Up First from NPR - UAW Strike, NY Climate Week, Drew Barrymore Show Pause

Episode Date: September 18, 2023

Auto plants shut down amid a walkout against all Big Three automakers, Tens of thousands of people kick off a week of climate protests in New York and The Drew Barrymore Show pauses over the Hollywood writers and actors strike.Want more comprehensive analysis of the most important news of the day, plus a little fun? Subscribe to the Up First newsletter.Today's episode of Up First was edited by Pallavi Gogoi, Andrea Kissack, Ciera Crawford and Olivia Hampton. It was produced by Shelby Hawkins, Ziad Buchh and Julie Depenbrock. We get engineering support from Carleigh Strange. And our technical director is Zac Coleman.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Are Detroit's big three automakers in big trouble? Solidarity forever! It's day four of an autoworker strike that shut down three plants. We take you to the picket line. I'm E. Martinez, that's Leila Fadl, and this is Up First from NPR News. Tens of thousands of climate protesters fill the streets of New York City. What's the climate agenda at the U.N. General Assembly? Andrew Barrymore said her show would resume without writers,

then reverse the decision after being called a scab. I deeply apologize to writers. I deeply apologize to unions. I deeply apologize. What's next for the Hollywood writers and actors strike? Stay with us. We'll give you the news you need to start your day. Now Our Change will honor 100 years of the Royal Canadian Air Force and their dedicated service to communities at home and abroad. From the skies to our change, this $2 commemorative circulation coin marks their storied past and promising future. Find the limited edition Royal Canadian Air Force $2 coin today.

Today is day four of a historic union strike. Three plants have shut down after contract talks broke down last week between the United Auto Workers Union and the Detroit Three automakers. Now, those manufacturers are Ford, GM and Solantis, the parent company of Jeep and Chrysler. It's the first ever strike against all three at the same time. Tracy Samilton is Michigan Radio's transportation and energy reporter, and she's at the picket line at Ford's assembly plant in Wayne, Michigan. It's one of the three plants where workers have walked out and are now picketing. Good morning, Tracy. Good morning.

So, Tracy, you're out there on the picket line. What are people saying? Well, we have a group of folks out there with their picket signs. They're at the end of the shift they signed up for picketing. And they get excited, of course, when they have somebody drive by. And you will probably hear that as I'm talking to you, beeping their horn in support of the union. And I think you're going to find the same thing here as, you know, other striking plants. They're resolute. They're fairly defiant at this point. So it's the fourth day of the strike. Break down what the key points of contention here, what these autoworkers want. Well, it's a long list, but I think, of course, number one is wages.

The union has asked for 40 percent increase in wages over the four years of the next contract. And they've come down somewhat to the mid-30s, but they're still pretty far from the top counteroffer from Ford and General Motors, which is 20%. They also want the end of tiers to wages so that you just start right away with the same wage as anyone else who's been at the plant for a longer period of time. And they want the thousands of temp workers that these companies are using to be offered full-time work. Those temp workers are making $20 an hour tops in some of the plants.

And it's really hard to make it these days on that. Yeah. Is there any progress on closing the gap between the union and the companies? Well, they did bargain, at least with General Motors and Ford over the weekend. So we got a couple of really, really terse statements from the union on Saturday. We heard a quote, we had reasonably productive conversations with Ford today. And on Sunday, even more terse, we met with GM today. So there's not a whole lot that we can read into that. Yeah, I don't know what it says. We met with GM today. So really, we don't know much about what's going on there. So there have been layoffs though, right? How do those relate

to the strike? Well, Ford immediately said they were laying off 600 workers at this plant here, Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne, Michigan, because the union called off the paint shop workers and the final assembly workers. And Ford said, well, that means we can't do the rest of the work here at the plant. So those folks have been laid off. And General Motors says they are going to need to lay off folks at their Fairfax plant because the Wentzville plant, which is on strike, produces parts for Fairfax. So we're expecting that to happen too. That's Tracy Samilton, Michigan Radio's transportation and energy reporter at the picket line at Ford's Assembly Plant in Wayne, Michigan. Thank you, Tracy.

Yeah, thank you. Global leaders are gathering in New York this week for the annual meeting of the U.N. General Assembly. Yeah, climate change is very much on the agenda. U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres has invited countries to a special climate summit. Then there are talks and events scheduled throughout the week. And, of course, protests. Tens of thousands of people marched in Manhattan yesterday in one of the biggest climate protests we've seen since before the pandemic. Yeah, and NPR's Rachel Waldholz was there, and now she's here with us from the Climate Desk.

Good morning, Rachel. Good morning. Okay, so, Rachel, you were at that march yesterday. What were protesters demanding? Protesters at this march were focused on basically one big thing, and that was phasing out fossil fuels. I should know that this protest was very much directed at President Joe Biden. So protesters were demanding the president act more quickly to move the U.S. away from burning fossil fuels like coal and oil and gas, which are the biggest drivers of climate change. You know, and actually Biden has taken some really significant steps on climate change. So the Inflation Reduction Act, for instance, which passed last year, directed

hundreds of billions of dollars to technologies like wind and solar and electric vehicles, all to cut U.S. emissions. But the organizers of yesterday's protests say that that is not enough. And they want Biden to stop approving new fossil fuel projects, basically to use his executive powers as aggressively as possible to curb the production and use of oil and gas in the U.S. And these protests and this week at the U.N. General Assembly is coming after a summer of extreme weather. Heat waves, deadly wildfire in Maui, absolute devastation after flooding in Libya. Would phasing out fossil fuels more quickly help prevent summers like the one we just

