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      A Shrinking Town at the Center of France’s Culture Wars

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      A plan to revitalize the town of Callac by bringing in skilled immigrants has divided it and made it an emblem of a nation’s anxiety over its identity and decline.CALLAC, France — A shrinking town set among cow pastures in Brittany seems an unlikely setting for France’s soul searching over immigration and identity.The main square is named after the date in 1944 that local resistance fighters were rounded up by Nazi soldiers, many never seen again. It offers a cafe run by a social club, a museum dedicated to the Brittany spaniel and a hefty serving of rural flight — forlorn empty buildings, their grills pulled down and windows shuttered, some for decades.So when town council members heard of a program that could renovate the dilapidated buildings and fill much-needed jobs such as nurses’ aides and builders by bringing in skilled refugees, it seemed like a winning lottery ticket.“It hit me like lightning,” said Laure-Line Inderbitzin, a deputy mayor. “It sees refugees not as charity, but an opportunity.”As in many towns across France, Callac’s population has been in slow decline for decades.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesBut what town leaders saw as a chance for rejuvenation, others saw as evidence of a “great replacement” of native French people that has become a touchstone of anger and anxiety, particularly on the hard right.In no time, tiny Callac, a town of just 2,200, was divided, the focus of national attention and the scene of competing protests for and against the plan. Today it sits at the intersection of complex issues that have bedeviled France for many years: how to deal with mounting numbers of migrants arriving in the country and how to breathe new life into withering towns, before it is too late.As in many towns across France, Callac’s population has been in slow decline since the end of the Trente Glorieuses, the 30-year postwar growth stretch when living standards and wages rose. Today, around half the people who remain are retirees. The biggest employer is the nursing home.A wander around downtown reveals dozens of empty storefronts, where florists, dry-cleaners and photo studios once stood. The town’s last dental office announced in July it was closing — the stress of continually turning new patients away, when her patient list topped 9,000, was too much for Françoise Méheut.“I am selling, and no one is buying,” said Françoise Méheut, a dentist in Callac. “If there was a dentist among the refugees, I would be thrilled.”Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesShe stopped sleeping, she burst into tears over the dental chair and she turned to antidepressants before finally deciding to retire early.“It’s a catastrophe,” Dr. Méheut said. “I have the impression of abandoning people.”“I am selling, and no one is buying,” she added of her business. “If there was a dentist among the refugees, I would be thrilled.”While many in town say there are no jobs, the council did a survey and found the opposite — 75 unfilled salaried jobs, from nursing assistants to contractors, despite the local 18 percent unemployment rate.The council still hopes to carry out its plan in cooperation with the Merci Endowment Fund, an organization created by a wealthy Parisian family that had made its fortune in high-end children’s clothing and wanted to give back.In 2016, the matriarch of the family volunteered to host an Afghan refugee in the family mansion near the Eiffel Tower. Her three sons, seeing the joy he brought to their mother’s life and the talents he offered, wanted to expand the idea broadly.The Merci fund has already bought the building where the town’s last book store closed in August. It now plans to reopen the store for the community, while housing a first family of asylum seekers in the upstairs apartment.Andrea Mantovani for The New York Times“The idea is to create a win-win situation,” said the eldest son, Benoit Cohen, a French filmmaker and author who wrote a book about the experience called “Mohammad, My Mother and Me.”“They will help revitalize the village.”The Merci project has proposed handpicking asylum seekers, recruiting for skills as well as a desire to live in the countryside. Then, the Cohens promise to develop a wraparound program to help them assimilate, with local French courses and apartments in refurbished buildings.The plan also called for new community spaces and training programs for all — locals and refugees together — something that most excited Ms. Inderbitzin, the project’s local champion on the council and a teacher in the local middle school.The town has more than 50 nonprofit clubs and associations, including one that runs the local cinema, and another that delivers food to hungry families in town.The town council recently bought a former school, and announced it planned to convert it into the “heart” of the Merci project.Andrea Mantovani for The New York Times“Social development for all — that’s in Callac’s genes,” said Ms. Inderbitzin. “It’s a virtuous circle. They could bring lots of energy, culture, youth.”Not everyone is as excited at that prospect. A petition launched by three residents opposing the project has more than 10,000 signatures — many from far beyond Callac.But even in town, some grumble about lack of consultation or transparency. They worry Callac will lose its Frenchness and will trade its small-town tranquillity for big-city problems. Others question the motives of a rich family in Paris meddling in their rural home.“We aren’t lab rats. We aren’t here for them to experiment on,” said Danielle Le Men, a retired teacher in town who is starting a community group to stop the project, which she fears will bring “radical Islam” to the community.Catching wind of the dispute, the right-wing anti-immigrant party Reconquest, run by the failed presidential candidate Éric Zemmour, organized a protest in September, warning the project would bring dangerous insecurity and complaining that it would introduce halal stores and girls in head scarves.“We aren’t lab rats. We aren’t here for them to experiment on,” said Danielle Le Men, a retired teacher in town who is launching a community group to stop the project.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesA block away, counterprotesters crowded the main square. “To the fascists who wave the red banner of a hypothetical replacement,” Murielle Lepvraud, a local politician with the radical left France Unbowed party, told the crowd, “I respond, yes, your ideas will soon be replaced.”More than 100 shield-wielding riot police officers kept the groups apart.Even many of those who have experienced Callac’s decline firsthand remain unconvinced.“All the young people left, because there are no jobs here,” said Siegried Leleu, serving glasses of kir and beer to a thin crowd of white-haired gentlemen gathered around her bar, Les Marronniers, on a Friday afternoon.There was a time, she said, when she offered billiards and karaoke and kept the taps running late. But with the town’s youth departed, she recalibrated her closing time to match her remaining clientele’s schedule — 8 p.m.“Why would we give jobs to outsiders?” she said. “We should help people here first.”“All the young people left, because there are no jobs here,” said Siegried Leleu, right.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesStanding on the street outside his small bar, which doubles as a cluttered antiques store, her neighbor, Paul Le Contellac, assessed the proposal from another angle.His uncle married a refugee who had fled Spain with her family during the civil war and found shelter in this village. Later, when France was occupied by Nazi Germany, his grandmother harbored resistance fighters in her attic.“This is a town that has always welcomed refugees,” said Mr. Le Contellac. “Callac is not ugly, but it’s not pretty either. It needs some new energy.”While immigration may hold the potential to do that, the issue remains hotly contested, even while the migration crisis had been dampened by the pandemic.“This is a town that has always welcomed refugees,” said Paul Le Contellac. “Callac is not ugly, but it’s not pretty either. It needs some new energy.”Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesToday, as the pandemic appears to wane, the number of asylum seekers arriving to France is climbing again, threatening to restore the issue’s volatility.Since the height of the migration crisis several years ago, the government of President Emmanuel Macron has attempted to split the difference on its immigration policy.On the one hand, it has aimed to deter asylum applicants by increasing police at the border and by cutting back some state services.On the other, for those who are accepted as refugees, it has poured resources into French lessons and employment programs to ease their integration.The government has also tried to disperse asylum seekers outside of Paris, where services are strained, housing is hard to find and large tent camps have sprung up.Recently, Mr. Macron announced that he wanted to formalize the policy in a new immigration bill, sending asylum seekers from the dense urban centers, already plagued with social and economic problems, to the “rural areas, that are losing people.”The plan is a lot like that being put in place already in Callac, which, paradoxically, has been receiving refugee families since 2015, about 40 people at present, with little or no notice, like many small French towns.Mohammed Ebrahim, right, and his wife, Rabiha Khalil, second left, both of Kurdish origin, arrived from Lebanon nearly a year ago. Callac has been receiving refugee families since 2015.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesMohammad Ebrahim heard the noise of the warring protests from his living room window, but had no idea what the commotion was about — certainly not about him, his wife and four children, who arrived a year ago.Kurds who escaped Al Qaeda in Syria, they have felt nothing but welcome, flashing photos on their cellphones of community meals and celebrations they have been invited to. But the perks of village hospitality are offset by the logistics of living in the countryside without a car. Training, medical appointments, even regular French classes are all far away.When he hears the plan to offer wraparound services and school in Callac, Mr. Ebrahim smiles broadly. “Then we could go to French class every day,” he said.Callac may now prove to be a testing ground of whether a more structured approach can work and divisions be overcome.“This became about French politics,” says Sylvie Lagrue, a local volunteer who drives refugees to doctor’s appointments and helps them set up their internet. “Now, everyone hopes this will quiet down, and we continue with the program.”Though the project still has no official budget, timeline or target number of asylum seekers to be resettled, the town council nevertheless is tiptoeing ahead.It recently bought a hulking abandoned stone school, rising like a ghost in the middle of town, and announced it planned to convert it into the “heart” of the project — with a refugee reception area, as well as a community nursery and a co-working space.The Merci fund has already bought the building where the town’s last book store closed in August. It now plans to reopen the store for the community, while housing a first family of asylum seekers in the upstairs apartment.“The beginning has to be slow,” Mr. Cohen said. “We have to see if it works. We don’t want to scare people.”The town of Callac, in Brittany’s countryside.Andrea Mantovani for The New York Times More

