Tangle - The United Auto Workers strike.

Episode Date: September 18, 2023

The United Auto Workers strike. On Friday, nearly one in 10 unionized auto workers in the United States went on strike, deploying a new strategy to push Detroit's three major automakers into raising wages. The unions are striking simultaneously at General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis (owner of Chrysler) for the first time in history, hoping to negotiate higher wages at a profitable time in the industry. The strikes are happening at GM's assembly plant in Wentzville, MO, Ford's assembly and paint plant in Wayne, MI, and Stellantis' assembly plant in Toledo, OH.You can read today's podcast here, today’s Under the Radar story here, and today’s “Have a nice day” story here. You can also check out our latest YouTube video here.Today’s clickables: Note about last Friday’s edition (0:36), Quick hits (3:14), Today’s story (5:11), Right’s take (8:42), Left’s take (13:26), Isaac’s take (17:45), Listener question (22:12), Under the Radar (25:36), Numbers (26:42), Have a nice day (27:26)You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here.Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and edited by Jon Lall. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. Our newsletter is edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight.

Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle Podcast, the place we get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of my take. I'm your host, Isaac Saul. And before we jump in today, I want to quickly respond to some of the feedback on Friday's edition. In case you missed it, we published a newsletter on Friday in which I discussed the character letters that Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis wrote on behalf of

Danny Masterson, and I think in some ways took a position of defense for what Ashton and Mila did. I spoke a lot at length about how my position here is a little bit corrupted. I have a very big conflict of interest. I used to work for Ashton Kutcher, so I know him personally, but I wrote this piece. I published it. I was not sure what the feedback was going to be like, and it was tremendous. I mean, not just because some of it or a lot of it was positive. A lot of it was positive. Most of it was overwhelmingly positive, but also because even the people who disagreed with me strongly did so in such a respectful way. I was frankly blown away, really, really appreciative of the community that we're building that can deliver that kind

of critical feedback without being too over the top or personal and really using their rational size of their brains to make an argument. So it was very rewarding to publish. It was scary to publish, but I felt good about it. I'm thrilled that my argument resonated with some people. And yeah, I wanted to say thank you to everybody who wrote in. I'm going to read a few little bits of feedback as a way to promote the piece because it was behind a paywall and I want you to go subscribe and pay for it to read it. But here's some of the feedback that we got. One reader said, brave, fabulous writing. As always, this makes me grateful to receive Friday messages. Another

reader said, I'm so not proud of you for being brave enough to write this. Be even braver and talk to people who study the kinds of people who endanger women and children in this very way. Another reader said, this was masterful. We are becoming Isaac Saul, ride or dies over here. And a reader said, quote, I read your piece and I do not believe you have or can understand what it feels like to have been a victim of sexual assault if you haven't experienced it, which I very much hope you never do. You can read the full piece with a link in today's episode description, or you can find it on our website, readtangle.com. All right, so with that out of the way, a heads up that our main topic today is going to be the United Auto Workers strike. Before we jump into that main topic, though, as always,

we are going to kick things off with our quick hit section. First up, Hunter Biden was officially indicted on three federal charges related to a 2018 gun purchase, a plea deal that would have prevented a criminal trial fell apart earlier this summer. Number two, Representative Lauren Boebert, the Republican from Colorado, apologized after surveillance video was released showing her vaping and causing a disturbance at a theater in Denver earlier this month. She had previously denied allegations that she disrupted the show. Number three, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the Democrat from New York, has directed the Senate Sergeant at Arms to no longer enforce the chamber's dress code for

senators. Number four, the Texas Senate voted on Saturday to acquit the state's Attorney General Ken Paxson after a nine-day impeachment trial that divided the state's Republican Party. And number five, three men were found not guilty on charges tied to a plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. Fourteen men have already been charged, nine of The brakes on the American auto industry slammed on overnight as auto workers officially went on what the UAW calls a historic strike against the big three car makers, GM, Ford and Chrysler owner Stellantis. Now union members rallying in downtown Detroit as we come on. They are asking for a 40% pay increase over four years. They point to CEO pay and the increasing profits for the automakers. On this first day of the strike, some 2,700 workers walking out.

