Bob Sheak, Sept 24, 2023
Introduction
The UAW strike against the three big automakers is primarily about the goal of winning fair treatment for union workers in some auto plants and, if successful, to encourage other workers and unions to follow their example. Now, after over a week of the strike and ongoing negotiations, the union has expanded the strike against the big automakers.
The issue of cars and trucks and global warming
Aside from fairness, there is the issue of the large harmful environmental impacts of cars and light trucks on carbon emissions, a major source of global warming. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has this to say about it (https://epa.gov/transportation-air-pollution-and-climate-change/carbon-pollution-transportation).
“Burning fossil fuels like gasoline and diesel releases carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. The buildup of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases like methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) is causing the Earth’s atmosphere to warm, resulting in changes to the climate we are already starting to see today.
“Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from transportation account for about 29 percent of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, making it the largest contributor of U.S. GHG emissions. Between 1990 and 2021, GHG emissions in the transportation sector increased more in absolute terms than any other sector.”
The UAW recognizes the importance of this issue. The big auto producers are gearing up to produce more electric cars that require less labor input than cars using internal combustion engines. The big automakers are considering this because they see potential profits in this growing – but still small – sector of the auto industry.
As we’ll see, however, the environmental issue is only one of many issues and perhaps not the most pressing one from the workers’ standpoint. Union workers want opportunities to produce electric cars, but, if the strike is resolved, they will go back to producing cars, most of which for years to come will still use carbon generating internal combustion engines.
According to Statista, “In the first quarter of 2023, there were around 286 million vehicles operating on roads throughout the United States. Almost 38.4 million used vehicles changed owners in the U.S. between the first quarter of 2022 and the first quarter of 2023, while new registrations of vehicles came to about 13.9 million units during that period.” In 2022, according to Wikipedia, electric and hybrid cars represented just 1.3 percent of cars in use (https://en-wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_cars_ise_by_country). The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that the sale of electric vehicles will increase in coming years (https://bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-12/charging-into-the-future-the-transition-to-electric-vehicles.htm), though still representing a minority of all vehicles on the road.
“Although forecasts for the rate of EV adoption over the next decade vary widely given rapid changes in both government policies and the auto manufacturing industry in recent years—many forecasts expect a strong acceleration in EV adoption. S&P Global Mobility forecasts electric vehicle sales in the United States could reach 40 percent of total passenger car sales by 2030, and more optimistic projections foresee electric vehicle sales surpassing 50 percent by 2030.” Note these figures are about “new” sales, not about the cars and trucks already in use.
In sum
Like most American workers, UAW workers want a fair wage, reasonable working conditions, health and pension benefits, and contracts that achieve such goals. Their demands are considered in the next section of this text. If they are successful, the UAW strike may encourage other workers across the economy to strive for unionization.
It is clear, however, that the immense and rising problem of carbon emissions will be decided or not decided by the people elected to federal and state governments and, in some instances, by a conservative Supreme Court. There is little doubt that the fossil fuel industries will do their best to slow down any transition away from oil and gas. And the Republican Party continues to have a largely climate-denying or -dismissive political agenda. Climate scientist Michael E. Mann has analyzed and debunked the opposition’s climate-denying claims in his books, including “The New Climate War” (publ. 2021) and his new book, “Our Fragile Moment” (publ. Sept 2023). John Grant’s book, “Denying Science,” is also informative.
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Why is the UAW on strike?
Ann Marie Lee identifies the UAW’s demands in their negotiations with the big three automakers (https://cbsnews.com/news/uaw-demands-2023-strike-why-contract-negotiations).
“As the United Auto Workers enters day four of its strike [Sept. 15-19, 2023] against Detroit’s Big Three, the stakes are getting higher for automakers Ford, General Motors and Stellantis [the parent of Jeep and Ram]. UAW President Shawn Fain has threatened to target more factories for work stoppages if ‘serious progress’ toward an agreement isn’t reached by Friday at noon.” Here’s what the union wants.
