facility, which will be the first liquefied natural gas export facility in Canada, is still under construction. But the company said in an update in July that the project is 85 per cent complete and on track to start shipping its first cargoes by mid-decade.

LNG Canada, a more than $40-billion project, represents the single largest private investment in Canadian history.

Until it and Coastal GasLink come online, Canadian gas producers wishing to export LNG have no choice but to ship their natural gas from Western Canada all the way to LNG facilities on the U.S. Gulf Coast.

"There's no question, (the Coastal GasLink completion) is very positive. Market access has been a critical barrier," said Tristan Goodman, president of the Explorers and Producers Association of Canada, which represents more than 140 Canadian oil and gas companies.

Goodman added that tapping into global LNG markets is critical for the future growth of the Canadian natural gas sector, which believes its product can be used as a cleaner-burning alternative to emissions-heavy coal in parts of Asia.

"This (Coastal GasLink) is critical from a natural gas production standpoint. Depending on how you're looking at LNG growth, you could actually see a doubling of natural gas production (in Canada) in the coming years," he said.

But the completion of the Coastal Gas pipeline has not been without challenges. What was initially expected to be a $6.2-billion capital project has run into significant budget overruns over the course of construction. Estimated project costs climbed first to $11.2 billion, and most recently to $14.5 billion, according to TC Energy's latest project price tag estimate as of February.

Contributing to the increased costs have been unexpected construction issues, including problems with erosion and sediment control, and rising labour costs.

TC Energy itself has been under significant scrutiny from investors and credit rating agencies for its heavy debt load as well as for the spiralling costs of Coastal GasLink.

The project has also attracted opposition and protests from environmentalists and Indigenous leaders. While most Indigenous groups along the project's pathway support the pipeline, the hereditary Wet'suwet'en chiefs, whose territory the pipeline crosses, do not.

In the winter of 2020, protesters blockaded freight and passenger rail services across the country to show solidarity with the Wet'suwet'en.

However, over the course of the project, TC Energy also successfully signed agreements with 17 of the 20 Indigenous communities located along Coastal GasLink's route to acquire a 10 per cent equity stake in the project.

Exner-Pirot said that kind of "groundbreaking" solution has essentially set the bar for Indigenous economic reconciliation in Canada when it comes to major resource project development going forward.

"Obviously the Wet'suwet'en blockades became what people know about Coastal GasLink," she said.

"But for Coastal GasLink to offer an equity option before the pipeline was built was some very creative financial work to get Indigenous communities a piece of the action. There probably is no better example in Canada, from any sector, of how to involve Indigenous communities."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 30, 2023.

Companies in this story: (TSX:TRP)

Amanda Stephenson, The Canadian Press

Alberta threatens use of Sovereignty Act in throne speech

Story by Michelle Bellefontaine • CBC

The Alberta government intends to lower electricity and auto insurance costs, as well as use the Sovereignty Act against the federal government if it tries to enforce emissions caps or a net-zero electricity grid by 2035, Lt.-Gov. Salma Lakhani said in Monday's throne speech.

The speech, which outlines the province's priorities, marks the start of Alberta's 31st legislature. It comes five months after Premier Danielle Smith and her United Conservative Party won a majority government.

The speech focuses on affordability issues as well as grievances against the federal government. Ottawa is called one of the "powerful forces" in Canada forcing Albertans to fundamentally alter our provincial economy and way of life."

The province is prepared to use the Sovereignty within a United Canada Act in order to ignore legislation implemented by the federal government.

At a news conference Monday, Smith said motions could be used against emissions caps on oil, gas, methane, and fertilizer, and the plan to make the electricity grid net-zero by 2035, which she contends is not realistic.

"Those are all circumstances that if they proceed unilaterally, we would have to defend our constitutional jurisdiction," she said.

Smith believes the recent Supreme Court opinion on the constitutionality of the Impact Assessment Act backs up her assertion that Alberta has sole jurisdiction over these areas.

Smith also suggested the government would even put money toward new natural gas electricity generation plants to "de-risk" them in light of the federal plan for the zero-emissions grid.

"Whatever it takes to be able to get natural gas plants built," she said. "Right now, no one is offering up a large-scale natural gas because of the uncertainty that's been created."