Those three plants, they threaten to expand the strike unless their demands are met. This morning, auto workers not pumping the brakes as they enter their first full week, striking against Detroit's big three car makers. Nearly 13,000 are on picket lines in three states. On Friday, nearly one in 10 unionized auto workers in the United States went on strike, deploying a new strategy to push Detroit's three major automakers into raising wages. The unions are striking simultaneously at General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis, the owner of Chrysler, for the first time in history, hoping to negotiate higher wages at a profitable time in the industry. The strikes are happening at GM's assembly plant in Wentzville, Missouri, Ford's assembly and paint plant in Wayne,

Michigan, and Stellantis' assembly plant in Toledo, Ohio. UAW president Sean Fain, the first UAW president ever chosen by direct election, is leading the strike. Fain says the autoworkers will gradually expand their strike to include additional plants or even all of them if the automakers don't meet their demands. The simultaneous strike includes all three companies and the gradual increase of striking plants is a novel strategy designed to put maximum pressure on the companies. Previously, the 88-year-old union has only negotiated with one automaker at a time, limiting its impact on the industry. Striking workers will receive $500 a week from the union, which has an $825 million

strike fund. The union is primarily asking for a 36% pay increase over four years and other benefits, according to the Associated Press. In addition to the wage increases, union negotiators are also seeking a restoration of cost of living pay raises, an end to varying tiers of wages for factory jobs, a 32-hour week with 40 hours of pay, the restoration of traditional defined-benefit pensions for new hires who now only receive 401k-style retirement plans, and pension increases for retirees, among other items. Auto workers say this amounts to their fair share of the net $164 billion of revenue made by the Detroit Three automakers in the last decade, including $20 billion this year. They also argue that it will

help them recover from concessions they made during the Great Recession. Meanwhile, CEOs of the Big Three automakers earn multiple millions of annual compensation, and United Auto Workers estimates that their pay has increased by 40.1% since 2019. The union is also negotiating to be able to represent workers at 10 electric vehicle battery plants, many of which are being built in joint ventures between automakers and South Korean battery makers. Union leaders fear a transition from gas to electric vehicles, which have fewer parts, will cost many autoworker jobs, and they say they want to secure a future for workers who may lose their jobs at traditional manufacturing plants in the coming years. In their latest offer,

GM and Ford proposed a 20% pay increase and agreed to a return of cost-of-living adjustments, but the two sides were still far apart on other benefit proposals. Ford said they are looking to strike a deal that ensures they can compete with non-unionized automakers like Tesla, who already have a cost advantage on the Detroit 3. Notably, the UAW has also held out on endorsing President Biden's re-election campaign during these negotiations, despite Biden calling himself the most pro-union president in American history. It has publicly opposed subsidies to electric car manufacturers like the ones in the Inflation Reduction Act that don't include labor standard stipulations. Today, we're going to take a look at some reactions to the strike from the right and the left, and then I'll give my take.

First up, let's start with where they agree. Many on the right and left agree that this dispute will have a major impact on President Biden's energy policies. Both sides say the strike hits Biden's electric vehicle agenda against his support of unions and examine how the electric vehicle transition is going to impact auto industry jobs. With that out of the way, let's start with what the right is saying. Many on the right criticize Biden's energy agenda and say the administration helped cause this problem. Some argue a transition to electric vehicles is already hurting automakers and the strike will only hurt them more. Others say Tesla and China are going to come out as the big winners. will only hurt them more. Others say Tesla and China are going to come out as the big winners. The Wall Street Journal editorial board called it a strike made in Washington.

