UAW justifies wage demands by pointing to CEO pay raises. So how high were they?

ALEXANDRA OLSON
Updated Sun, September 17, 2023 
 

GM

FORD


 Carlos Tavares, Chief Executive Officer of Stellantis, left, and Mike Koval, RAM Brand Chief Executive Officer, introduces the REV Ram 1500 at the New York International Auto Show in New York on April 5, 2023. United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain's focus on CEO pay is part of a growing trend as emboldened labor unions cite the widening wealth gap between workers and the top bosses to bolster their demand for higher wages and better working conditions. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle, File)

NEW YORK (AP) — It’s been a central argument for the United Auto Workers union: If Detroit's three automakers raised CEO pay by 40% over the past four years, workers should get similar raises.

UAW President Shawn Fain has repeatedly cited the figure, contrasting it with the 6% pay raises autoworkers have received since their last contract in 2019. He opened negotiations with a demand for a similar 40% wage increase over four years, along with the return of pensions and cost of living increases. The UAW has since lowered its demand to a 36% wage increase but the two sides remain far apart in contract talks, triggering a strike.

Fain's focus on CEO pay is part of a growing trend of emboldened labor unions citing the wealth gap between workers and the top bosses to bolster demand for better pay and working conditions. In June, Netflix shareholders rejected executive pay packages in a nonbinding vote, just days after the Writers Guild of America wrote letters urging investors to vote against the pay proposals, saying it would be inappropriate amid Hollywood's ongoing strike by writers. The WGA wrote similar letters targeting the executive pay at Comcast and NBCUniversal.

Fain has pushed back against arguments that a big pay bump for the union would jack up costs of vehicles and put the Big Three automakers — General Motors, Ford and Stellantis (formerly Chrysler) — at a disadvantage against foreign competitors with lower-cost workforces in the race to transition to electric vehicles.

“The reason we ask for 40% pay increases is because in the last four years alone, the CEO pay went up 40%. They’re already millionaires," Fain told CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “Our demands are just. We’re asking for our fair share in this economy and the fruits of our labor."

CEO pay has ballooned for decades, while wages for ordinary workers have lagged. But did the Big Three chief executives really get 40% pay increases? Not exactly.

“I don’t know where the 40% came from,” said General Motors CEO Mary Barra at a new conference when asked if the UAW’s numbers were accurate.

Executive pay is notoriously complicated to calculate because so much of it comes in the form of stock grants or stock options. A detailed look at the compensation packages at all three companies shows how the UAW's claim both overstates and understates reality, depending on the view.

THE BIG THREE CEO PAY PACKAGES

Barra, the only one of the three who held the role since 2019, is the highest paid, with a compensation package of worth $28.98 million in 2022. The single biggest component was $14.62 million in stock grants, which vest over three years and whose ultimate value depends on stock performance and other metrics.

Her pay has increased 34% since 2019, according data from public filings analyzed for AP by Equilar.

Ford CEO James Farley received nearly $21 million in total compensation in 2022, a 21% increase over the $17.4 million then-CEO Jim Hackett received in 2019, according to the company's proxy statements. Farley's package last year included $15.14 million in stock awards, which also vest over three years with an ultimate value dependent on performance.

Where the the comparison gets complicated is at Stellantis, which was formed in 2021 with the merger of Italian-American conglomerate Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and French PSA Group. Because it is a European company, the way Stellantis discloses executive pay differs significantly from GM and Ford.

In its annual renumeration report, Stellantis reported CEO Carlos Tavares' 2022 pay was 23.46 million euros. That's a nearly 77% increase over then Fiat Chrysler CEO Mike Manley's 2019 pay of 13.28 million euros.

Those are the numbers used by the UAW when it calculated that three automakers have, collectively, increased CEO pay by 40.1% since 2019, according to the methodology the union provided to The AP.

But there's a catch: Stellantis' figures reflect “realized pay,” which include the value of previously granted equity that vested during the reporting year. U.S. companies, in contrast, use grant date value of stock packages awarded to executives during the reporting year.

In its analysis, Equilar used the “grant date” method to make an equivalent comparison between all three CEOs. By that measure, Tavares' 2022 compensation was in 21.95 million euros in 2022, including 10.9 million in stock awards with a three-year vesting period.

That's actually 24% decline from Manley's compensation package in 2019, which was 29.04 million euros, according to Equilar.

THE VOLATILITY OF CEO PAY

So, is Tavares really making less than Manley was four years ago? Not really.

That's because in some years, talking about a CEO's “realized pay” can obscure exorbitant pay packages approved by company boards.

Take Tavares' 2021 compensation package, which included special incentive award of 25 million euros in cash as well as stock worth 19.56 million euros — all contingent on long-term performance goals — granted to Tavares in recognition of “his essential role” in leading the company through the merger.

That one-time award, which came on top of millions of more in regular compensation, alone pushed Tavares’ 2021 compensation package far above what Manley got in 2019.

Stellantis shareholders voted 52.1% to reject the pay proposal in their annual meeting, though the vote was only advisory and the board approved his package anyway.

The CEOs of GM and Ford also saw their compensation packages peak in 2021, before declining slightly in 2022.

HOW DOES ALL THIS COMPARE TO REGULAR WORKER PAY?