High-speed rail?

The throne speech listed other actions the government plans to take, albeit in broad strokes with few details.

On the affordability front, the government is promising a package of "substantive reforms" to bring down high electricity prices.


Alberta Lt.-Gov Salma Lakhani reads the throne speech in Edmonton on Monday. The Alberta legislature resumed Monday with promises of a referendum on tax increases and more threats to unsheathe a law that the United Conservative Party government says defends the province from federal overreach.

 (Jason Franson/The Canadian Press)© Provided by cbc.ca

That includes adding supply generated by natural gas plants to the grid, and ensuring the market isn't subject to manipulation. Smith said the regulated rate option is a misnomer as it gives people a false sense of security.

"We will very likely abandon that terminology and talk about variable rates versus fixed rates," she said.

The province also intends to provide incentives to homeowners who install solar panels or add other energy-efficient products to their homes.

Smith said a new regulatory regime for renewable energy will be introduced in early 2024, adding that the current pause on project approvals will not be extended past February.

Albertans can expect reforms to auto insurance when the current rate freeze expires at the end of this year. The measures will limit premium increases for good drivers and help insurance companies keep their costs down.

Smith also intends to take action on one of her election promises — to create a new eight per cent tax bracket for Albertans who earn less than $60,000 a year.

The throne speech indicates changes to Alberta Health Services promised by Smith will be introduced soon. The measures will decentralize decision making and move more resources and staff to the front lines.

The government is promising to plan for rail between the Calgary airport and Banff, as well as a high-speed line along the Calgary-Red Deer-Edmonton corridor.

NDP Leader Rachel Notley said the throne speech was full of vague commitments that do not address what Albertans are most worried about.

She said Smith's threat to use the Sovereignty Act will create economic uncertainty in Alberta.

No pension mention

Notley noted the government's consultation on creating an Alberta Pension Plan wasn't mentioned at all in the 13-page speech.

"Why is that, I wonder?" Notley asked.

"Perhaps because the entire scheme is based on numbers that the premier herself admitted last week are made up."

The throne speech was followed by the introduction of the Taxpayer Protection Amendment Act, the government's first piece of proposed legislation. Under the bill, increases to personal or business taxes would need to be approved via a referendum.

Notley called the bill a gimmick. She said the government has many other ways to download costs onto families.

"It chains Albertans to the revenue royalty rollercoaster because it makes it impossible to confront and adapt to changing economic conditions," she said.

The order paper, published on the Legislative Assembly of Alberta website, shows four other pieces of legislation are coming soon: Alberta Pension Protection Act, Opioid Damages and Health Care Costs Recovery Amendment Act, Tax Statutes Amendment Act and the Public Sector Employer Amendment Act.

A HOUSING PANIC BREEDS RACISM
Housing crunch driving more Canadians to say immigration is too high: survey

Story by David Baxter • Global News

An aerial view of houses in a neighbourhood in Kingston, Ontario on Tuesday, May 2, 2023.© THE CANADIAN PRESS IMAGES/Lars Hagberg

Agrowing number of Canadians appear to feel immigration to Canada should be limited, spurred by worry about the cost-of-living crisis, according to a new survey from the Environics Institute.

The survey suggests that 44 per cent of Canadians agree with the statement that "overall, there’s too much immigration to Canada" compared to 51 per cent that disagree. It comes as Immigration Minister Marc Miller is set for a Tuesday announcement billed as an unveiling of "the Strategic Immigration Review report and the plan to improve Canada's immigration system.


“It's the biggest such change in this measure we've seen in four decades,” said Keith Neuman, a senior associate with Environics.

The current immigration targets of approximately 500,000 newcomers annually are set to expire in 2025. When asked whether those targets could dip, Miller said that is "a work in progress."

The Environics survey suggested the biggest increases of those saying there is too much immigration was among first generation Canadians, men and top income earners.

With regard to political preference, 64 per cent of Conservative respondents agreed there is too much immigration, compared to 29 per cent for Liberals and 24 per cent among NDP respondents.