The Biden administration is mandating a rapid transition to electric vehicles, but the UAW knows that EVs require fewer workers to make and will jeopardize union jobs making gas powered cars, the board said. But the companies already lose money on EVs and worry about making too many concessions to the United Auto Workers that will cause them to lose even more as they are forced to build even more EVs. The Biden administration, with California as its co-enforcer, is mandating that EVs make up an increasing share of automaker sales, two-thirds by 2032. California and other progressive states plan to ban all new gas-powered cars by 2035, but last year EVs made up less than 3% of Detroit automaker sales. The companies have already laid off thousands of salaried workers, including engineers, to finance the EV transition.

Assembly line workers so far have been largely spared, but Mr. Fain knows that automakers will ultimately have to shut down union plants that produce gas-powered vehicles, as Stellantis did a Jeep Cherokee plant last December. All of this raises the stakes for both sides at the bargaining table. Mr. Fain might look like a hero to his members, but the ultimate losers will be those same members when their jobs disappear. And they should direct some of the blame at the misguided industrial policy of the man in the Oval Office. should direct some of the blame at the misguided industrial policy of the man in the Oval Office. In the New York Sun, Liz Peek said these demands could give Elon Musk and Xi Jinping the last laugh. After the Great Recession, when taxpayers forked over $80 billion to bail out GM and Chrysler, much of the support evaporated when the Times reported that GM employees were making all-in

pay of $70 an hour, including wages and benefits, or roughly $10 to $20 more an hour than non-union labor and car factories. Everyone understood that a pay structure so out of whack with the going rate for labor, remember this was 15 years ago, was uncompetitive and, yes, unsustainable, especially in an era of free trade and international competition, Peek said. United Auto Workers argues that pay to Big Three executives has gone up 40% over the past decade, while their average pay of $28 an hour hasn't kept pace. It is true workers have been left behind because of President Biden's inflation, and UAW members have been further disadvantaged by the deal reached in 2008.

But the union's demands are impossible, Peek wrote. Hourly labor costs for the big three today, including wages and benefits, average $66 an hour, compared to $45 an hour at Tesla and a fraction of that at a Chinese plant. The UAW's demands would boost pay to $136. Does Joe Biden think that GM, Ford, and Stellantis can afford that? In hot air, John Sexton said Tesla is the big winner of the UAW strike. Tesla is not a union shop, which means it is in no danger of a strike or of being forced to have to pay workers 40% more for the same job, Sexton said. The reality is that analysts have been saying for years that the competition was coming to eat Tesla's lunch, but the reality is that most non-Tesla EVs aren't selling that well. As for the idea that the rival

automakers have a cost advantage over Tesla, that is a complete fantasy. At least when it comes to GM and Ford, they're having to build up their EV lines from scratch at a cost of billions of dollars. So the idea that Detroit is in danger of losing their cost advantage is just a pure fantasy. They haven't yet been able to produce much of anything in the EV sector that isn't losing them money with every sale. Meanwhile, Tesla continues to make a solid profit on every car. In fact, when it comes to profit, Tesla is outperforming the most successful car manufacturers on the planet, Sexton said. That's the starting point here, and now the UAW is striking to demand a 40% wage increase. If you're Tesla, this is terrific news, because it

means the competition is about to fall even further behind. It also creates a real pickle for President Biden, who's simultaneously trying to side with the unions and also trying to make binomics his re-election theme. Alright, that is it for the rightist saying, which brings us to what the left is saying. Most on the left support the strike and suggest it is a fight for all workers. Some criticize Trump and other self-styled populists for not supporting the autoworkers. Others say this strike, along with the green energy transition, may hurt workers in the long run. In MSNBC, Hamilton Nolan said this is bigger than the auto industry and we should rejoice. Generations of workers are rightly furious that their pay has remained stagnant for decades as executives and investors reap the gains of their increasing productivity. Other workers have been exposed to the full force of these trends, Nolan

said. They and their unions made grand concessions after the 2008 financial crisis to save their industry. When the company's fortunes improved, they forgot the workers' sacrifice. An Economic Policy Institute analysis found that in the past decade, the big three have made $250 billion in profits, set $66 billion of that to investors, and raised CEO pay by 40%. Meanwhile, the average auto manufacturing worker is earning almost 20% less today than they did in 2008. In this, the auto industry is a perfect microcosm of the American economy writ large. This bifurcation between the top and everyone else, the trend that has eroded the middle class, destroyed the classic American dream of supporting a family on a blue-collar income, and fed the blanket disgust in our system that helped fuel the rise of Donald Trump, cannot continue forever. Something has to give,