However you slice the numbers, the gap between CEO pay and rank-and-file workers at all three companies is gigantic.

At GM, the median worker pay was $80,034 in 2022. It would take that worker 362 years to make Barra's annual compensation.

At Ford, where the median pay was $74, 691, it would take 281 years.

At Stellantis, with a median pay of 64,328 euros, it would take 365 years, although the company noted its annual report that the disparity includes expenses related to Tavares' one-time grant. Excluding that, the pay ratio is 298-1.

How extreme that disparity? It depends on the comparison.

It's far above the typical pay gap at S&P 500 companies, which was 186-1 according to AP's annual CEO pay survey, which uses data analyzed by Equilar.

And it's astronomical by historical standards. According to a study of the 350 largest publicly traded U.S. firms by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, the CEO-to-Worker pay ratio was just 15-1 in 1965.

The automakers, for their part, emphasize that their foreign competitors pay their workers much less. Including benefits, workers at the Detroit 3 automakers receive around $60 an hour, according to Harry Katz, a labor professor at Cornell University. At foreign-based automakers with U.S. factories, the compensation is about $40 to $45.

Then there's Tesla.

CEO Elon Musk's 2022 compensation was reported as zero in the company's proxy statement, rendering its official pay ratio meaningless. Of course, that's because Tesla hasn't awarded Musk new packages since a 2018 long-term compensation plan that could potentially be worth more than $50 billion and is facing a legal challenge from shareholders.

But the proxy offers glimpse at the mind-boggling wealth disparity between its nonunion workers and one of the world's richest men.

The filing reported Musk's total “realized compensation” in 2021 at more than $737 million. A typical Tesla worker earned $40,723 that year.

According to the proxy, for that worker to make Musk's “realized compensation” that year, it would take more than 18,000 years.

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This story has been corrected to reflect Ford’s CEO and his compensation in 2019. The CEO was Jim Hackett, not William Clay Ford, and his compensation was $17.4 million, not $16.76 million.

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AP Auto Writer Tom Krisher in Detroit contributed to this story.

SILVER LININGS

Lengthy UAW strike could buy GM time to address nagging EV issues

Pre-production version of GMC Hummer electric pickup in Milford

By Paul Lienert

DETROIT (Reuters) - General Motors is at greater risk than rivals Ford Motor and Stellantis of disruption to electric vehicle production from a prolonged UAW strike - though some analysts say that could also buy it time to repair nagging issues.

While Ford and Stellantis are introducing several revamped combustion-engine models this fall, GM's immediate focus is on electric vehicles - with plans to launch or ramp up production of at least five new ones. They include all-electric companions to its full-size Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickups, according to researcher GlobalData.

GM has been struggling much of the year to smooth out hiccups in battery manufacturing as well as its EV supply chain and logistics, including delivery to dealers of its Cadillac Lyriq and GMC Hummer EVs.

The company delivered just 1,348 Lyriqs and 47 Hummers in the second quarter, far below expectations, in part because of issues with battery module assembly.

Chief Executive Mary Barra in July told analysts: "Our automation equipment supplier is struggling with delivery issues," causing a bottleneck that had forced the automaker to assemble battery modules by hand.

In July, GM executive Rory Harvey said the company was working out delivery issues to dealers, noting that Lyriq and Hummer "have been going down the line in very limited quantities (but) we are building momentum."

A longer strike could help GM address and potentially resolve some of those ongoing issues in its EV and battery operations, according to Sam Fiorani, vice president of global vehicle forecasting at AutoForecast Solutions.

"A production stoppage could allow GM to solve bottlenecks,” Fiorani said.

The automaker has not been able to roll out its most important EVs in a timely fashion, but could benefit if it used the labor stoppage to resolve some of its technical and operational issues, he said.

"GM could ramp up output faster once the factories start running again," said Fiorani.

'POTENTIAL NIGHTMARE'

Other analysts say the stoppage is unlikely to work out in GM's favor. GM's Barra herself said the strike "would not be positive" for the company and that it needed to reach a deal with workers quickly.

"For GM, a possible byproduct of an extended strike may be more time to work out any kinks they are having with their EV launches, but the potential loss of billions of dollars in the process would make it hard to justify such a 'silver lining,'" said Bill Rinna, GlobalData’s director of Americas vehicle forecasts.

Wedbush auto analyst Daniel Ives said the strike was "a potential nightmare situation" for GM given it comes exactly at a key period of ironing out EV issues.

"In this crucial period of EV execution, model roll-outs, distribution, marketing, with EV competition rising across the board, the timing could not be worse," Ives said in a research note.

In addition, the UAW strike in the United States could affect the flow of critical auto parts to GM operations in Canada and Mexico, which would hamper EV production there, Rinna said.

GM’s Ramos Arizpe plant in Mexico has begun building the Chevrolet Blazer EV and is adding production of the Chevrolet Equinox EV, while its Ingersoll plant in Canada is planning to produce the BrightDrop Zevo 400 electric delivery van, according to GlobalData.