#1 – Pay increases and cost of living adjustments – The UAW is asking automakers for a 36% pay increase across a four-year contract. For now, however, the sides remain far apart on a wage hike. The union also want the Big Three automakers to “reinstate annual cost of living adjustments, arguing that inflation is eating away worker paychecks. For decades, the Detroit automakers offered a COLA, but stopped after GM and Chryslers went bankrupt following the 2008 financial crisis.” Without the adjustments for inflation, “autoworkers have seen their average wages fall 19.3% since 2008, according to Adam Hersh, senior economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.”
#2 – End of wage tiers
The UAW wants the Big Three to scrap its two-tiered wage structure. “Under that system, top-tier workers — meaning anyone who joined the company in 2007 or earlier — earn an average of roughly $33 an hour. But those hired after 2007 are classified as lower tier and earn far less — up to about $17 an hour.” Additionally,
lower-tier employees “aren’t eligible for defined benefit pensions, and their health benefits are less generous. The UAW says that paying employees half as much for doing the same work amounts is unfair.”
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Lauren Kaori Gurley highlights this problem of unequal wages and benefits by comparing two striking UAW workers, one in the higher tier and the other in the lower tier (https://washingtonpost.com/business/2023/09/20/uaw-strike-ford-autoworkers-wages).
“The tiered wage system came about as a concession the union made to automakers to save autoworkers’ jobs during the height of the financial crisis [of 2007-2008], when the automakers were teetering on the edge of solvency and eventually received government bailout loans of nearly $80 billion. To keep the companies afloat, the autoworkers’ union conceded to lowering wages and reducing benefits for all workers hired after 2007.” There are three tiers.
Higher tier
Gurley describes the situation of Steven Summers, 60, who has worked in quality control in the same Ford factory for 24 years. He is an example of a top tier worker.
“After 24 years on the job, Summers makes $32 an hour. He and his wife, a former autoworker, own a four-bedroom house with a pool in a suburb of Detroit. They raised four daughters and a grandchild on their wages, vacationing in Myrtle Beach, S.C., and signing up for softball leagues. His family isn’t rich, Summers says, but ‘we’re doing all right.’”
Lower tier
Gurley and her colleagues at the Washington Post interviewed eight striking Ford assembly line workers who are in the lower tier of the workforce and found “they must work second jobs to make ends meet. They stock shelves at Dollar Tree, sort packages in Amazon warehouses, wax eyebrows professionally, sell discounted jewelry and deliver food on Uber Eats.” Markeis Womack, 31, installs “visors and glove boxes on Broncos and Rangers for about eight hours a day on the assembly line at the Ford plant in Wayne, starting at 6 a.m. After, he cleaned offices, churches and day cares on a 10-hour shift working as a janitor. His work day ended at 4 a.m., because his Ford job didn’t pay enough to make ends meet. Womack, the father of two young kids, makes $20.69 an hour at Ford and said he can only dream of ‘stability and owning a house.’”
Gurley continues. “It can take close to a decade for lower-tiered workers’ pay to catch up to those hired before 2007. At Ford, new hires now start full time at $18.04 an hour.
At the same time, there are other discrepancies stemming from the tier system. According to Gurley’s reporting, even when lower-tier workers reach the top of the pay scale, they “get worse health-care benefits and no company-financed health care in retirement or pension, compared with legacy [top tier] employees. Lower-tiered workers do receive 401(k) retirement accounts with a company contribution equaling 6.4 percent of workers’ wages. The union is asking the companies to offer the top-tier health-care benefits to all workers, reinstitute defined-benefit pensions that workers previously received and pay all the health-care costs for retirees.”
A third tier: temps
“Often, new hires at the Big Three automakers start as ‘temps,’ or temporary workers making about $16 an hour, depending on the company, without profit-sharing, bonuses or pensions. Temps are essentially on a worse, third tier. Automakers have long used them to keep labor costs down, particularly when they are meeting temporary surges of demand, but workers complain that they are left in temp status for too long.” The union wants “all new hires [to] get paid at the top rate after 90 days — scrapping tiered wages.”
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#3 – Defined benefit pension plans for all
Ann Marie Lee reports that the majority of UAW members “do not get a pension nowadays.” This is a demand that the union is unlikely to win. Art Wheaton, director of labor studies at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations in Buffalo, believes the union will ultimately lose its battle for the return of pensions.” Wheaton points out that “[a]lmost no one in any industry is adding those today.”