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      French Refineries Strike May Presage a Winter of Discontent for Europe

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      Bitten by inflation, workers are demanding a greater share of the surging profits of energy giants. It’s the kind of unrest leaders fear as they struggle to keep a united front against Russia.LE HAVRE, France — The northern port city of Le Havre is less than 25 miles away from two major oil refineries. But on Friday, the pumps at many gas stations were wrapped in red and white tape, the electric price signs flashing all nines. Little gasoline was to be had.Across France, a third of stations are fully or partly dry, victims of a fast-widening strike that has spread to most of the country’s major refineries, as well as some nuclear plants and railways, offering a preview of a winter of discontent as inflation and energy shortages threaten to undercut Europe’s stability and its united front against Russia for its war in Ukraine.At the very least the strike — pitting refinery workers seeking a greater share of the surging profits against the oil giants TotalEnergies and Exxon Mobil — has already emerged as the first major social crisis of Emmanuel Macron’s second term as president, as calls grow for a general strike next Tuesday.“It’s going to become a general strike. You will see,” said Julien Lemmonier, 77, a retired factory worker stepping out of the supermarket in Le Havre on a gray and rainy morning. He warned that if the port workers followed suit, “It will be over.”Striking employees of the Total refinery on Thursday.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesThe widening social unrest is just what European leaders fear as inflation hits its highest level in decades, driven in part by snarls in post-pandemic global supply chains, but also by the mounting impact of the tit-for-tat economic battle between Europe and Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.Economic anxiety is palpable across Europe, driving large protests in Prague, Britain’s biggest railway strike in three decades, as well as walkouts by bus drivers, call center employees and criminal defense lawyers, and causing many governments to introduce relief measures to cushion the blow and ward off still more turbulence. Airline workers in Spain and Germany went on strike recently, demanding wage increases to reflect the rising cost of living.For France the strikes have touched a long-worn nerve of the growing disparity between the wealthy few and the growing struggling classes, as well as the gnawing worry about making ends meet in the cold winter ahead.Workers at half of the country’s eight refineries are continuing to picket for higher wages in line with inflation, as well as a cut of the sky-high profits their companies made over recent months, as the price of gasoline has surged.“The money exists, and it should be distributed,” said Pascal Morel, the regional head of Confédération Générale du Travail, or CGT, France’s second-largest union, which has been leading the strikes. “Rather than laying claim to the striking workers, we should lay claim to their profits.”Pascal Morel, the regional head of Confédération Générale du Travail, one of France’s largest unions, which has been leading the strikes. Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesSlow to notice at first, the country was rudely awoken to the strike’s effect this week, when pumps across the country ran out of fuel, forcing frustrated motorists to hunt around and then line up — sometimes for hours — at stations that were still open. Nerves quickly frayed, and reports of fistfights between enraged drivers buzzed on the news.In Le Havre, as in the rest of the country, residents revealed mixed feelings about the strikes. Some expressed solidarity with the workers, while others complained about how a small group was holding the entire country hostage. On both sides of the divide, however, many feared the strike would spread.The State of the WarA Large-Scale Strike: President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia unleashed a series of missile strikes that hit at least 10 cities across Ukraine, including Kyiv, in a broad aerial assault against civilians and critical infrastructure that drew international condemnation and calls for de-escalation.Crimean Bridge Explosion: Mr. Putin said that the strikes were retaliation for a blast that hit a key Russian bridge over the weekend. The bridge, which links the Crimean Peninsula to Russia, is a primary supply route for Russian troops fighting in the south of Ukraine.Pressure on Putin: With his strikes on civilian targets in Ukraine, Mr. Putin appears to be responding to his critics at home, momentarily quieting the clamors of hard-liners furious with the Russian military’s humiliating setbacks on the battlefield.Arming Ukraine: The Russian strikes brought new pledges from the West to send in more arms to Ukraine, especially sophisticated air-defense systems. But Kyiv also needs the Russian-style weapons that its military is trained to use, and the global supply of them is running low.“It’s going to bring France to a standstill and I assure you it doesn’t need that,” said Fatma Zekri, 54, an out-of-work accountant.On Thursday, workers echoed the call for a general strike next Tuesday originally issued by the CGT and later supported by three other large unions. And a long-planned protest by left-wing parties over the rising cost of living scheduled for Sunday threatens to become even larger.For Mr. Macron, the strike holds obvious perils, with echoes of the social unrest of the Yellow Vest movement — a widespread series of protests that started as a revolt against higher taxes on fuel. The movement may have dissipated, but its anger has not.In Le Havre, residents revealed mixed feelings about the strikes. Some expressed solidarity with the workers, while others complained about how a small group was holding the entire country hostage.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesThe protests paralyzed France for months in 2018 and 2019, led by lower-middle class workers who took to the streets and roundabouts, raging against a climate change tax on gas that they felt was an insulting symbol of how little the government cared about them and their sliding quality of life.The current strikes illustrated a longstanding question that continues to torment many in the country, said Bruno Cautrès, a political analyst at the Center for Political Research at Sciences Po University — “Why do I live in a country that is rich and I am struggling?”Speaking of the president, Mr. Cautrès said, “He has not managed to answer this simple question.”After winning his re-election last April, Mr. Macron promised he would shed his reputation as a top-down ruler and govern the country in a more collaborative way.“The main risk is that he will not succeed in convincing people that the second term is dedicated to dialogue, to easing tensions,” Mr. Cautrès said.But even as he faced criticism that his government had allowed the crisis to get to this point, Mr. Macron sounded defiant on Wednesday night, saying in an interview with the French television channel France 2 that it was “not up to the president of the republic to negotiate with businesses.”The Total refinery, shuttered during a strike by workers.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesHis government has already forced some workers back to a refinery near Le Havre and a depot near Dunkirk.“I can’t believe that for one second, our ability to heat our homes, light our homes and go to the gas pump would be put at risk by French people who say, ‘No, to protect my interests, I will compromise those of the nation,’” he said.Still, Mr. Macron is treading a very fine line. The issue of “super profits” has become a charged one in Parliament, with opposition lawmakers from both the left and right demanding companies reaping windfalls be taxed, to benefit the greater population.Over the first half of the year, TotalEnergies made $10 billion in profit and Exxon Mobil raked in $18 billion. Western oil and gas companies have generated record profits thanks to booming energy prices, which have risen because of the war in Ukraine and allowed Russia to rake in billions in revenues even as it cuts oil and gas supplies to Europe. A recent OPEC Plus deal involving Saudi Arabia and Russia to cut production is likely to further raise prices.Earlier this week, Exxon Mobil announced that it had come to an agreement with two of four unions working at its sites, “out of a desire to urgently and responsibly to put an end to the strikes.” But the wage increase was one percentage point less than CGT had demanded, and half the bonus.In its own news release, TotalEnergies said the company continued to aim for “fair compensation for the employees” and to ensure they benefited “from the exceptional results generated” by the company.On Friday, two unions at TotalEnergies announced they had reached a deal for a 7 percent wage increase and a bonus. But CGT, which has demanded a 10 percent hike, walked out of the negotiation and said it would continue the strike.To date, Mr. Macron has been loath to tax the oil giants’ windfall profits, worrying it would tarnish the country’s investment appeal, and preferring instead that companies make what he termed a “contribution.”However, last week the government introduced an amendment to its finance bill, in keeping with new European Union measures, applying a temporary tax on oil, gas and coal producers that make 20 percent more in profit on their French operations than they did during recent years.On Thursday, France’s Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire also called on TotalEnergies to raise wages for salaried workers. And he announced that 1.7 billion euros, about $1.65 billion, would be earmarked to help motorists if fuel prices continued to rise.“It is a company that is now making significant profits,” Mr. Le Maire told RTL radio station on Thursday. “Total has paid dividends, so the sharing of value in France must be fair.”The pumps at gas stations were wrapped in red and white tape, the electric price signs flashing all nines. Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesThe tangle of pipes and towering smokestacks of the hulking Total refinery in Gonfreville-l’Orcher, just outside of Le Havre, were eerily silent on Thursday, as union members burned wood pallets, hoisted flags and voted to continue the strike.Many believed their anger captured a building sentiment in the country, where even with generous government subsidies, people are struggling financially and are increasingly anxious about the winter of energy cutbacks. Inflation in France, though lower than in the rest of Europe, has surpassed 6 percent, jacking the prices of some basic supplies like frozen meat, pasta and tissues.“This era must end — the era of hogging for some, and rationing for others,” François Ruffin told the protesters on Thursday. Mr. Ruffin, a filmmaker turned elected official with the country’s hard-left France Unbowed party, rose to prominence with his satirical documentary film about France’s richest man, Bernard Arnault, and the loss of middle-class jobs to globalization.If anything should be requisitioned, it should be the profits of huge companies, not workers, many said at the protest sites.David Guillemard, a striker who has worked at the Total refinery for 22 years, said the back-to-work order had kicked a hornet’s nest. “Instead of calming people,” he said, “this has irritated them.” More

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      Biden Warns Inflation Will Worsen if Republicans Retake Congress