(Reporting by Paul Lienert in Detroit, editing by Deepa Babington)

Sun, September 17, 2023 

UAW President Fain on not endorsing Biden: ‘We expect actions not words’

Miranda Nazzaro
Sun, September 17, 2023



United Auto Workers (UAW) President Shawn Fain said Sunday he has not endorsed President Biden for the 2024 election because the union “expects actions, not words” from the president.

Asked on CBS’s “Face the Nation” what it will take to endorse Biden, Fain said, “Our endorsements are going to be earned. We’ve been very clear about that, no matter what politician.”

When asked how Biden can earn the endorsement, Fain said, “We expect actions, not words.”

Fain referenced comments over the Biden administration’s recent attempts to interject in the UAW’s negotiations with three major automakers — Ford, General Motors and Stellantis.

“This negotiating … our negotiators are fighting hard,” Fain said. “Our leadership is fighting hard. It’s going to be won at the negotiating table with our negotiating teams, with members manning our picket lines and our allies out there.”

Fain’s comments come after Biden said last week he was sending acting Labor Secretary Julie Su and senior aide Gene Sperling to Detroit to help reach a “win-win” contract for the companies and their employees.

“Who the president is now, who the former president was or the president before them isn’t going to win this fight,” Fain continued. “This fight is all about one thing — it’s about workers winning their fair share of economic justice instead of being left behind as they have been in the last decades.”

UAW workers began a strike against the automakers last week after ongoing negotiations failed and the workers’ contracts expired.

The union is asking for wage increases, cost-of-living pay raises, a 32-hour work week with 40 hours of pay, union representation of workers at new battery plants and restoration of traditional-defined benefit pensions for new hires who now receive only 401(k)-style retirement plans and pension increases for retirees.

Last week, former UAW President Bob King said Biden “should have done a lot more already” to assist striking autoworkers. In an interview with NewsNation’s Chris Cuomo, King said he also backed Fain’s decision not to endorse Biden over concerns about federal electric vehicle (EV) policies.

The Biden administration has pushed for an industry shift to EVs, which require fewer workers to make, sparking concerns over how such a transition could impact workers jobs and pay.

NewsNation is owned by Nexstar Media Group, which also owns The Hill.

White House team to go to Detroit to help resolve autoworkers strike

Monica Alba and Jesse Kirsch and Will Ujek
Sun, September 17, 2023 

A team that President Joe Biden dispatched to help resolve the strike between the U.S.’ largest autoworkers union and the Big Three auto companies plans to be in Detroit to support talks “early in the week,” an administration official said Sunday.

Biden named White House adviser Gene Sperling and acting Labor Secretary Julie Su last week to go to Detroit to help reach a deal to end the walkout by the United Auto Workers union, which began early Friday. Sperling has been the point person on key issues connected to the union and the companies, and he has been coordinating with Su.

"Both Sperling and acting Secretary Su are engaging with the parties by phone, as they have for weeks, with the intention of being there early in the week," the official said, adding that the administration was "pleased that the parties are continuing to meet as they had been before the contract expired."

United Auto Workers members strike at the Ford Michigan Assembly Plant 

Su and Sperling's goal was not to serve as mediators or intervene but to "help support the negotiations in any way the parties feel is constructive," the official said.

Biden said Friday that he hoped that the UAW and the Big Three returned to negotiations.

After talks collapsed, Biden said he understands workers’ frustrations that as automobile companies register “record profits,” they haven't “been shared fairly, in my view, with those workers.”

“Let’s be clear: No one wants a strike,” he said at the White House. “But I respect workers’ right to use their options under the collective bargaining system.”

The strike is a particular challenge for Biden, who has called himself “the most pro-union president you’ve ever seen.” While the UAW has historically supported Democrats like Biden, former President Donald Trump won important backing from blue-collar autoworkers.

Before the strike was declared, UAW President Shawn Fain said a walkout would force Biden and other politicians to pick sides when it comes to organized labor.

On Friday at midnight, about 13,000 members of the UAW walked out of a General Motors site in Missouri, a Stellantis center in Ohio and a Ford assembly plant in Michigan.

If every UAW member struck immediately, the union would have enough funds to supply about 11 weeks of strike pay.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com

The United Auto Workers strike could be the canary in the coal mine for Biden's reelection pitch to working-class voters

John L. Dorman
Sun, September 17, 2023 

United Auto Workers members attend a rally in Detroit, Mich., on September 15, 2023.

AP Photo/Paul Sancya, File

The UAW union late last week went on strike to pressure the "Big Three" to raise worker wages.

The strength of President Biden's economic message could hinge on the outcome of the strike.

Biden has sought to sharpen his 2024 economic pitch, but voters aren't fully sold on his message.

Shortly after Joe Biden launched his 2020 presidential campaign, his first major rally was held at a Teamsters union hall in Pittsburgh, where he extolled the virtues of middle-class Americans.

Referring to himself as a "union man," Biden mapped out of his vision of an economy that would empower ordinary citizens by lifting wages and targeting financial loopholes that favored big businesses.

"The country wasn't built by Wall Street bankers, CEOs, and hedge-fund managers. It was built by you," he told the receptive audience in April 2019.


That was over four years ago.

Biden is now sitting in the Oval Office, and the United Auto Workers strike is giving him the most challenging labor crisis of his presidency, as the economic pitch for his reelection bid could sink or swim depending on the outcome.