#4 – Four-day workweek and more time off
Along with substantial pay raises, more paid time off and pension benefits, one of the changes UAW leaders have been bargaining for is a four-day workweek, working 32 hours for 40 hours of pay, and more time off “to spend with family.”
UAW president Fain is quoted by Lee. “Our members are working 60, 70, even 80 hours a week just to make ends meet. That’s not living. It’s barely surviving and it needs to stop,”
#5 – Right to strike, family protection
Lee writes, the union is also asking for the right to strike over plant closings.
“The Big Three have closed 65 plants over the last 20 years,” according to the UAW’s website. “That’s devastated our hometowns. We must have the right to defend our communities.” The union also wants a “working family protection program” that pays UAW to do community service work if the companies shut down a facility.” In addition, the union wants to “be allowed to represent workers at 10 electric vehicle battery factories, most of which are being built by joint ventures between automakers and South Korean battery makers. The union wants those plants to receive top UAW wages. In part that’s because workers who now make components for internal combustion engines will need a place to work as the industry transitions to EVs.
#6 – Retiree health care
“In addition to a return of traditional pension payment plans and significantly higher pay for retired workers, the union is seeking health care for all retired UAW members. Workers hired before 2007 still have those benefits. But those hired since – a majority of hourly workers – do not.”
#7 – Limited use of temporary workers
According to Lee, the union is “also demanding that the automakers limit their use temporary workers, who under the tiered-wage system receive the least pay and no benefits.”
#8 – They can afford it
Fain himself has acknowledged that the union’s demands are “audacious.” But he contends that the automakers can afford to raise workers’ pay significantly.
“Over the past decade, the Detroit Three have emerged as robust profit-makers. They’ve collectively posted net income of $164 billion, $20 billion of it this year. The CEOs of all three major automakers earn multiple millions in annual compensation
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What is the UAW strike strategy?
Andrea Hsu reports on what is involved in the UAW strike strategy (https://npr.org/2023/09/19/1200198072/uaw-strikes-strategy-fair-labor-big-3-detroit#). The strategy is one of “limited, targeted strikes at all three American auto companies,” in plants in Missouri, Michigan and Ohio. If the contract negotiations have not been resolved by Friday, September 22nd [and they were not], UAW President Shawn Fain said that “more locals will be called on to stand up and join the strike,” he announced in a video posted to Facebook Monday night [Sept. 18], while not revealing which plants or how many would be called on next.
After the first week, 13,000 auto workers were already on strike. This is only a fraction of the 146,000 workers employed by the struck auto corporations, ‘but the threat of growing the strike has added pressure and kept the companies guessing.’ Fain told NPR. He also said that “if the company doesn’t respect the demands of our workers, then we will escalate action.”
Hsu continues. “Labor historians see the deployment of this new strategy as a reflection of newfound militancy at the UAW under Fain’s leadership, but also some sharp and strategic thinking about how to put pressure on companies while maintaining flexibility and limiting fallout.
“‘It’s not the goal of the UAW to bring down Ford, GM and Chrysler,’ says Erik Loomis, professor of history at the University of Rhode Island and author of A History of America in Ten Strikes. ‘That’s not the point. The point is to get a fair deal out of them.’”
“While it’s too early to say whether the strategy will work, Loomis says momentum appears to be on the side of the union, with companies having to guess which part of their supply chain might be hit next.”
Already, however, “there have been ripple effects impacting non-striking workers. On Friday, Ford put 600 workers on temporary layoff, because they need to use materials that need to be coated by the paint department, which is on strike.
“GM has warned it will lay off 2,000 workers at a plant in Kansas early this week because it lacks components supplied by GM’s Wentzville, Mo., plant, which is on strike.
“The UAW said it will provide those workers who are laid off in response to the strikes the same pay as striking workers — $500 a week. For most auto workers on the production line, that represents well under half their weekly earnings.
“So as not to burn through its $825 million strike fund too quickly, Loomis says it’s entirely possible the union will eventually send some striking workers back to their jobs while bringing others out.”
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U.A.W. Widens Strikes at G.M. and Stellantis, but Cites Progress in Ford Talks
The UAW has moved ahead on its strike strategy, according to a report by Neal E. Boudette (https://nytimes.com/2023/09/22/business/uaw-strike-general-motors-stellantis.html). Boudette writes as follows.