Nolan said. So the UAW is going big. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. Bloomberg's editorial board said Biden is going to have to choose between his green energy agenda and unabashed union support. The stakes are high, as a 10-day strike could reduce total U.S. output by $5.6 billion, including $859 million in lost wages and nearly

$1 billion in foregone earnings. A longer dispute could raise already inflated car prices, hammer steel producers and parts suppliers, narrow product selection, delay rollouts, and impose broad economic damage in states such as Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Asking for a raise after years of punishing inflation amid soaring corporate profits is surely reasonable, the board said. Yet there are two problems with the UAW's approach. One is that meeting the totality of these demands would incur unsustainable expenses. Hourly labor costs would surge from about $64 to more than $150. That compares to about $55 per hour at non-union U.S. plants of foreign automakers and about $45 an hour at Tesla Inc. factories. Meanwhile, the Biden administration

has offered enormous subsidies for EVs, while the Environmental Protection Agency plans to mandate that 67.5% of new vehicles sold by 2032 be electric, up from 5.8% last year, the board said. If Biden's EV vision is to be realized, Detroit will likely need fewer workers with less generous compensation packages, precisely the opposite of what the UAW would like. In Jacobin, Paul Prescott called out Donald Trump for standing with the corporate elite. Surely the self-styled populace whose political brand rests on claiming to champion American manufacturing workers extends his full-throated support to the union, right? Think again, Prescott said. Instead, Trump framed workers' economic fight against corporate giants

Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis as a partisan skirmish, lumping in the UAW with Joe Biden. In a statement delivered last month, Trump railed against UAW leadership. Trump even encouraged autoworkers to stop paying their union dues. He ended in campaign mode by promising, when I am president, I will deliver higher wages for autoworkers. I will protect your jobs. Odd promises to make while simultaneously voicing his opposition to the UAW's fight for those very things, Prescott said. Later, Trump refused to give a clear answer about what side he was on. Taken together, the fulfillment of these demands would represent arguably the greatest victory for U.S. autoworkers in generations.

Trump has a clear choice of who to stand with, manufacturing workers or multinational corporations. The public has made its stance clear, as a recent Gallup poll showed a whopping 75% of Americans sympathize with the autoworkers over big three executives. All right, that is it for the right and the left are saying, which brings us to my take. that is it for the right and the left are saying, which brings us to my take. So, I don't necessarily consider myself a populist, but I do identify with working-class Americans, especially when their needs and wants are juxtaposed to America's corporate elite. There is a reason upwards of 70% of Americans take the side of labor in these recent disputes, and it's that so many of us know what it feels like to work long, hard hours without being able to save money, cover a health emergency, or buy a home. The American dream is in short supply. So, I come to this story sympathetic to the union workers. I think they are right to strike,

and they've chosen the right moment to go on offense. As I've said recently, this is a powerful moment for workers, and a combination of the free market and organized labor has given them an opportunity to get what they deserve. They should take advantage. Whether the demands laid out in these contracts will come back to hurt them, though, is a very real risk. Full-time auto workers make $18 to $32 per hour, though the average worker cost manufacturers about $64 an hour in wages and benefits. Labor costs would go up to $150 per hour if this contract were fulfilled. While some Americans would kill to make $32 per hour, anyone who is working full-time for $18 an hour knows how difficult it is to make ends meet in today's economy. Yet that massive increase in costs at the Detroit 3 scale is bound to be

disruptive in ways we can't yet predict. The history here is, of course, important. Auto workers made major concessions in 2008 to help the country navigate a recession that was not their doing. They helped save the industry and therefore the U.S. economy and have kept grinding away as record profits came back. Like so many other industries in the U.S. over the last few decades, an inordinate amount of that profit has gone to executives. Calling for an equal share in the profits and demanding the auto industry close the gap on CEO and labor compensation is resonant. That's why three in four Americans, including me, support the workers. As Sean Fain has put it, record profits means record contracts.

