Consider This from NPR - How Concerns Over EVs are Driving the UAW Towards a Strike

Episode Date: September 13, 2023

The president of the United Auto Workers says the union is planning to carry out sudden, strategic and partial strikes at plants should contract talks with Detroit's Big Three automakers fail ahead of a contract deadline on Thursday night.UAW President Shawn Fain also held out the possibility of an all-out strike in the future of the nearly 150,000 union members.In addition to concerns over pay, workers are worried about what electric vehicles mean for their future. NPR's Camila Domonoske reports on how the transition to electric vehicles has many autoworkers concerned about their job security.And Senior White House Correspondent Tamara Keith reports on why the UAW hasn't endorsed President Biden for re-election in 2024.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This message comes from Indiana University. Indiana University performs breakthrough research every year, making discoveries that improve human health, combat climate change, and move society forward. More at iu.edu forward. President Biden is known for being a union guy and a car guy. He's talked about it a lot throughout his presidency. Auto manufacturing has largely been a middle-class career with good pay that you could raise a family on. Well, that's not going to change on my watch.

That's President Biden speaking at Sheet Metal Workers' Local 19 Training Center in Philadelphia on Labor Day. Yet he's been mute on contract talks between the United Auto Workers and Detroit Carmakers. The two sides are at odds over the state of contract negotiations, and if they don't reach an agreement by 11.59 p.m. on Thursday, the UAW could strike any time after midnight. Now, what Biden did say to reporters on Labor Day is that he doesn't think the strike will happen. UAW President Sean Fain spoke on CNBC last week, and he says a strike is on the table. I think a strike can reaffirm to him of where the working class people in this country stand. And, you know, it's time for politicians in this country to pick a side. Either you stand for a billionaire class where everybody else gets left behind,

or you stand for the working class. UAW represents 150,000 workers at major car companies. Workers are asking for a 40 percent wage increase. And to those who argue 40 percent is too big a jump, the union says, look at the money executives earn. GM CEO Mary Barra made close to $30 million last year. The starting wage at GM's EV battery plant Ultium sells is $16.50 an hour. That means a newly hired Ultium worker would have to work full time for 16 years to earn what Mary Barra makes in a single week. That's UAW President Sean Fain again. The Labor Department says salaries for auto workers on the production line have dropped more than 20 percent adjusted for inflation over the past two decades. We got to decide,

are we going to pay our electric bill or, geez, are we going to go over here and get this medication? Donya Ferdinandson builds transmissions for Chevy Silverados and other trucks at a GM plant in Ohio. This summer, she was earning $27 an hour, the same wage she was making when she was hired in 2016. She says while CEOs enjoy their luxury watches and second homes, workers like herself... We have to make decisions because our pay isn't right. Consider this. Auto workers could walk out as soon as this week. In addition to concerns over pay, workers are worried about what electric vehicles mean for their future. From NPR, I'm Ari Shapiro. It's Wednesday, September 13th.

This message comes from Indiana University. Indiana University performs breakthrough research every year, making discoveries that improve human health, combat climate change, and move society forward. More at iu.edu forward. It's Consider This from NPR. One thing getting in the way of the contract negotiations between the union and carmakers, the cars themselves. Well, electric vehicles. The Biden administration has pushed hard over the years for Americans to switch to EVs. The future of the auto industry is electric.

There's no turning back. The White House wants the UAW to endorse Biden for re-election, but that's not a given this time around. NPR senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith tells us why. President Biden's political brand has been built on siding with the working class. Gene Sperling, a top economic advisor to Biden, is his point person on these talks. Sperling says the president wasn't making a prediction and certainly wasn't trying to undermine the union. He stands with UAW workers, but you present a situation like this to him, yeah, he's going to look at it optimistically because he wants the parties to believe that

they can find that win-win opportunity. These talks come as the Biden administration pushes the industry hard to make and sell more electric vehicles. There are huge financial incentives in his landmark climate legislation known as the Inflation Reduction Act. But electric vehicles require fewer workers to build, and the batteries themselves could end up being made in non-union factories or at much lower wages. These negotiations are where the rubber hits the road. Congresswoman Debbie Dingell is a Democrat from Michigan. Although the battery issue isn't technically part of the negotiations, it threatens a rift between autoworkers and their longtime allies in the