The survey suggested the number of people saying Canada is welcoming too many immigrants is up in almost every identifiable group and region across the country. The change was most notable in Ontario and B.C. where agreement that there’s too much immigration outweighs disagreement.

This view of immigration is a significant shift from the results last year, where the same question had a record high of 69 per cent of people disagreeing with the statement and only 27 per cent saying there’s too much immigration.

Neuman says people who said in past surveys that too many immigrants are coming to Canada were more worried about who they were and where they were coming from.

Now, though, Neuman says the concern appears to stem from Canada’s capacity to welcome newcomers.

“So, what we've seen over the past year, there's no shift to anti-immigrant sentiment. I think that's very important. It's really a question about the volume and how many can we manage," he said.

“We probed a bit deeper. We found that the primary concern is about the potential impact on housing,” Neuman added.

“So, housing in this research clearly is among the most top-of-mind important issues, much more than a year ago, even though many of these housing circumstances were the same. It's now much more of a top-of-mind issue.”

The results echo similar findings from recent polling done by Ipsos for Global News.

Earlier in October, Ipsos polling suggested that two-thirds of Canadians who do not own a home say they are giving up on the dream, and found 71 per cent of respondents live in communities where they say a housing crisis exists.

That same poll found 73 per cent also said Canada’s immigration targets should be reduced until the housing shortage eases, while 68 per cent said there should be a cap on international students while the crisis is addressed.

However, Miller told Global News on Friday that the government sees immigration as a key factor in addressing the housing crisis, through bringing in more skilled workers to build homes.

“I've seen numbers, and I have no reason to doubt them, in and around 100,000 skilled workers we need to build the houses necessary to alleviate the housing crunch, which has not really been a product of immigration,” Miller said.

Video: New report shows just how far out of reach home ownership has become

The average price for a detached home in Ontario in September was $896,500 according to the Ontario Real Estate Association.

The B.C. Real Estate Association reported an average home price of $966,500 last month.

Among respondents who agreed there was too much immigration, the leading cause for this belief is that immigrants drive up housing prices, at 38 per cent.

In 2022, 15 per cent of respondents who agreed with the statement.

However, the survey found a “strong majority” of respondents believe immigration is good for the economy but notes that the public consensus has weakened over the past year.

While more Canadians appear to be linking the housing crunch to an increasing immigrant population, Miller argues that the current situation is driven by years of poor government planning at all levels.

“It's a failure of planning, really. And what we're seeing from Canadians in particular is demands on the federal government and their provincial counterparts, municipal counterparts, to plan better for people that are here,” Miller said.

The survey is based on both landline and cellphone interviews with 2,002 people between September 4 and 17. Environics says this survey is accurate within plus or minus 2.2 per cent, 19 times out of 20.

With files from Global News' Touria Izri and Uday Rana.

Sikh independence vote in B.C.sees thousands turnout amid Canada-India tensions

Story by The Canadian Press • 1d


SURREY, B.C. — More than 200,000 people turned out to vote in two unofficial referendums at the centre of Canada's ongoing tensions with India, officials said Sunday, after the latest one in the Metro Vancouver municipality of Surrey wrapped up in the evening.

A second referendum on Khalistan — an independent state in India proposed by some Sikhs — was held today at the same Surrey gurdwara where activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar was shot dead in June.

Sarbraj Kahlon, news director at Radio Punjab who was at the referendum site, called the latest vote a success after 65,700 people turned out in Surrey Sunday to cast ballots.

He added the result of the non-binding referendum is expected later in the night.

Organizers have said the first one in British Columbia on Sept. 10 was so popular that voting couldn't be completed in one day.

Referendum co-organizer Gurpatwant Singh Pannun said in a statement Sunday evening that organizers are planning more in Abbotsford, Edmonton, Calgary, and Montreal in 2024.

Pannun also said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has created more open conversations around India and its handling of the Khalistani independence movement while allowing its supporters to become more vocal without fear of retribution.

Trudeau said in the House of Commons on Sept. 18 that there were "credible allegations" potentially linking India's government to Nijjar's killing.

Related video: India-Canada Clash: Tensions between India and Canada continue to escalate (WION) Duration 22:09 View on Watch

Nijjar was an organizer of the Khalistan referendum in Canada, and votes have also been held in several other locations around the world.