The UAW, which represents almost 150,000 autoworkers, began a strike on Friday against the "Big Three" automakers — Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis. It is the first time that there have been simultaneous strikes at the three Detroit automakers. (At the moment, only three plants — a Ford factory in Wayne, Michigan; a GM assembly plant in Wentzville, Missouri; and a Stellantis Jeep plant in Toledo, Ohio — are striking. But more factories could be added to the list depending on how negotiations move along.)

The union is calling for more robust benefits and the elimination of "tiered" compensation, the latter of which occurs when workers are paid different rates for performing the same work.

But perhaps the biggest sticking point for the UAW is the push to raise wages.

The UAW is now calling for a 36% increase in general employee pay for across a four-year period, mirroring the 40% chief executive pay bump that union leadership says has occurred over the past four years.

And Biden is clearly listening.

Late last week, he sent acting Labor secretary Julie Su and White House economic advisor Gene Sperling to Michigan "to offer their full support for the parties" in the contract talks.

President Joe Biden is seeking reelection to a second term.AP Photo/Susan Walsh

And the president last week spoke on the wide disparities in CEO pay compared to workers on the floor.

"I've been in touch with both parties over — since this began over the last few weeks. And over the last — the past decade, auto companies have seen record profits, including the last few years, because of the extraordinary skill and sacrifices of the UAW workers," he said at the White House. "But those record profits have not been shared fairly, in my view, with those workers."

"Unions raise workers' wages, they said — incomes — increase homeownership; increase retirement savings; increase access to critical benefits, like sick leave and childcare; and reduce inequality — all of which strengthen our economy for all workers," he added.

This is the sort of pitch that Biden has sought to use in next year's election, but especially in Michigan, which is a critical part of the blue-state coalition that he hopes to assemble.

But ahead of any agreement coming to fruition in the next few days, the Biden team might want to send some emissaries to factories across the Midwest, where discontent with the president among some auto workers is simmering, according to a report from Politico's Adam Wren.

Denny Butler, a union committeeman in Kokomo, Ind., told the outlet that he wasn't backing Biden or former President Donald Trump at the moment. And he also criticized both political parties.

"They're all full of shit," Butler said.

"Historically, man, if you didn't vote Democrat years ago, and you were in the union, sometimes you got your ass kicked," he continued. "Democrats were for the working people. That shit has changed. I'm telling you what, the Democratic Party was not what it was 20, 30 years ago."

As Biden looks to lay out his economic plans to working-class voters across the country, most of whom have endured inflation exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and supply-chain issues, the fallout from the UAW strike could inform the opinions of voters across the political spectrum next year.

Voters will ask: Does the economy work for me?

The president will have to continue listening to workers to effectively make his case.

Obama on UAW strike: Time to ‘do right’ by workers that keep companies ‘on their feet’

Nick Robertson
Sat, September 16, 2023 

Former President Obama backed the United Auto Workers strike on Saturday, telling automakers that it’s time to “do right” by workers.

“Fourteen years ago, when the big three automakers were struggling to stay afloat, my administration and the American people stepped in to support them,” Obama said on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “So did the auto workers in the UAW who sacrificed pay and benefits to help get the companies back on their feet.”

“Now that our carmakers are enjoying robust profits, it’s time to do right by those same workers so the industry can emerge more united and competitive than ever,” he added.

UAW began a strike against the “Big Three” automakers — Ford, General Motors and Stellantis — early Friday morning, a first in the union’s history, after negotiations failed before reaching the end of the workers’ contracts. The union is demanding increased wages, shorter work weeks and better retirement benefits.

Profits at the Big Three firms increased by 92 percent in the last decade and CEO pay increased by 40 percent in the same period, according to an analysis from the Economic Policy Institute.

“We are committed to winning an agreement with the Big Three that reflects the incredible sacrifice and contributions UAW members have made to these companies,” UAW President Shawn Fain said in an address Thursday.

In late 2008, weeks after Obama’s first election, the Bush administration announced a nearly $18 billion bailout for major automakers wrecked by the recession. Congress later invested about $80 billion of federal funds into Detroit automakers during the Obama administration, losing about $11 billion on its GM investment alone by the time the government sold the shares in 2013.

The Biden administration has also backed the UAW strike and President Biden encouraged automakers to return to the bargaining table with an increased offer on Friday.

“I believe they should go further… Record corporate profits, which they have, should be shared by record contracts for the UAW,” Biden said.

Strikes are limited to a small number of specific plants chosen by union leadership hours before they begin. The pop-up strike tactic is meant to “keep the companies guessing,” Fain said.

How an auto workers strike 87 years ago transformed NORTH America

Nathaniel Meyersohn, CNN
Sun, September 17, 2023 

During the final days of 1936, about 50 autoworkers at General Motors shut down their machines at Fisher Body Plant No. 2 in Flint, Michigan, and sat down.

The workers, members of the tiny United Automobile Workers union founded just a year prior, sought to improve brutal working conditions at mighty General Motors, the world’s largest manufacturer. They also demanded GM recognize the union as workers’ bargaining agent in negotiations.

The UAW’s sit-down strike across GM plants lasted 44 days. It is considered the most important work stoppage of the 20th century and a turning point in relations between companies and workers in America. It was a breakthrough for unions and led to a wave of labor organizing across the country.