The United Automobile Workers union on Friday significantly raised the pressure on General Motors and Stellantis, the parent of Jeep and Ram, by expanding its strike against the companies to include all the spare parts distribution centers of the two companies.
“Shawn Fain, the union’s president, said Friday that workers at 38 distribution centers, which provide parts to dealerships for repairs, at the two companies would walk off the job at noon. He said talks with two companies had not progressed significantly, contrasting them with Ford Motor, which he said had done more to meet the union’s demands.
“‘We will shut down parts distribution centers until those two companies come to their senses and come to the bargaining table,’ Mr. Fain said.
“The affected locations include 18 G.M. distribution centers that employ a total of 3,475 workers, and 20 Stellantis centers with 2,150 U.A.W. members, according to the union. The move brings the total number of striking U.A.W. workers to more than 18,000.”
“The union said it was not striking more facilities at Ford because of the gains it had achieved in talks with that company, including on cost-of-living adjustments, the right to strike if the company decides to close plants and two years of pay and health care benefits for workers who are laid off indefinitely.
“‘To be clear, we are not done at Ford,’ he [Fain] said. ‘We have serious issues to work through, but we do want to recognize that Ford is serious about reaching a deal.’”
“The expansion of the stoppage heightens the stakes for both sides, and could force other plants owned by the automakers and their suppliers to halt production.
The union is paying striking workers $500 per week each from its $825 million strike fund, while the manufacturers are faced with losing tens of millions of dollars in revenue every day that the affected plants remain idled.”
Boudette quotes Peter Berg, a professor of employment relations at Michigan State University, who “said the U.A.W.’s strategy of limiting strikes to certain locations eases the cost of supporting workers from its strike fund, but hurts the manufacturers because those plants make some of their most profitable vehicles.
“‘The question is, can the union maintain solidarity and keep everyone together if this continues for several more weeks,’ he said.”
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Strike Is a High-Stakes Gamble for Autoworkers and the Labor Movement
Noam Scheiber, a Chicago-based reporter who covers workers and the workplace, considers the goals and risks of the UAW strike
(https://nytimes.com/2023/09/19/business/economy/strike-autoworkers-labor.html). “Experts on unions and the industry said the U.A.W. strike could accelerate a wave of worker actions, or stifle labor’s recent momentum.”
Overall Union membership has been declining for decades
The fact is that presently very few workers are represented by unions, especially in the private-sector according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) (https://bls.gov/news-release/union2.nr0.htm). In the labor force overall, those employed in fulltime or part-time jobs or actively looking for paid work, just 10.1 percent of nonsupervisory wage and salary workers were represented by unions. The unionization rate is lower in the private-sector of the economy and higher in the public sector. The BLS report documents this fact, noting that the union membership rate of public-sector workers was 33.1 percent in 2022, “more than five times higher than the rate of private-sector workers (6.0 percent).” The 2022 unionization rate (10.1 percent) is the lowest on record. In 1983, the first year where comparable union data are available, the union membership rate was 20.1 percent and there were 17.7 million union workers.”
There are many causes for low and declining union membership. They are analyzed in numerous books and articles. One of the best is historian Nelson Lichtenstein’s 2002 book State of the Union: A Century of American Labor. He noted that “90 percent of all private-sector workers in the United States are employed under at-will doctrines,” which allows employers to fire workers whenever they want and without explanation. This is as true in 2023 as it was in 2002. The overall causes of the decline of private-sector nonsupervisory workers include the following.
- the anti-union efforts of the Republican Party
- an economy dominated by large profit-first corporations and their allies,
- support for anti-union legislation by rich and powerful organizations
- weak government regulations and enforcement
- right-wing voters who oppose government regulation and taxes
- corporate investment in the global South to take advantage of cheap labor, lax regulations, and low taxes
- divisions among workers along racial, gender, and religious grounds
In this context, it takes a committed union leadership supported by a majority of union members to strike and challenge corporate power.