saw? Well, the short answer is that we have already locked in a certain amount of warming. So now it's about preventing things from getting much worse. So our current level of warming already makes many types of extreme weather more likely. Heat and drought can make wildfires more intense. A warmer atmosphere makes heavy rain more common. That contributes to flooding. But scientists say if we want to avoid even more common extreme weather and other more catastrophic consequences of climate change, like really high sea level rise, we need to cut global emissions roughly in half by the end of this decade and reach basically zero emissions by 2050. So that means burning a lot less fossil fuels in the very short term. And right now we are not currently on track to meet those targets. A recent UN report found that countries need to cut emissions much faster. And a lot

depends on what happens in this decade. Yeah. And right now, global, powerful people all in New York, climate is on the agenda this week. What should we expect from the Climate Ambition Summit the UN chief is hosting? It's a good question because this is a new event. And it's basically the secretary general is trying to spotlight exactly this issue. So he's asking countries and also companies to come to the summit with new plans to get on track, to slash emissions more quickly. In fact, he made it clear that countries are only welcome to participate in the summit if they come with credible new commitments to phase out fossil fuels or for wealthy countries, new funding commitments to help developing countries cut

emissions or adapt. When he announced the summit, he was really clear on this. He actually said, quote, there will be no room for backsliders, greenwashers, blame shifters, or repackaging of announcements from previous years, unquote. And apparently that bar leaves a lot of countries out because so far it's not entirely clear who is going to show up. Neither Biden nor Xi Jinping of China plan to be there. That's the world's two largest emitters, though Biden is sending his climate envoy, John Kerry. But ultimately, this is an effort by the UN to highlight countries that are taking more action and create some peer pressure for other countries to build some momentum in the lead up to big annual climate negotiations that are coming this winter in Dubai. That's NPR's Rachel Waldholtz. Thanks so much, Rachel. Thank you. Drew Barrymore, Jennifer Hudson, and The Talk are delaying their daytime talk shows over the Hollywood strikes.

The decisions come after several shows plan to resume production this week and after Drew Barrymore in particular got into some hot water. NPR's Mondeleet Delbarco joins us now from Los Angeles to discuss all this. Hi, Mondeleet. Hello. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. So this is a reversal from what Drew Barrymore and other talk shows announced last week in the midst of this strike. Was it backlash from strikers that led to the change? Yeah, well, Drew Barrymore, you know, since her daytime talk show has become a daytime drama, that's what we're all talking about now. When

the writer's strike first started, she publicly said she was in support, and she even turned down hosting the MTV Awards. Then last week, she announced the fourth season of her show was coming back. There were protests on social media, even by her own writers, and the National Book Awards rescinded its invitation for her to host its annual ceremony. A few days later, on Friday, Barrymore seemed to double down on the decision to resume. She posted a tearful video message on Instagram. I deeply apologize to writers. I deeply apologize to unions. I deeply apologize. Barrymore said she was taking full responsibility for the decision to resume, but there was so much backlash to that video, people online calling her a scab, that Barrymore quickly deleted it. And yesterday, she posted again saying she had

listened to everyone and is no longer premiering her next season until the strike ends. I mean, but Drew Barrymore wasn't alone in this decision. We mentioned this kind of domino effect, others were going to come back. Why was there so much attention to Drew Barrymore? Well, for one thing, Drew Barrymore did make these very public announcements. And second, she's been famous almost her whole life. People still remember her as the little girl who was friends with E.T. in the 1982 film. She came from Hollywood royalty. Journalist Michael Schulman told me he was reminded of something he learned while writing his book, The Oscar Wars. He says Drew's great aunt, Ethel Barrymore,

had been a theater actress and vice president of the union Actors' Equity. Shulman said in 1929, when the union was trying to include movie stars, Ethel Barrymore single-handedly undermined that effort. The union members were really angry at Ethel Barrymore. One of the actors said, if Ms. Barrymore could not say anything beneficial for us,

the least she could have done would have been to keep still. It also came out that Ethel Barrymore had met with the producers, Irving Thalberg and Jeff Warner, in her dressing room, and that she had taken a role in a Warner Brothers film. So there was just all this outcry that Ethel had basically parachuted in, derailed this whole effort. Shulman says that effort to unionize movie actors in equity failed. And later that year, 45 of them banded together to create the Screen Actors Guild. That's the union that Drew Barrymore is a member of today and the one that is on strike right now.

Yeah. And that strike has really ground Hollywood to a stop. The Writers Guild and major studios will resume negotiations this week. Any sign that anything will change? By all accounts, the two sides are at an impasse. My sources tell me the strike might go on until January. But meanwhile, Bill Maher is set to resume his talk show later this week. And another talk show, The View, has been on the air all throughout. That's NPR's Mendeleet Delbarco in Los Angeles. Thanks, Mendeleet.

Thank you. And that's Up First for Monday, September 18th. I'm Laila Faldin. And I'm Ian Martinez. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Pallavi Gugoy, Andrea Kisak, Ciara Crawford, and Olivia Hampton. It was produced by Shelby Hawkins, Ziad Butch, and Julie Deppenbrock. We get engineering support from Carly Strange, and our technical director is Zach Coleman. As always, start your day here with us tomorrow. Thanks for listening to Up First. You can find more in-depth coverage of the stories we talked about today and so much more on NPR's Morning Edition. That's the radio show that A&I hosts along with Michelle Martin and Steve Inskeep.

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