A GM plant in Flint, Michigan on January 1, 1937. The 44-day strike birthed the United Auto Workers union. - Sheldon Dick/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Now, the UAW is on strike against Detroit’s Big Three — General Motors, Ford and Stellantis —for the first time. The strike comes at a critical moment for both a re-energized labor movement and an auto industry in transition as the electric vehicle era dawns.

The UAW, led by upstart president Shawn Fain, has updated its tactics. The UAW is calling its new strategy a “stand up strike,” a reference to the sit-down strike that started 87 years ago, and has launched targeted strikes at selected plants.

“Shawn Fain is drawing from the union’s long history and modernizing the UAW tradition,” said Thomas Sugrue, a historian at New York University. “The union is relying on understandings of the past, but a reinvention to respond to current conditions.”
Birth of the UAW

During the 1930s, UAW workers were protesting the intense speed they were forced to work on assembly lines, the arbitrary power GM foremen had to hire and fire them, and unlivable wages. GM had disrupted workers’ attempts to form a union through spying campaigns and firings of organizers.

Sit-down strikes had been spreading in Europe at the time, and UAW workers were inspired by those efforts.

Sit-down strikes were a novel tactic and had several benefits over a traditional strike, which involved workers walking off the job, writes labor journalist Steven Greenhouse in “Beaten Down, Worked Up: The Past, Present and Future of American Labor.”

Strikers cross off number of days they have been on the sit-down strike at General Motors' Chevrolet auto plant in Flint on February 10, 1937. - Tom Watson/NY Daily News Archive/Getty Images

Police often attacked workers, and replacement workers could easily take their jobs while they picketed outside. By sitting down, workers stayed inside the factory and near their stations so “scabs” couldn’t take over. Management was hesitant to send in police out of fear valuable machines would be damaged.

The initial strike at Fisher Body Plant No. 2 quickly spread to other GM plants in various cities, crippling GM’s operations.

On January 11, 1937, two weeks into the strike, workers at the plant clashed with GM security and Flint police after the company cut off heat and electricity and prevented food from being delivered to workers inside. The clash left dozens injured. Michigan Gov. Frank Murphy called in the National Guard and ordered both sides to negotiate.

Forty-four days later, the two sides reached a compromise in which GM agreed to recognize the UAW as the bargaining agent for workers who wanted to join the union.

It was a watershed victory for the union.

A march of strikers' wives following the riot between strikers and policemen on February 1, 1937, in Flint. - Bettmann/Bettmann/Bettmann Archive

“The workers in the other basic mass production industries,” one union leader told the New York Times, “will derive from the auto workers’ struggle the confidence and conviction that they, too, can win similar rights in their industries.”

The GM sit-down strike led to a burst in UAW membership.

Its membership surged from 88,000 in February 1937 to 400,000 by October. By 1941, it had jumped to 649,000 members, according to Greenhouse.

The sit-down strike also prompted unionization and a wave of strikes in other industries.

“Sitting down has replaced baseball as America’s pastime,” Time Magazine said in 1937.
Stand-up strike

The UAW’s victory helped lead to unionization at Chrysler in 1939 and Ford in 1941.

Detroit’s unionized jobs with rising wages and company-provided benefits set a standard for other manufacturing jobs and helped lead to the formation of the middle class during the mid-20th century.

“Auto industry jobs in the history of US have been an important bedrock of the emergence of the middle class,” said Joseph McCartin, a labor historian at Georgetown University.

But non-unionized foreign and domestic competition has undercut the US auto industry and eroded UAW jobs and benefits in recent years.

UAW members on a picket line outside a Ford plant in Wayne, Michigan, on Friday. - Emily Elconin/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Unions across America have also declined, peaking in 1945 at 33.4% of the workforce. Last year, 10.1% of workers belonged to unions.

Current UAW leadership, led by president Fain, is seeking to recapture the energy from the sit-down strike against GM during the 1930s.

The UAW dubbed its targeted strike of three plants as a “stand up strike,” which it called a strategic “new approach” to walking off the job.

“The Stand Up Strike is our generation’s answer to the movement that built our union, the Sit-Down Strikes of 1937,” the UAW said in a statement. “Then as now, our industry is rapidly changing and workers are being left behind.”

The negotiation between UAW and Detroit’s Big Three will have a long-term impact on both the auto industry and manufacturing jobs, McCartin said.

“The question here is whether manufacturing jobs, as they grow, will function as middle-class jobs.”

Contract negotiations: UAW strike puts the four-day workweek back in focus

Eva Rothenberg
Sun, September 17, 2023 

When the United Auto Workers called a strike last week against General Motors (GM), Ford (F) and Stellantis (STLA), one of their demands focused on an idea circulating on the periphery of labor reform circles.

In addition to calling for a 36% pay raise and increased job security, union members want a 32-hour, four-day workweek with no pay cuts.

Proposals to shorten the workweek have gained traction in recent years, with the flexibility of pandemic-era remote work fueling many of these calls. The accelerating use of artificial intelligence in the workplace has also pushed some workers to question the necessity of a 40-hour week.