Some recent union successes
Scheiber says there is some reason to be optimistic. Some labor unions have enjoyed something of a renaissance since the beginning of the pandemic through strikes and the threats of strikes. “They have made inroads into previously nonunion companies like Starbucks and Amazon, and won unusually strong contracts for hundreds of thousands of workers. Last year, public approval for unions reached its highest level since the Lyndon Johnson presidency.” Some disputes were resolved before threatened strike action was taken. Strikes by railroad workers and UPS employees, which had the potential to rattle the U.S. economy, were averted at the last minute.” Some strikes are less than national in scope. The strikes by writers and actors are concentrated in Southern California and, at this time, are unresolved.
The wider “class” implications
Scheiber cites the UAW’s president, Shawn Fain, who has portrayed the strike as a “broader struggle pitting ordinary workers against corporate titans.” Scheiber refers to a recent video appearance by Fain, in which he said this: “It’s a battle of the working class against the rich, the haves versus the have-nots, the billionaire class against everybody else.” The “class” reference “appears to be resonating with his members.” Scheiber writes: “Even Mr. Fain’s habit of framing the fight in broad class terms may prove to be a strategic advantage. A recent Gallup poll found that 75 percent of the public backed the autoworkers in the showdown, compared with 19 percent who were more sympathetic to the companies.”
The risks associated with the strike
But Scheiber also identifies potential “pitfalls,” “A prolonged strike could undermine the three established U.S. automakers – and send the politically crucial Midwest into recession. If the union is seen as overreaching, or if it settles for a weak deal after a costly stoppage, public support could sour.”
There are potential negative impacts of the strike as well. One, “the strike could inflict collateral damage that creates frustration and hardship among tens of thousands of nonunion workers and their communities.” Two, small and medium-sized manufacturers across the country that make up the automotive sector’s integrated supply chain will probably feel the brunt of this work stoppage, whether they are a union shop or not. Three, the union demands “could discourage businesses from investing in the United States or render them uncompetitive with foreign rivals.” Four, “Gene Bruskin, a longtime union official who helped workers at a Smithfield meat-processing plant in North Carolina achieve, in 2008, one of the biggest organizing victories in decades, said he strongly favored the strike and how Mr. Fain and the union are seeking to rally the working class. But he also said “a long strike could disillusion workers if the union came up short on key demands.” He gives the example of the need for the union to change the two-tier system of employment in the big auto plants, a system in which newer workers are paid far less than veteran workers who perform similar jobs.” Five, the auto companies could shift more production to Mexico, “where they already have a significant presence.” Six, they could accelerate the introduction of labor-saving automation. Seven, the big auto corporations could locate “new plants in lightly unionized Southern states.” For example, “The Detroit automakers have created joint ventures with foreign battery makers outside the reach of the U.A.W.’s national contracts and have sought to locate some of those plants in states like Tennessee and Kentucky. The union is seeking to bring workers at those plants up to the same pay and labor standards that direct employees of the Big Three enjoy, but it has not succeeded so far.”
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The battle over Electric Vehicles in the strike
On April 12, 2023, the UAW issued a statement on new rules proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency (https://uaw.org/uaw-statement-new-emissions-rules-proposed-environmental-protection-agency). Here’s the statement.
“The United Auto Workers supports the transition to a clean auto industry and has been a proud leader in the fight against climate change. We will carefully review the EPA’s proposals and look forward to working with the Biden Administration in pursuit of standards that are good for workers and the environment. A transition to electric vehicles will not succeed without economic justice for the workers who make the auto industry run.
“There is no good reason why electric vehicle manufacturing can’t be the gateway to the middle class that auto jobs have been for generations of union autoworkers. But the early signs of this industry are worrying, prioritizing corporate greed over economic justice. Forcing workers to decide between good jobs and green jobs is a false choice. We can and must achieve both.
“People who build cars for a living don’t do it because we’re passionate about combustion engines or electric vehicles. We do it because we’re passionate about our families and our communities. We can have both economic and climate justice—and that starts by ensuring that the electric vehicle industry is entirely unionized. We look forward to working with the Biden Administration to hold the auto industry accountable to that mission.”