The Indian government has denied involvement in Nijjar's death and has long maintained that the Punjabi independence movement undermines India's national security.

Kahlon has said, "The organizers just want people to come, attend and just unite under one flag."

"As you know, this is a non-binding referendum but the organizers, they say, the United Nations they are watching it closely," he said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 29, 2023.

The Canadian Press

Can design save the world? A new ‘Burning Man’-like alliance of companies such as PepsiCo and Microsoft is giving it a shot

Story by Nicholas Gordon • 

Ben Sheppard is one of the founding designers behind Design For Good, a new alliance that features Microsoft and PepsiCo among its corporate members.

© Courtesy of Design For Good

On paper, a hackathon sounds like a perfect way to foster creativity: Put people together in a room with stationary, laptops, and a lot of caffeine, and give them a few days to come up with a breakthrough. 

But Ben Sheppard, who leads McKinsey’s global design research, had an unfortunate realization: The hackathon ends, the designers go home, and nothing more gets done. 

Other top designers felt the same way. Many designers “had been through activities where we had tried to design for good, where we had tried to hold activities to make the world a better place,” says Sheppard, who leads a roundtable of chief design officers for McKinsey. “Did it actually make the world a better place? In many cases, sadly, the answer was no,” he concludes.

Sheppard is one of the founders of “Design For Good,” a new alliance made up of some of the world’s largest companies to use design talent to solve social issues. (Sheppard is on the advisory council for Fortune’s upcoming Brainstorm Design conference on Dec. 6)

Halfway through its first two-year program, Design For Good has dozens of projects ready to go. But to prove the alliance is more than what Sheppard deems “design theater,” it now has to do something just as difficult: Get these projects to work in the real world. 

Designing better sanitation and water access

The alliance, formally launched in April 2022, counts some of the world’s largest companies— PepsiCo, General Mills, Microsoft, Lixil, Nestle—among its nine corporate members. The U.K.’s Royal College of Art provides education and training for participants. 

For its first round of projects, Design for Good focused its efforts on the mission of improving sanitation and access to clean water. To start, Design for Good placed its hundreds of designers, all from its member organizations, into cross-company teams and offered them a design brief from the alliance's first round of partner development organizations: WaterAid, WaterStarters, the World Toilet Organization, among others.

The partner development organizations helped the designers understand the problem that needed solving, talked through ideas and, importantly, told them what hadn't worked in the past. Designers then worked on the projects part-time for six months, instead of the two or three days common in hackathons. 

“We knew that we had to start with partnerships with development organizations, we knew we had to be able to give the intellectual property away, we needed substantive time of the order of two years, not two days,” Sheppard says. 

By June 2023, the alliance's designers had created 26 projects to improve water quality and sanitation, ranging from a social media awareness campaign to encourage U.K. residents to save water to a low-cost zip bag of reusable and affordable menstrual products for remote rural communities. 

A 'Burning Man' for design

Now, as Design For Good heads into the second year of its program, it needs to help its partner organizations get these projects off the ground. 

And that’s where the alliance’s corporate members come in, Sheppard says. Development organizations may need a hand from “non-designers,” like web developers or supply chain experts. A big company like Lixil or Microsoft can provide that expertise.

Sheppard knows this is still an experiment. It’s important that Design For Good "retains a healthy humility,” he admits. 

And he wants Design For Good to be sustainable long-term as well. Sheppard notes that participating designers—all of whom work demanding design jobs for major companies—stuck with their projects for months thanks to the “personal sense of satisfaction” that comes from working to address societal maladies. 

And he hopes that commitment can foster a sense of community going forward, such as when Design For Good tackles its next mission, likely to be improving access to quality education, starting next September.

Sheppard wants designers to keep coming back with a sense of “passionate, almost cultish following, each year, just preparing for the next opportunity, just preparing to meet with their fellow designers.”

“Almost like Burning Man,” he suggests. 

Fortune’s Brainstorm Design conference is returning on Dec. 6 at the MGM Cotai in Macau, China. Panelists and attendees will debate and discuss “Empathy in the Age of AI" or how new technologies are revolutionizing the creative industry.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com