United Auto Workers on the picket line at Ford Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne, Michigan on September 16, 2023. Credit: DeeCee Carter/MediaPunch /IPX

Sen. Bernie Sanders has long been a vocal proponent of a shortened workweek.

“We are looking at an explosion in this country of artificial intelligence and robotics. And that means that the average worker is going to be much more productive,” the Vermont Independent told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday. “The question as a nation that we have to ask ourselves is: Who is going to benefit from this productivity? We should begin a serious discussion — and the UAW is doing that — about substantially lowering the workweek.”

Several countries have conducted trials of four-day workweeks, with the largest held in the United Kingdom last year. The trial lasted six months and encompassed about 2,900 workers across 61 companies. Participants reported better sleep, more time spent with their children and lower levels of burnout.

“It would be an extraordinary thing to see people have more time to spend with their kids, with their families, to be able to do more cultural activities, get a better education,” said Sanders. “People in America are stressed out for a dozen different reasons, and that’s one of the reasons why life expectancy in our country is actually in decline.”

A separate study conducted in Iceland between 2015 and 2019 found reducing the number of work days a week did not lower productivity. A similar program in the United States and Canada, composed of dozens of businesses, found none of the companies planned to return to the five-day standard after the trial ended.

1933 

The United Auto Workers union has declared "war" on the Detroit Three automakers. It is demanding a 46% raise, a return to traditional pensions and a 32-hour work week.  Bloomberg's David Welch and Kailey Leinz report. …

 

Sanders: ‘Serious discussions’ should take place on 4-day workweek

Nick Robertson
Updated Sun, September 17, 2023 

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in a Sunday interview encouraged “serious discussion” on pursuing a four-day workweek.

Sanders linked the need to such conversations to the targeted strike launched at the end of last week by the United Auto Workers (UAW) union.

“As a nation, we should begin a serious discussion — and the UAW is doing that — about substantially lowering the workweek,” he said in a CNN interview Sunday.

UAW began a strike against three major automakers — Ford, General Motors and Stellantis — Friday morning. The union is demanding increased wages, shorter workweeks and better retirement benefits.

The progressive senator argued that massive increases in worker productivity may warrant a reduction in the average workweek.

“We are looking at an explosion in this country of artificial intelligence and robotics. And that means that the average worker is going to be much more productive. Worker productivity is going to increase significantly,” Sanders said.

“The question as a nation that we have got to ask ourselves is, who’s going to benefit from that increased productivity? Is all of that new income and wealth being created by worker productivity going to go to the people on top, or are workers going to benefit?” he continued.

Four-day workweeks are an innovative method to increase worker productivity by giving employees more time off, proponents claim. A study last year of 33 companies globally that tested the method resulted in all of them keeping the policy.

In June, a survey found that more than half of U.S. employers were open to the idea of a four-day workweek.

Despite promising signs in studies, most U.S. employers have been reluctant to entertain the policy. A Maryland bill officially backing the change was shelved earlier this year.

“It seems to me that, if new technology is going to make us a more productive society, the benefits should go to the workers,” Sanders said. “And it would be an extraordinary thing to see people have more time to be able to spend with their kids, with their families, to be able to do more in cultural activities, get a better education.”

The strike by auto workers is entering its 4th day with no signs that a breakthrough is near

Associated Press
Mon, September 18, 2023 

 United Auto Workers members walk a picket line during a strike at the Ford Motor Company Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne, Mich., Friday, Sept. 15, 2023. 

(AP Photo/Paul Sancya, File) 


The auto workers' strike against Detroit's Big Three went into its fourth day on Monday with no signs of an early breakthrough and against the threat that the walkout could soon spread.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said she is hoping for a quick resolution, and that it is too soon to gauge the impact of the strike.

“It's premature to be making forecasts about what it means for the economy. It would depend on how long the strike lasts and who would be affected by it,” she said on CNBC.

Yellen said labor activism this year — strikes by Hollywood writers and actors, by workers at about 150 Starbucks locations and walkouts that were narrowly averted at United Parcel Service and West Coast ports — has been driven by a strong labor market and high demand for workers.

In a sign of the potential economic and political of a long strike, President Joe Biden is sending two top administration officials to Detroit this week to meet with both sides. Biden has sided with the UAW in brief public comments, saying that the automakers have not fairly shared their record profits with workers.

An administration official said Monday that acting Labor Secretary Julie Su and senior aide Gene Sperling will not serve as mediators — they won't be at the bargaining table — but are going to Detroit “to help support the negotiations in any way the parties feel is constructive.” The official was not authorized to discuss private discussions and spoke anonymously.

UAW President Shawn Fain said Monday that the Biden administration won't broker a deal.

“This is our battle. Our members are out there manning the picket lines," Fain said on MSNBC. "This battle is not about the president, it’s not about the former president.”

Rather than launching an all-out strike of its 146,000 members, the union opted to target three factories — one at each company — a plan that could make the union's $825 million strike fund last longer.

A key feature of the strategy is the threat of escalating the strike if the union is unhappy with the pace of bargaining. On Friday, Fain said more factories could be targeted: “It could be in a day, it could be in a week.”