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      HAGERSTOWN, Md. — President Biden laced into Republicans on Friday for trying to enact policies that would make “every kitchen table cost” go up while lavishing tax cuts on big corporations, shedding his usual tone of bipartisanship a month ahead of the midterm elections.In a speech before factory workers at a Volvo manufacturing facility, Mr. Biden defended his economic record and accused Republicans of political hypocrisy for seeking to reap the benefit of federal funds made available by legislation that they had opposed. He also laid out the stakes of the upcoming elections, bluntly warning that Republicans will try to scale back Medicare and Social Security benefits if they win control of Congress. And he accused Republicans of rooting against America’s economic success.“This is a choice between two very different ways of looking at the economy,” Mr. Biden said.Mr. Biden’s comments came as Labor Department figures showed that the United States economy added 263,000 jobs in September and that the unemployment rate fell to 3.5 percent, from 3.7 percent a month earlier. The report suggests that the labor market is cooling as the Federal Reserve raises interest rates but that the central bank will likely have to take further steps to slow the economy in order to tame inflation.Mr. Biden said that the numbers were a sign that the economy was transitioning to stable growth.“Our job market continues to show resilience as we navigate through this economic transition,” he said. “The pace of job growth is cooling while still powering our recovery forward.”Despite concerns about an economic slowdown, Mr. Biden’s remarks were the latest attempt by the White House to highlight examples of America’s manufacturing resurgence with a focus on the automobile sector in the run-up to the November midterm elections.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.Standing by Herschel Walker: After a report that the G.O.P. Senate candidate in Georgia paid for a girlfriend’s abortion in 2009, Republicans rallied behind him, fearing that a break with the former football star could hurt the party’s chances to take the Senate.Wisconsin Senate Race: Mandela Barnes, the Democratic candidate, is wobbling in his contest against Senator Ron Johnson, the Republican incumbent, as an onslaught of G.O.P. attack ads takes a toll.G.O.P. Senate Gains: After signs emerged that Republicans were making gains in the race for the Senate, the polling shift is now clear, writes Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst.Democrats’ Closing Argument: Buoyed by polls that show the end of Roe v. Wade has moved independent voters their way, vulnerable House Democrats have reoriented their campaigns around abortion rights in the final weeks before the election.The Volvo facility in Hagerstown employs more than 1,700 workers and makes parts for Mack Trucks.The visit also came with political calculations, as Representative David Trone, a Maryland Democrat, was locked in a tight re-election race with his Republican challenger, Neil Parrott. Hagerstown is also close to the border with Pennsylvania, where the senate and governor’s races are two of the most consequential political contests in the country.Mr. Biden maintained a more pointed tone with Republicans as he made claims about the benefits of the so-called Inflation Reduction Act that Congress passed in August. He called out Republicans such as Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona and Representative Andy Barr of Kentucky for seeking federal funds for local projects while criticizing his agenda, calling it “socialism.”.css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.“I didn’t know there were that many socialist Republicans,” Mr. Biden joked.Mr. Biden, who on Thursday evening attended a fund-raiser at the Manhattan home of the Democratic donor James Murdoch, said that Republicans have a “Park Avenue” view of the world that stands in stark contrast to his policies that are born out of concern for people in places like Scranton, Pa., where Mr. Biden was born, and Hagerstown.Republicans seized on signs of a cooling job market to assail Mr. Biden for economic mismanagement on Friday.“The economy is shrinking, inflation is raging, and job growth is slowing,” said Representative Kevin Brady of Texas, the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee.While the White House has so far sounded very in line with the Fed’s push to fight the quickest inflation in four decades, that tone could shift somewhat as the economy begins to show cracks.The Biden administration has made it clear that it respects the Fed’s independence to set policy free of partisan interference, but it might be challenging for administration officials to embrace the central bank’s actions too loudly when the Fed’s policies are hurting the economy and inflicting pain on workers.Mr. Biden acknowledged that economic headwinds continued to persist, noting that gasoline prices are inching back up “because of what the Russians and the Saudis just did.”“I’m not finished with that just yet,” he added.Despite his sharper tone, Mr. Biden said that he remained hopeful that bipartisan cooperation could be possible after the election.“That’s my hope, that after this election, there will be a little return to sanity,” Mr. Biden said. “That we’ll stop this bitterness that exists between the parties and have people working together.” More