Democratic Party. Dingell says it's not unlike 2016. That's when former President Donald Trump won Michigan, in part because she says workers didn't feel like Democrats cared about them. Donald Trump didn't deliver on trade, but he talked about trade. He showed an empathy for it. So it's going to be very important that President Biden show them that he is paying attention, that he does care, that he wants to protect their jobs. Most of the country's biggest labor unions have already endorsed Biden's reelection bid, but not the United Auto Workers. And that lack of an endorsement is hanging over the contract talks. Here's the UAW's Fain on MSNBC. You know, the one thing we've made clear is that our endorsements are going to

be earned, not freely given. It's one thing we're doing differently. And there's a lot of work left to be done here. Fain went on to say he's no fan of Trump as he runs for president once again. But Trump is actively courting autoworkers and criticizing the move to electric vehicles. In 2016, he was able to peel away a significant share of votes from rank and file union members. Cedric DeLeon, who specializes in labor studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, says Biden needs to side with the workers in these talks and be vocal about it. Because I know who will take advantage of that if he isn't, you know, full-throated on behalf of workers. Trump will. He points out this is far bigger than Biden earning the endorsement of the UAW.

There are millions of union workers in America watching to see how this goes. And they're reliable voters, many of whom live in swing states like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. NPR's Tamara Keith. As Tam mentioned, the transition to EVs looms large over these negotiations. For more on why exactly it's making auto workers uneasy, here's NPR's Camila Dominovsky. The negotiations aren't over whether or not to make electric vehicles. The UAW and the automakers agree that's happening. As UAW President Sean Fain put it in a virtual rally this past weekend. We support a green economy. You know, we have to get behind this. We have to have a planet we can live on. But he says this transition makes it more important that

assembly line and battery workers get good pay and benefits. If we don't secure this work and we don't secure it at a living standard, at big three standards, it's not going to be a good future for anyone. The union is asking for more than 40% raises, plus pensions, cost of living increases, and job security. Auto companies say despite high profits, they cannot afford that. And one big reason why? The high cost of the electric transition. There is some truth to this. Ed Kim, an analyst with AutoPacific, says, yeah, this is expensive for companies. Yes, they've been very profitable, but they're also at the same time very eager to reinvest those profits into their EV product development.

Auto companies have already pointed to the high cost of the EV transition to explain painful cuts. Take Stellantis, the parent company of Chrysler, which made $18 billion last year. It recently shut down a plant in Belvedere, Illinois, citing the cost of switching to EVs. But the plant, which made the Jeep Cherokee, had seen layoffs even before this year. Patty Ellison's shift was cut in 2019. It's pretty much turned my whole life upside down. Given the choice between a layoff or a transfer, she transferred to Michigan. Her husband still lives in Illinois. She spoke to me on a five-hour drive back to visit him. She gets home about once a month. Anything but convenient. And when I asked

her about Stellantis' explanation that they shut her old plant because of the cost of switching to EVs, she was skeptical. It sounds like an excuse to me. If they're going to make electric vehicles, why can't we make them there in Belvedere? She'd be happy to build an EV, but there is one thing that does give Ellison pause. They say it takes less people to build electric vehicles than it does a combustion vehicle. The union is concerned about this too. On the other hand, new battery plants are popping up to power those new EVs with lots of jobs, and the UAW is working to organize them. Meanwhile, the federal government is pouring billions of dollars into electric vehicles, and the union has been pressuring the Biden administration to make sure that workers feel a benefit from that federal money, not just the corporations.

Patty Ellison isn't sure what impact the shift to EVs will have on workers like her. I don't know. It remains to be seen. But she says she's cautiously optimistic. One of the things her union is pushing for is the reopening of her old plant. And if that happens, analysts think it will probably be building EVs. NPR's Camila Dominovsky. You also heard reporting in this episode from NPR's Andrea Hsu. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Ari Shapiro.