UAW boss says workers shouldn’t accept lower wages so ‘greedy people like Elon Musk can build more rocket ships’


Nicholas Gordon
Mon, September 18, 2023

The president of the auto workers union had harsh words for Elon Musk, the Tesla CEO and longtime nemesis of organized labor.

Workers in companies like Tesla “are scraping to get by so that greedy CEOs and greedy people like Elon Musk can build more rocket ships,” United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain said on CBS’s Face the Nation program Sunday.

In statements outlining their position, Ford Motor, General Motors and Stellantis—collectively known as the “Big Three”—have warned that the union’s demands would worsen the already-existing cost gap with other car companies with non-unionized workforces.

On Thursday, Ford said that meeting the UAW’s demands would double its labor costs, already “significantly higher than the labor costs of Tesla, Toyota and other foreign-owned automakers in the United States that utilize non-union-represented labor.”

Responding to these concerns, Fain claimed on CBS that labor costs made up just 5% of a vehicle’s cost. “[Automakers] could double our wages and not raise the price of the vehicles and still make billions in profits,” he said. The union president called wages at Tesla and other companies “pitiful.”

Representative Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), whose district covers part of the Detroit area, echoed these concerns on CBS. “Tesla does have a huge discrepancy in what they’re paying their employees. And most people in this country can’t afford a Tesla,” she said, referring to the car’s high price.

But Dingell suggested that a win for the UAW could help non-unionized workers too. “Almost all workers at auto plants benefit from where these negotiations go,” she said.
What are auto workers demanding?

The UAW started a targeted strike on Friday, walking out of three plants in Missouri, Ohio and Michigan. The union has suggested that starting small will allow most of its members to keep working, while preserving room for further escalation.

Negotiations between the union and the Big Three restarted over the weekend. The UAW said it had “reasonably productive discussions” with Ford on Saturday.

Ford said it was committed to reaching a deal with the union in a statement to Reuters on Saturday.

Still, the union and the automakers appear far apart. The UAW is currently asking for a mid-30% wage increase over the lifespan of the new contract, down from the initial demand for a 40% pay hike, but still far from what auto manufacturers have offered, at 20% at most.

The union is also asking for other benefits, including a shorter work week and, importantly, an expansion of benefits to plants working on electric vehicles. (Many of these factories are joint ventures with foreign companies, and not unionized).

The UAW’s president wants to recover lost ground after the 2008 auto bailout, when workers agreed to give up longstanding benefits to save auto companies from bankruptcy.

“The workers were unfairly blamed for everything that was wrong with those companies,” Fain said on Sunday, instead blaming “bad decisions on the parts of the companies that put us in that position.”

“We made all the sacrifices,” Fain argued, and “after a decade of massive profits, the workers have [gone] backwards.”
What about Tesla?

The UAW has long tried to organize workers at Tesla, which does not have a unionized workforce.

The union tried, and failed, to organize workers at the EV maker’s plant in Fremont, Calif. in 2018. The UAW then accused Tesla of illegally interfering in unionizing efforts, pointing to a tweet from CEO Elon Musk.

At the time, Musk asked why Tesla’s workers would “pay union dues and give up stock options for nothing” if they voted to join the UAW. The union alleged that workers could interpret the Tesla CEO’s tweet as a threat to take away stock options if they organized.

The National Labor Relations Board ordered Tesla to delete the tweet, as well as rehire a Tesla employee allegedly fired over organizing activity. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is now evaluating the order.

Musk has continued to needle the auto workers union on social media. “We pay more than the UAW btw, but performance expectations are also higher,” Musk posted to social media platform X, which he owns, on Thursday.

Yet industry data suggest that Tesla employees earn as much as a third less as their unionized counterparts. Tesla workers earn $45 an hour in wages and benefits, while those at UAW-represented plants can make up to $66 an hour, according to the Wall Street Journal citing industry data.

Tesla employees do receive stock options. Musk on Thursday claimed that “quite a few of our factory techs who work on the line have become millionaires over the years from company stock grants.”

Tesla did not immediately respond to an inquiry about pay at the company.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

'We're going to wreck their economy:' UAW president Shawn Fain has a plan. Will it work?

"We’re going to wreck their economy, the one that works for the billionaire class. It doesn’t work for the working class.”


Brian Howey
Mon, September 18, 2023 

KOKOMO — Buried deep in the wallet of Shawn Fain is a well-worn pay stub of one of his two grandfathers. It’s a reminder of where the new United Auto Workers president comes from.

Two of his grandparents were General Motor retirees at Kokomo and one worked at Chrysler starting in 1937. Nine years later in 1946, the UAW’s negotiation strategy with the then-Big Three American automakers was to bargain with one, and then use that template for the other two.

Fain is now in the vortex of the American labor movement. He was elected as president of the UAW in March after beginning his career as an electrician at the Chrysler Kokomo Casting Plant. His election was seen as a sea change in the world of automaking.

“He’s always been a labor activist. He was always locally popular with rank and file members,” said former Kokomo Mayor Greg Goodnight, who worked for Haynes International and was a union president at the same time as Fain was at Chrysler (now a unit of Stellantis).

Brian Howey

But Fain is negotiating in Detroit far differently than his predecessors. The UAW’s contracts at the Detroit automakers expired at 11:59 p.m. Thursday. He said on Wednesday that while there has been progress, the four sides are still far apart.