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      Balancing Extremes

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      The Federal Reserve is trying to tame inflation without wrecking the economy.America’s central bank, the Federal Reserve, is trying to strike a delicate balance: It has to take steps to slow down the economy to bring inflation under control — but it wants to do so without causing a severe recession.The predicament is unusual for a government agency. Typically, public officials talk about stimulating the economy and creating more jobs.The Fed is trying to do the opposite. Under its dual mandate from Congress, the Fed tries to keep unemployment low and prices relatively stable. Yet those two goals are sometimes in conflict: A strong economy can lead to more jobs but quickly rising prices, while a sluggish economy can lead to fewer jobs but slower price increases. The Fed aims to balance those extremes.But as the Fed has moved to slow down the economy, some experts have worried that it’s going too far, risking unnecessary economic pain. The Fed’s defenders, meanwhile, say the central bank is acting wisely — and may even need to go further than it has to tame rising prices.Today’s newsletter will explain both sides of the debate and the potential dangers to the economy if the Fed does too much or too little to bring down inflation.The case for cautionExperts arguing for caution worry that the Fed has already done enough to ease inflation, even if the effects are not clear yet, and that any more action could backfire.The Fed’s attempts to cool the labor market illustrate the potential risk.The jobs market is one of the major drivers of inflation today, said Jason Furman, an economist at Harvard University. Many employers have raised wages to compete for hires; there are more job vacancies than there are available workers. But someone has to pay for the higher wages, and employers have passed those costs on to consumers by charging higher prices, fueling inflation.In response, the Fed has raised interest rates five times this year to increase the cost of borrowing money. The goal: More expensive loans will result in less investment, then less business expansion, then fewer jobs, then lower pay, then less inflation.There are hints that the Fed’s moves are working. For example, stock markets have declined as the Fed has raised interest rates — partly a signal that investors expect the economy to cool off, just as the Fed wants. “Markets going down is not an indictment of the Fed’s policy,” my colleague Jeanna Smialek, who covers the economy, told me. “Markets going down is the Fed’s policy.”But the rest of the intended chain of reaction, from less investment to less inflation, will take time to work through the economy. The Fed’s interest rate hikes may have done enough, but the full effects aren’t visible yet.Some experts worry the Fed will not wait long enough to see the full effects of its previous actions before it takes more aggressive steps. That could lead to more harm to the economy than necessary. “The risk that the Fed is moving too slowly to contain inflation has declined, while the risk that high interest rates will cause severe economic damage has gone up — a lot,” Paul Krugman, the economist and Times columnist, wrote last week.The case for moreOn the other side, there’s the risk of the Fed doing too little.We have seen the consequences. The Fed, believing inflation would be temporary, was slow to raise interest rates last year. That probably exacerbated the rising prices we’re dealing with now.But things could get worse. The longer inflation goes on, the likelier it is to become entrenched. For example, if businesses expect costs to keep rising, they will set prices higher in anticipation — leading to a vicious cycle of increasing costs and prices.Longer bouts of inflation are also more likely to result in stagflation, when inflation is high and economic growth slows. In such a situation, people have a harder time finding a job and the pay they can get quickly loses value. The U.S. endured stagflation in the 1970s; Europe is facing it now as prices rise and the continent’s economy stumbles.Entrenchment and stagflation could force the Fed to act even more drastically, with grave side effects. It has happened before: In the 1970s and ’80s, the Fed raised interest rates so dramatically and so quickly that the unemployment rate spiked to more than 10 percent.By acting aggressively now, the Fed hopes to avoid such harsh measures — and produce a “soft landing” that reduces inflation without wrecking the economy.The central bank’s record suggests it could pull off the feat, Alan Blinder, a former Fed vice chairman, argued in The Wall Street Journal: The Fed achieved a soft landing or came close in six of 11 attempts over the past six decades. “Landing the economy softly is a tall order, but success is not unthinkable,” Blinder wrote.Related:Stocks rose yesterday for the second straight day, while Amazon became the latest large company to announce a slowdown in hiring.America’s gross national debt yesterday exceeded $31 trillion for the first time.THE LATEST NEWSWar in UkraineSource: Institute for the Study of War | By Marco Hernandez and Josh HolderUkrainian troops expelled Russian forces from a key town in Kherson Province, pushing farther into Russian-controlled territory by attacking several places at once.Russian forces are outnumbered in Kherson, according to pro-Kremlin bloggers.Russians are fleeing to countries like Kyrgyzstan to avoid the military draft.President Biden spoke with Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, and pledged to send four more of the mobile rocket launchers known as HIMARS.PoliticsIn oral arguments, the Supreme Court justices suggested that they might uphold Alabama’s congressional map but not profoundly limit the Voting Rights Act.Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court to let a special master review documents seized from Mar-a-Lago.Doctors and midwives in blue states are working to get abortion pills to red states, setting up a legal clash.InternationalMumbai and the monsoon.Saumya Khandelwal for The New York TimesSouth Asia’s monsoon season is becoming more violent.Protests in Iran over a young woman’s death entered a third week. Women are at the forefront.He was a die-hard soccer fan. She was a chatty aerobics lover. Both perished in an Indonesian stadium.New vaccines are raising hopes of eradicating malaria.Other Big StoriesElon Musk proposed buying Twitter for the price he agreed to in April, after months of trying to back out of the deal.Micron will build a computer chip factory in upstate New York, a sign that government spending on semiconductors is bringing private investment.Days after Hurricane Ian pummeled Florida, many residents face homelessness.The scientists Carolyn Bertozzi, Morten Meldal and Barry Sharpless won the Nobel Prize for their work in “click chemistry.”OpinionsVladimir Putin’s nuclear threats heighten the danger that miscalculation will cause annihilation, Michael Dobbs argues.More school funding is one solution to the male resentment fueling right-wing politics, Michelle Goldberg says.MORNING READSIndigenous Alaskans’ freezers hold a winter’s worth of food.Katie Basile for The New York Times Cold storage: In rural Alaska, the stand-alone freezer is everything.“Beavis and Butt-Head”: The ’90s cartoon that mattered.Academia: Students were failing organic chemistry. Was the professor to blame?A Times classic: Sarah Paulson opens up.Advice from Wirecutter: Party favors for a kid’s birthday.Lives Lived: Loretta Lynn built her stardom not only on her Grammy-winning country music but also on her image as a symbol of rural pride. She died at 90.SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETICJudge stands alone: With his record-breaking 62nd home run last night, one can argue Aaron Judge’s 2022 season is definitively better than Roger Maris’s 1961 campaign. Relive all 62 home runs here.N.W.S.L. fallout continues: Players are “horrified and heartbroken” after the release of the Sally Yates report, according to the U.S. women’s national team and Portland Thorns star Becky Sauerbrunn, who called for the removal of top executives involved in the ongoing women’s soccer crisis.2023 N.B.A. champs? A survey of the league’s general managers revealed the Milwaukee Bucks as favorites, but familiar contenders also got some votes in what may be an open field for the 2023 title. M.V.P. favorite: Mavericks superstar Luka Doncic.ARTS AND IDEAS Jimmy Smits on the set of “East New York.”George Etheredge for The New York TimesA new era for cop showsAfter the police killing of George Floyd in 2020, public confidence in policing reached a record low. Police officers’ roles on television changed, too: Some shows like the ride-along reality program “Cops,” criticized as “copaganda,” were taken off the air or rewritten.Two years later, the police drama has survived. Eighteen crime-related programs are slated for prime-time slots in the coming months. But there are signs that the genre has evolved in response to public opinion, delivering more nuanced portrayals of law enforcement.Series like “East New York” aim to explore the complexity of policing, raising the question of whether cop shows can answer calls for change without losing the viewers that have kept them popular.Related: A history of the police procedural, in six shows.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookCraig Lee for The New York TimesFeed a crowd with overnight French toast.What to Read“Waging a Good War” examines the civil rights movement through military history.What to WatchA diverse intern class has arrived in the 19th season of “Grey’s Anatomy.”Late NightThe hosts joked about Herschel Walker, who denied paying for a former girlfriend’s abortion.Now Time to PlayThe pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was mooching. Here is today’s puzzle.Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Home for birds (six letters).And here’s today’s Wordle. After, use our bot to get better.Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — GermanP.S. Listen to the trailer for “Hard Fork,” a new Times podcast that explores tech’s wild frontier.Here’s today’s front page. “The Daily” is about the floods in Pakistan. On “The Argument,” Andrew Yang and David Jolly make the case for a third political party.Matthew Cullen, Natasha Frost, Lauren Hard, Lauren Jackson, Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick and Ashley Wu contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. More

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      Democrats’ Troubles in Nevada Are a Microcosm of Nationwide Headwinds

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      Inflation and a rocky economy are bolstering Republicans in their races against incumbent Democrats, motivating “an electorate that simply wants change,” as one G.O.P. consultant says.LAS VEGAS — The Culinary Workers Union members who are knocking on doors to get out the vote are on the cursed-at front lines of the Democratic Party’s midterm battle.Most voters do not open their doors. And when some do answer, the canvassers might wish they hadn’t.“You think I am going to vote for those Democrats after all they’ve done to ruin the economy?” a voter shouted one evening last week from her entryway in a working-class neighborhood of East Las Vegas.Miguel Gonzalez, a 55-year-old chef who described himself as a conservative Christian who has voted for Republicans for most of his life, was more polite but no more convinced. “I don’t agree with anything Democrats are doing at all,” he said after taking a fistful of fliers from the union canvassers.Those who know Nevada best have always viewed its blue-state status as something befitting a desert: a kind of mirage. Democrats are actually a minority among registered voters, and most of the party’s victories in the last decade were narrowly decided. But the state has long been a symbolic linchpin for the party — vital to its national coalition and its hold on the blue West.Now, Democrats in Nevada are facing potential losses up and down the ballot in November and bracing for a seismic shift that could help Republicans win control of both houses of Congress. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto remains one of the most vulnerable Democratic incumbents in the country. Gov. Steve Sisolak is fighting his most formidable challenger yet. And the state’s three House Democrats could all lose their seats.The Democratic juggernaut built by former Senator Harry M. Reid is on its heels, staring down the most significant spate of losses in more than a decade. More

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      Some Women Fear Giorgia Meloni’s Far-Right Agenda Will Set Italy Back