Why not ask for the world and see what you get? You don't have to support unions to believe in this fight. After all, if the workers had no leverage, they wouldn't be out on strike in the first place, nor would the first offer from the auto industry include a 20% pay raise. But it's also true that these workers are fighting a rising, relentless tide. Electric vehicles are coming, and while the government subsidies increased that demand, it was coming with or without the Biden administration. Plainly, Americans and foreigners are interested in EVs, and EVs are going to be cost-effective for American households as battery and infrastructure improve. More of these vehicles will inevitably mean fewer auto industry jobs because of fewer

parts, and even more foreign competition because so many other countries are ahead of us on EV and battery manufacturing. Reading these arguments, there is no real retort to the simple math. The big three are already losing the cost war, and if their labor gets a lot more expensive while the country transitions to electric vehicles, they're going to start losing the competition. Losing to the competition means fewer profits, which means more layoffs, which means more pain for the workers. Every time these workers get more expensive, they also get more vulnerable. Perhaps there is a deal structure here, where union workers get their pay and benefit ass and also move the needle significantly on protecting electric vehicle jobs. Maybe at full throttle, the big three find a way to compete with Tesla and other foreign markets on the electric vehicle transition. Maybe that transition happens much more slowly than Biden and others

want, and the big three can keep profiting enough off their large gas-powered SUVs and trucks to make it all work. But there is a lot of uncertainty and wishful thinking in there. I'm rooting for the workers. When you hear their stories, it's hard not to. They look and sound like so many Americans I know who have watched their work become less valued over the last few decades. But the reality of the numbers here is enough to give me pause. As for Biden, it's obviously a complicated political moment, but he'll likely be either out of office or not up for re-election when the lasting impact of this strike really settles in. Given all the dynamics of this strike, the energy transition, the foreign competition, and the government subsidies aiding that transition, a short-term

win for the workers may set the big three up for a long-term downfall. I just hope Fain and UAW know what they're doing and have a long-term plan for self-preservation. They're probably going to need it. All right, that is it for my take, which brings us to your questions answered. This one's from an anonymous reader in Lexington, South Carolina. They asked, my Republican friends tell me that all our inflation woes are due to Biden's energy policies. Do you agree? So, no, I don't. Your friends are exaggerating because there's no way Biden's energy policies are responsible for all of our inflation woes. I don't personally agree that it's even among the major drivers, but there is certainly an argument for that. Here's that argument. One of the biggest drivers of inflation last summer, when CPI's month-over-month growth was

at its peak was fuel costs, and gas prices were particularly high. Biden's administration had been publicly signaling for the first half of this term that they would be pursuing an energy policy that focuses on renewables and starts to divest in oil and gas. That signal to the oil industry of lowering supply meant in the face of steady demand, oil companies would raise their prices. However, the Biden administration was hamstringing the industry's ability to respond, as represented by Biden's trip to Saudi Arabia in July when he tried to negotiate for more production out of the Middle East despite enormous reserves at home. That argument misses a few things, though. For starters, inflation was and remains a global issue, and the inflation rate

in the United States has been comparatively middle of the road. It makes more inflation was and remains a global issue, and the inflation rate in the United States has been comparatively middle of the road. It makes more sense to think that a rising global tide was affecting the United States than to say that our energy policy was influencing the world, often to a larger degree than it influenced our own economy. And much of the global rise in energy costs was, in part, due to the war in Ukraine. Then there's the fact that the persistent inflation has been driven up by core CPI, which excludes more volatile fuel and energy prices. Perhaps most importantly, however, is the fact that the United States' production of crude oil has been steadily increasing since Biden took office and is near an all-time high we hit right before the start of the pandemic. Speaking of the pandemic, that thing that upended