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More on the role of electric cars in the UAW strike
Jack Ewing, who writes about business from New York, focusing on the auto industry and the transition to electric cars, contends that the issue of electric vehicles is “central” to the strike
(https://nytimes.com/2023/09/16/business/electric-vehicles-uaw-gm-ford-stellantic.html). He writes:
“Carmakers are anxious to keep costs down as they ramp up electric vehicle manufacturing, while striking workers want to preserve jobs as the industry shifts to batteries, ‘a once-in-a-century technological upheaval that poses huge risks for both the companies and the union.’”
Ewing continues.
“The strike has come as the traditional automakers invest billions to develop electric vehicles while still making most of their money from gasoline-driven cars. The negotiations will determine the balance of power between workers and management, possibly for years to come. That makes the strike as much a struggle for the industry’s future as it is about wages, benefits and working conditions.
“The established carmakers — General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis, which owns Chrysler, Jeep and Ram — are trying to defend their profits and their place in the market in the face of stiff competition from Tesla and foreign automakers. Some executives and analysts have characterized what is happening in the industry as the biggest technological transformation since Henry Ford’s moving assembly line started up at the beginning of the 20th century.”
Ewing emphasizes that strike negotiations “are about more than pay. Workers are trying to defend jobs as manufacturing shifts from internal combustion engines to batteries. Because they have fewer parts, electric cars can be made with fewer workers than gasoline vehicles. A favorable outcome for the U.A.W. would also give the union a strong calling card if, as some expect, it then tries to organize employees at Tesla and other nonunion carmakers like Hyundai, which is planning to manufacture electric vehicles at a massive new factory in Georgia.”
“Under pressure from government officials and changing consumer demand, Ford, G.M. and Stellantis are investing billions to retool their sprawling operations to build electric vehicles, which are critical to addressing climate change. But they are making little if any profit on those vehicles while Tesla, which dominates electric car sales, is profitable and growing fast.
“Ford said in July, as reported by Ewing, “that its electric vehicle business would lose $4.5 billion this year.
“If the union got all the increases in pay, pensions and other benefits it is seeking, the company said, its workers’ total compensation would be twice as much as Tesla’s employees.”
“‘Union demands would force Ford to scrap its investments in electric vehicles,’ Jim Farley, the company’s chief executive, said in an interview on Friday. ‘We want to actually have a conversation about a sustainable future, he said, ‘not one that forces us to choose between going out of business and rewarding our workers.’”
“For workers, the biggest concern is that electric vehicles have far fewer parts than gasoline models and will render many jobs obsolete. Plants that make mufflers, catalytic converters, fuel injectors and other components that electric cars don’t need will have to be overhauled or shut down.
“Many new battery and electric vehicle factories are springing up and could employ workers from the plants that have shut down. But automakers are building most aggressively in the South where labor laws are tilted against union organizers, rather than in the Midwest, where the U.A.W. has more clout. One of the union’s demands is that workers in the new factories be covered by the automakers’ national labor contracts — a demand that the automakers have said they can’t meet because those plants are owned by joint ventures. The union also wants to regain the right to strike to block plant shutdowns.”
The big U.S. automakers are not making much progress in manufacturing electric vehicles.
“The three companies are already struggling to get their electric vehicle business going. A new G.M. battery factory in Ohio has been slow to produce batteries, delaying electric versions of the Chevrolet Silverado pickup and other vehicles. Ford this year had to suspend production of its electric F-150 Lightning in February after a battery caught fire in one of the pickups that was parked near the factory for a quality check. And Stellantis won’t even begin selling any fully electric vehicles in the United States until next year.”
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Concluding thoughts
The UAW is striking for reasonable and far-sighted goals. They hope to have some influence in negotiations with the big automakers about their position on what kind of cars and trucks are manufactured, and where and by whom they are produced, along, with a host of demands that would improve wages, working conditions, job security, benefits, the right to strike, retiree pensions.
If the UAW wins some of its key demands, it may well encourage other unions to challenge management’s often anti-worker policies. However this unfolds, it will be years before cars and trucks powered by internal combustion engines are eliminated or even significantly reduced from the U.S. transportation system. Still, the UAW has helped to bring additional pubic attention to the issues. And it is engaged in a strike that could improve the wages and many other conditions of work for present and future autoworkers and perhaps eventually workers in other industries.
Vital issues - challenging pol and econ power 