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      Some fear that the hard-right politician, whose party is expected to be the big winner in the election on Sunday, will continue policies that have kept women back.ROME — Being a woman, and mother, has been central to the political pitch of Giorgia Meloni, the hard-right politician who is likely to become Italy’s prime minister after elections on Sunday.She once ran for mayor seven months pregnant because she said powerful men had told her she couldn’t. Her most famous speech includes the refrain “I am a woman. I am a mother.” She often talks with pride about how she started a party, Brothers of Italy, and rose to the top of national politics without any special treatment.But as happy as women’s rights activists are about that fact that a woman could finally run Italy, many wish it was essentially any other woman in Italy. They fear that Ms. Meloni’s hard-right agenda, her talk about preventing abortions, opposing quotas and other measures will set back the cause of women.“It’s not a gain at all and, indeed, a possible setback from the point of view of women’s rights,” said Giorgia Serughetti, who writes about women’s issues and teaches political philosophy at Bicocca University in Milan.More than in neighboring European Union countries, women in Italy have struggled to emerge in the country’s traditionally patriarchal society. Four out of 10 Italian women don’t work. Unemployment rates are even higher for young women starting careers. Female chief executive officers lead only a tiny percentage of companies listed on Milan’s stock exchange, and there are fewer than 10 female rectors at Italy’s more than 80 universities.And for many Italian women, finding a suitable work-life balance becomes nearly impossible once children enter the equation. Affordable, all-day, public child care is nonexistent in many areas, and women paid the highest price during the pandemic, staying home even after periods of lockdown when schools were shut.All national and international indicators suggest that if women in Italy worked more, gross domestic product would largely benefit and increase.“Half of Italian women do not have economic independence,” said Linda Laura Sabbadini, a statistician and director of new technologies at Italy’s National Institute of Statistics. “That can’t just be cultural; politics clearly hasn’t done enough for women so far.”Ms. Meloni has presented herself as someone who will help, but on key issues to women, the coalition has been vague and short on details. And a coalition partner, Matteo Salvini of the anti-immigrant League party, has admired Victor Orban, the conservative prime minister of Hungary, and his family policies. The League’s leader recently said that Mr. Orban had drafted the “most advanced family policy” giving “the best results at the European level.”Matteo Salvini, right, then the Italian interior minister, next to Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary at a news conference in Milan in 2018.Marco Bertorello/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMr. Orban has encouraged Hungarian mothers to procreate prolifically to counter the dropping birthrate. This month, the Hungarian government passed a decree that would require women seeking an abortion to observe fetal vital signs before moving forward with the procedure.Concerns have emerged in Italy that Ms. Meloni’s center-right coalition could make it harder for women to have abortions in a country where the procedure has been legal since 1978 but is still very difficult to obtain.Asked about the law, Ms. Meloni, who has said her mother nearly aborted her, vowed in an interview that she “wouldn’t change it” as prime minister, and that abortion would remain “accessible and safe and legal.” But she added that she wanted to more fully apply a part of the law “about prevention,” which, she said, had been effectively ignored until now.Critics fear that approach would allow anti-abortion organizations to play a more prominent role in family-planning clinics and encourage even more doctors to avoid the procedure. Only about 33 percent of doctors perform legal abortions in Italy, and even less, 10 percent, in some regions.Laura Lattuada, an actress in Rome, said she was concerned that the abortion law could be chipped away with Ms. Meloni in power.“She’s constantly saying she wants to improve it, but I am not sure that her conception of protecting women and the family corresponds to the improvement of women’s rights,” she said.Abortion is hardly the only issue that has given activists pause. Italy introduced and has progressively extended the so-called pink quotas, a mandated percentage of female representation in politics and boardrooms. Many women say quotas in politics better reflect the population, while quotas in companies help overcome “old boys” networks, giving women equal access to higher paying jobs. They also give women greater visibility, they said.A mural in Rome painted by a street artist known as Harry Greb showing Ms. Meloni and other Italian politicians.Fabio Frustaci/EPA, via ShutterstockMs. Meloni is against the quotas. She argues that as a woman, she climbed the political ladder on her own and is now poised to run the country. She says that she is proof that women don’t need government interference to enforce diversity.Her supporters agreed.“They never gave her anything, she took it. She won on her own,” said Lucia Loddo, 54, who was waving a banner supporting Ms. Meloni at a rally in Cagliari. She said that for women, Ms. Meloni’s ascent “is the most beautiful thing. All of the men have been disasters. She is prepared.”About 25 percent of Italian woman voting on Sunday are expected to cast their ballots for Ms. Meloni, though pollsters failed to ask women whether her gender was a factor in their vote, which is itself telling of the attention given to women voters here. Ms. Meloni is polling at least 25 percent nationally, the highest of any candidate.Ms. Meloni has won voters over with her down-to-earth and straight-talking manner (she often speaks in Roman dialect). But the secret to her popularity has less to do with her personality or policy proposals than that she was essentially the lone leader of a major party to stay in the opposition during the national unity government of Mario Draghi.That allowed her to campaign in a country that is perennially looking for someone new as a fresh face, even though she has been in Parliament for nearly two decades and was a minister in a past government.In that time, Italy has had a lackluster track record in empowering women in the work force, and experts say something else needs to be done.“We have to create the conditions for employment because we are at the bottom of the list in Europe,” said Ida Maggi of Stati Generali delle Donne, an association working to get women’s issues on the electoral agenda. It makes Italy “look bad,” she said.One area where Ms. Meloni and even her most committed critics agree is the need for more nursery schools. The government of Mr. Draghi last year allocated billions of euros to build nurseries and extend child care services. But the problem is by no means solved.In many Italian regions, a shortage of free nursery schools, along with short school days and three-month vacations, make sit difficult for working mothers to juggle their schedules. Even though many women are staying at home, the country has one of the lowest birthrates in Europe, something Ms. Meloni’s center-right coalition has pledged to redress.Speaking to supporters in Milan this month, Ms. Meloni said that she and her allies would work toward getting free child-care services, part of “a huge plan to boost the birthrate, to support motherhood.” With only 400,000 births last year, Italy was going through more than a demographic winter, she said: “It’s an ice age.”Ms. Meloni addressing supporters in Piazza Duomo in Milan in September.Piero Cruciatti/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“I don’t want this nation to disappear,” she said, adding that the problem should not be solved through immigration. “I want our families to have children,” she added to a roar of applause.But critics are not convinced her party, or likely coalition, is entirely committed to the cause of women.Polls carried out last year show that while the majority of Italians said more should be done to reach gender equality, those numbers were considerably lower among supporters of Brothers of Italy and the League.One campaign video for a candidate from the Forza Italia party, another coalition ally, was roundly mocked for promising a salary to women who don’t work outside the home. The party is led by Silvio Berlusconi, who, Ms. Meloni said in the interview, put her “in difficulty as a woman” with his sex scandals when she was a young minister in his government.After decades of unfulfilled campaign promises, there is skepticism writ large that any of the parties will really champion women’s causes.Promises about “the needs and priorities of women” — including free day care and subsidies for families — tend to vanish once it’s time to actually put measures in place, said Laura Moschini, whose organization, the Gender Interuniversity Observatory, has drafted a “handbook for good government” highlighting women’s concerns.Those issues have discouraged women from voting, and the possibility of electing Ms. Meloni as the first female prime minister is not motivating women. Heading into the election on Sunday, polls suggest that more than a third of Italian women probably won’t vote.Ms. Meloni with Mr. Salvini, left, and Silvio Berlusconi at the center-right coalition’s closing rally in Rome on Thursday.Gregorio Borgia/Associated Press“I’m disgusted by the entire political system,” said Laura Porrega, who described herself as a “desperate housewife” because she wasn’t able to find a job. “When they want your taxes, they remember your name, but I’ve gotten nothing from the country at all.” she said.Ms. Serughetti, the Bicocca professor, said that women “don’t see their interests being represented,” so they’d rather abstain.“The decision of women not to vote is a sort of protest to this order of things,” she said.Jason Horowitz More