the entire world economy, the general story of what has caused inflation that I find most convincing is one that manages to factor that in. That story goes like this. The global COVID pandemic jarred the economy to a halt, disrupted the supply chains, and spiked the ratio of job openings to unemployment. This caused major price increases, which were pushed over the edge by federal fiscal policy. Lots of government stimulus combined with pandemic saving caused a massive spike in demand after the return to normal. In response, the Fed raised interest rates to curtail inflation, which after decades of near-zero interest rates required a pretty long and significant correction. It is not monocausal, but it's still economics 101.

I'm actually optimistic about Biden's energy policies. Oil production is pretty high, and we're investing in an all-of-the-above approach to transition into an energy future that's less reliant on fossil fuels. I think we acutely remember the firsthand pain of filling up the pump, but when we look back at the causes of inflation with 2020 hindsight, we probably won't say that energy policy had too much to do with it. And if we keep trending in our current direction, there is a potential outcome for the U.S. in which we are more energy independent and less carbon emitting, relying on a combination of oil, natural gas, wind, solar, and nuclear power. All right, that is it for your questions answered. A quick heads up, we have a new YouTube video up on our channel. Is college worth it? I broke down some of the pros and cons of getting a four-year degree in today's America, along with some of my personal experience. This is something a lot of

people are talking about these days. So if you want to check that out, you can go to our YouTube channel, Tangle News on YouTube, and watch that video. All right, next up is our under the radar section. Hackers are disrupting a number of hotels and casinos owned by MGM Resorts with outages lasting several days. Guests have reported hours-long waits at front desks, inoperable slot machines, key cards that don't work, and other issues at locations from Las Vegas to New York City. Officials believe the group responsible is called Scattered Spider, a hacker collective made up of 19 to 22-year-olds who used a rather rudimentary tactic to get inside. They called the company Help Desk and imitated an employee they found on LinkedIn to get access to their employee account.

Axios has a story and there's a link to it in today's episode description. All right, next up is our numbers section. The percentage of Americans who say they approve of labor unions, according to an August 2023 Gallup poll, is 67%. The percentage of Americans who say they side with UAW in their negotiations with U.S. auto companies is 75%. The percentage of Americans who say they want labor unions to have more influence than they have today is 43%. The percentage of Americans who say they want labor unions to have less influence than they have today is 26%. The percentage of Democrats who say they approve of labor today is 26%. The percentage of Democrats who say they approve of labor unions is 88%. The percentage of Independents who say they approve of labor

unions is 69%. The percentage of Republicans who say they approve of labor unions is 47%. All right, and last but not least, our have a nice day story. Paramedic Pete Lewin is offering a service to help firefighters, police officers, and soldiers in the United Kingdom suffering from PTSD by taking them swimming with his Newfoundland dogs. Lewin chose Newfoundlands because they were originally bred as service and rescue dogs in fishing fleets. Those taking part in the therapy put on a dry suit and a life jacket and wade into the middle of a lake where they float on their backs in silence. When their time is up, they are rescued by a Newfoundland.

The dog swims out to them and gently tows them back to shore. The dogs don't judge you, said Kevin Robinson, who did four tours in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. All they want to do is look after you. It keeps me happy for two to three days. The Week has the remarkable story and there's a link in today's episode description. All right, that is it for today's podcast. As always, if you want to support our work, go to readtangle.com. Don't forget to check out that article we publish on Ashton Kutcher.

And of course, go to our YouTube channel and subscribe and check out our latest video on whether college is worth it. We'll be right back here same time tomorrow. Have a good one. Peace. Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul, and edited by John Law. Our script is edited by Ari Weitzman, Bailey Saul, and Sean Brady. Thank you. We'll see you next time. follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight.

Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+.