In the year before the Great Recession put Chrysler and GM on the brink of extinction in 2008, “Shawn was anti-ratification due to the agreement implementing tiers and cutting wages for workers in half,” the UAW website said. “Many times, at council meetings, he was ostracized for speaking up against the agreements as they didn’t serve the best interest of the Membership.”

Fain was asked on CNN last week whether a strike at the Detroit automakers could damage the recovering U.S. economy. “In the last decade they made a quarter of a trillion dollars in profits,” Fain said. “It’s not that we’re going to wreck the economy. We’re going to wreck their economy, the one that works for the billionaire class. It doesn’t work for the working class.”

Fain also isn’t reticent about wading into American politics. This comes as the House Republican Study Group formerly headed by U.S. Rep. Jim Banks advocated a shift from Republican advocacy of big business to that of blue-collar workers.

Asked on MSNBC whether he plans to endorse President Biden for reelection, Fain responded, “We’ll make that decision when the time is right. Our endorsements are going to be earned, not freely given.”

He then pivoted to “the other person we talked about, the other candidate,” meaning Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump. In 2020, Trump carried Howard County (home to GM and Stellantis plants in Kokomo) with 65% of the vote, to Biden’s 33%, up from 63% in 2016. In Allen County (GM at Fort Wayne), in 2020 it was Trump 55%-43% over Biden. In Lawrence County (GM at Bedford) Trump carried it with 74%. In Grant County (GM at Marion) Trump won with 68%.

“I’ll never forget in the ’16 race when he spoke about workers in Michigan, union jobs in the Midwest, he said we need to do a rotation in this country," Fain said. "We need to move those jobs to other places that pay less money and those people will be begging for their jobs back. That’s not a person I want as my president.”

UAW negotiations: What Detroit automakers have to give the UAW to get a deal, according to experts

UAW membership woes: UAW membership peaked at 1.5 million workers in the late 70s, here's how it's changed

The Wall Street Journal observed on Tuesday: “Unions aren’t the force in the U.S. that they used to be. That doesn’t mean they can’t pack a punch.”

In the coming days, we’ll find out how hard that punch is.

Brian Howey is senior writer and columnist for Howey Politics Indiana/State Affairs. Find Howey on Facebook and Twitter @hwypol.

US auto union chief warns ready to 'amp up' strike if no deal

Brian KNOWLTON
Sun, September 17, 2023 

The United Auto Workers (UAW) union is threatening to 'amp' up

 its strike at the Big Three automakers (Matthew Hatcher)

The United Auto Workers chief warned Sunday that a historic strike at the top three car manufacturers will expand if the companies do not raise their wage offers in ongoing negotiations.

Stellantis, one of the three, had offered its workers what it called a "highly competitive" wage increase of 21 percent over four years, but UAW President Shawn Fain called that "definitely a no-go."

"If we don't get better offers and... take care of the members' needs, we're going to amp this up even more," Fain told CBS News talk show "Face the Nation," saying General Motors, Ford and Stellantis have "no excuse" for not resolving salary disputes given their massive profits of recent years.

"We're prepared to do whatever we have to do. The membership is ready, the membership is fed up."

The UAW is demanding improved conditions across the board for its workers, including a 40 percent pay raise over the next four-year contract. All three companies have been offering raises of around 20 percent.

A UAW source confirmed that the union held talks with General Motors on Sunday, the third day of the strike, but offered no further details.

The standoff has fed already acrimonious debate in Washington over President Joe Biden’s economic policies ahead of the 2024 election -- and whether he has done enough to avert or resolve the auto dispute.

Only 12,700 of the union's 150,000 workers are currently on strike, but Fain's comments pointed to the possibility of a much broader action, with echoes throughout the economy.

- 2024 presidential race -

Republicans on Sunday tried to tie the strike to voters' concerns on inflation and the Biden administration's overall economic leadership.

"I have no doubt in my mind that all those hard-working autoworkers are living in the same reality as other Americans, and that is that wages are not keeping up with inflation," former vice president Mike Pence said on CNN.

Pence, who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination in the 2024 election, blamed Biden's stewardship for "the worst inflation in 40 years" and added that the administration's electric vehicles push would mainly benefit battery-makers in China.

Pence's former boss Donald Trump, who holds a resounding lead in polls over other Republican presidential aspirants, has been critical of the union's leadership and of Biden's focus on promoting EV manufacturing.

"The auto workers will not have any jobs... because all of these cars are going to be made in China -- the electric cars, automatically, are going to be made in China," Trump said in an interview aired Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press."

Democrats have lined up solidly behind the autoworkers -- and Biden.

"The president has made it clear which side he is on in this struggle," liberal senator Bernie Sanders said on CNN, adding that Biden had repeatedly said "that a strong labor movement benefits all of us."

On social media, Vice President Kamala Harris said she agreed that "a new contract should promote good middle-class jobs -- and ensure the UAW remains at the heart of our auto economy."

Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader of the House of Representatives, echoed that theme.

"Incredible economic prosperity has been generated for the corporations," he told ABC's "This Week," shortly before heading to Detroit to stand with the workers. "It’s only fair that everyone share in those record profits."

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