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      Will Biden’s Recent Victories Lift the Democrats?

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      More from our inbox:What’s Better, an After-School Program or a Job?President Biden is still one of the most unpopular presidents in modern history, despite his political victories.Yuri Gripas for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Biden Basks in String of Wins. Will This Be a Turning Point?” (news analysis, front page, Aug. 9):The president’s legislative agenda, a close approximation to the one promised, has passed. These are accomplishments, not rhetorical speculations. That the president has low ratings at this juncture speaks volumes not about him — he has delivered, and in under two years — but about the fuzzy-thinking electorate surveyed by pollsters.Yes, voters are perennially concerned about their purchasing power and the brutal effects of inflation. Americans need to be reminded that presidents do not bring inflation with them to the White House. A complex set of global problems — including a war, a pandemic and supply chain problems — contribute to a disrupted economy.Americans would do well in this historic moment to stop and smell the proverbial roses: We, as a country, have finally acted on climate change. And drug pricing. And infrastructure. And, incredibly, guns. Much remains to be done on all these fronts. Nothing is perfect, though voters polled seem disappointed that all their wishes don’t come true on Election Day.President Biden’s poll numbers are low, but let us take a poll of climate activists, people struggling with the cost of drugs, those who understand the truly herculean effort it took to pass the Inflation Reduction Act bill. Would his numbers be higher? I’ll go out on a limb and say they would triple.Will SouthColumbia, S.C.To the Editor:As a Democrat who had previously been disillusioned with President Biden’s commitment to working with Congress in a bipartisan manner, I found the legislative and economic accomplishments noted in this article reassuring and worth celebrating.However, they may not mark a turnaround for the Biden presidency, especially with respect to the coming midterm elections. We can simply revisit the first two years of the Obama administration to see why.Barack Obama’s legislative, economic and judicial achievements through the second year of his presidency are comparable, if not more remarkable, than those of Mr. Biden. By August 2010, Mr. Obama had already nominated two Supreme Court justices, passed Dodd-Frank and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and signed into law what was arguably his crowning piece of legislation, the Affordable Care Act.But, as we all know, he and the Democrats suffered substantial losses in the midterm elections of 2010.So, is Joe Biden on a legislative hot streak? Yes. But will it play to his advantage during the midterms? History suggests otherwise.Ravin BhatiaBrookline, Mass.What’s Better, an After-School Program or a Job? BjelicaS/Getty ImagesTo the Editor:Re “The Best Extracurricular Is a Job” by Pamela Paul (column, July 31):Ms. Paul is right to lament the decline in the number of teenagers who work after school. Teens who work can learn valuable things about themselves and work life that are not readily available otherwise.Where Ms. Paul goes wrong is in playing down extracurricular and after-school activities. After-school experiences help teens develop soft skills and self-confidence. They also provide credentials for getting good jobs down the road.In my research, I spoke with dozens of human resources professionals who had conducted mock job interviews with teens who had participated in after-school programs.The professionals were impressed with the experiences and skills that the teens had acquired and considered many of them to be hirable, even without a history of paid employment. In particular, after-school programs provide opportunities for teens to develop complex leadership skills, something they can rarely do at work.Teens need sequences of after-school programs and work experiences that build on each other, providing the best of both worlds.Bart HirschEvanston, Ill.The writer is professor emeritus of human development and social policy at Northwestern University, and the author of “Job Skills and Minority Youth: New Program Directions.” More

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      United Auto Workers Seek to Shed a Legacy of Corruption

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      After his predecessors’ imprisonment, the union’s president is being challenged for re-election in the first direct vote by its membership.DETROIT — For the United Auto Workers, the last five years have been one of the most troubling chapters in the union’s storied history.A federal investigation found widespread corruption, with a dozen senior officials, including two former presidents, convicted of embezzling more than $1 million in union funds for luxury travel and other lavish personal expenses. Since last year, the union has been under the scrutiny of a court-appointed monitor charged with ensuring that anticorruption reforms are carried out.The scandal tarnished a once-powerful organization and left many of its 400,000 active members angry and disillusioned.“You bet I’m mad,” said Bill Bagwell, who has been in the U.A.W. for 37 years and works at a General Motors parts warehouse in Ypsilanti, Mich., represented by Local 174. “That was our money, the workers’ money. I don’t like people stealing our money.”Now U.A.W. members have a chance to determine how much of a break from that past they want to make. In one of the changes prompted by the corruption scandal, the union this year will choose its leaders through a direct election — its first. Until now, the president and other senior officials were chosen by delegates to a convention, a system in which the union’s executive board could shape the outcome through favors and favoritism, and the results did not always reflect the views of the rank and file.“Everyone in power is in one party, and it’s been like that forever,” said William Parker, a retired worker who is eligible to vote and hopes to see a new slate of officers take over. “But now we’ve got one man, one vote, and we are mobilizing to change.”Over four days last week, at a sometimes-chaotic convention in Detroit, some 900 delegates debated a wide range of issues facing the union. Four members were nominated to challenge the incumbent president, Ray Curry, in the fall election. Under rules approved by the delegates, the union’s nearly 600,000 retirees can vote but cannot run for executive offices. If no candidate wins at least 50 percent of the vote, the top two will vie in a runoff.The convention proceedings dragged out each day as members stepped to microphones to offer motions, objections and requests for clarifications. A day after voting to increase stipends for striking workers to $500 a week from $400, they rescinded the move. At least three times Mr. Curry was scheduled to give a state-of-the-union address only to have the extended debates force postponements, and the convention adjourned without his address.Mr. Curry is seen as a strong favorite for re-election. He has held senior posts for more than a decade and became president in 2021 in the fallout from the corruption scandal. One potentially serious challenger is Shawn Fain, an electrician who has been a U.A.W. member for 28 years and holds a post with the union’s headquarters staff. He is part of a slate of candidates for senior posts, and is backed by a dissident group, Unite All Workers for Democracy, which has raised tens of thousands of dollars for the election campaign.Shawn Fain, a U.A.W. member for 28 years, is a potentially serious challenger for the union presidency.Sarah Rice for The New York Times“Members have to believe in the leadership and believe that the corruption is behind us,” Mr. Fain said.The other candidates are Brian Keller, a quality worker at Stellantis who for years has run a Facebook group critical of the union’s leadership; Will Lehman, a worker at a Mack Truck plant in Pennsylvania; and Mark Gibson, a chairman at Local 163 in Westland, Mich. Read More on Organized Labor in the U.S.Apple: Employees at a Baltimore-area Apple store voted to unionize, making it the first of the company’s 270-plus U.S. stores to do so. The result provides a foothold for a budding movement among Apple retail employees.Starbucks: When a Rhodes scholar joined Starbucks in 2020, none of the company’s 9,000 U.S. locations had a union. She hoped to change that by helping to unionize its stores in Buffalo. Improbably, she and her co-workers have far exceeded their goal.Amazon: A little-known independent union scored a stunning victory at an Amazon warehouse on Staten Island. But unlike at Starbucks, where organizing efforts spread in a matter of weeks, unionizing workers at Amazon has been a longer, messier slog.A Shrinking Movement: Although high-profile unionization efforts have dominated headlines recently, union membership has seen a decades-long decline in the United States.The challengers and Mr. Curry agree on most of the key issues at stake in next year’s contract negotiations. Members want automakers to resume cost-of-living wage adjustments, once a key element of U.A.W. contracts, and eliminate compensation differences between newer and more senior workers. Workers hired in 2007 or earlier earn the full U.A.W. wage of about $32 an hour and are guaranteed pensions. Workers hired after 2007 have started at lower wages and can work up to the top wage over five years. They get a 401(k) retirement account instead of a pension.Dorian Fenderson, a U.A.W. member at a G.M. location in Warren, Mich., started a year ago as a temporary worker at $17 an hour and after four months was made a permanent hire, making $22 an hour.“There are people making $34 doing the same work as me,” he said. “I know they’ve been here a long time, but it’s not really fair to people like me.”The opposition candidates have called for the U.A.W. to take a more confrontational line in contract negotiations to win back concessions now that the manufacturers are solidly profitable, and to push them to keep more production in the United States and use more union labor. G.M. is building four battery plants in a joint venture, and Ford Motor is building three with its own partner. The union will have an opportunity to organize those plants, but success is not guaranteed.“We are hemorrhaging jobs, and that has to stop,” Mr. Fain said.Mr. Curry said he was confident that battery plants would be organized and that the workers would be covered by U.A.W. contracts with the automakers. He said similar joint ventures had been represented by the union in the past, and noted that current contracts assign engine production to the U.A.W.“Our belief is that batteries are the powertrains of electric vehicles,” he said in an interview. “It’s just new technology. We have a right to negotiate that and establish those locations.”One potential weakness for Mr. Curry could be recent actions that have riled some members. He and members of his executive board recently increased pay and pensions for themselves and others working at the union’s headquarters. A vice president who is running for re-election spent $95,000 in union funds on backpacks that were embroidered with his name and were to be given to members at union gatherings, a move that could be seen as using union money for his campaign.In a July report, the court-appointed monitor, Neil Barofsky, wrote that he had 19 open investigations into possible improprieties, and said Mr. Curry’s leadership group had been uncooperative at times. Mr. Barofsky, a lawyer at a New York firm, wrote that the union’s leaders had uncovered mishandling of union funds by a senior official but that they had concealed the matter, though he added that cooperation and transparency had improved in recent months.Mr. Curry said that once he learned of the communications issues with the monitor, he stepped in and addressed the matter.“You have to read report to the end, and at the end the monitor talks about true transparency, response time, and change in counsel, the steps we have taken to shows we are moving in a positive direction,” he said. “And I’ve asked the monitor, if he has issues, to come directly to me so I don’t read about it in a report four months later.”Mr. Barofsky declined to comment beyond the findings in his report.Decades ago, the U.A.W. was a powerful organization that could influence presidential elections and consistently won increases in wages and benefits, often through hard-nosed negotiating and strikes. Its contracts with G.M., Ford and Chrysler set standards that helped pull up pay and benefits for working classes all around the country, union and nonunion alike.Mr. Fain’s grandfather kept his first Chrysler pay stub from 1937. For decades, the U.A.W.’s contracts with automakers set the standards for pay and benefits for the working class.Sarah Rice for The New York TimesBut its fortunes waned as the Detroit automakers steadily reduced their U.S. operations and struggled to compete as Toyota, Honda, Nissan and other foreign automakers built nonunion plants across the South. The 2009 bankruptcy filings by G.M. and Chrysler forced the union into once-unthinkable concessions, including the two-tier wage structure.Over the last 10 years, the automakers have rebounded, often with record earnings, and union workers have benefited. Last year, G.M. paid a profit-sharing bonus of $10,250 to each of its U.A.W. employees. But on other fronts, the union is still in retreat. A 40-day strike in 2019 was unable to prevent G.M. from closing a plant in Lordstown, Ohio, and workers have gone without cost-of-living adjustments to their wages since 2009.The corruption investigation was started around 2014 by the U.S. attorney in Detroit, and eventually found schemes that embezzled more than $1.5 million from membership dues and $3.5 million from training centers. Top union officials used the money for expensive cigars, wines, liquor, golf clubs, apparel and luxury travel.More than a dozen U.A.W. officials pleaded guilty. As part of a consent decree to settle the investigation, the U.S. District Court in Detroit appointed Mr. Barofsky to monitor the U.A.W.’s efforts to become more democratic and transparent.In July, a former U.A.W. president, Gary Jones, was released from federal prison after serving less than nine months of a 28-month sentence. Another former leader, Dennis Williams, served nine months of his 21-month sentence. Other convicted officials were also released after serving less than half of their sentences.At the convention last week, the shortened sentences were a source of frustration for many attendees, but as the proceedings pressed on, many backed the positions of Mr. Curry and the current executive board on issues that arose.David Hendershot, a forklift driver at a Ford plant in Rawsonville, Mich., said that he wanted the union to push for higher wages in contract talks next year, and that he wasn’t happy with the corruption that took place. But he isn’t sure he wants a wholesale change in leadership. “I’ll probably stick with what we’ve got,” he said. More