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      U.A.W. Will Not Expand Strikes at G.M., Ford and Stellantis as Talks Progress

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      The United Automobile Workers reported improved wage offers from the automakers and a concession from General Motors on workers at battery factories.The United Automobile Workers union said on Friday that it had made progress in its negotiations with Ford Motor, General Motors and Stellantis, the parent of Chrysler, and would not expand the strikes against the companies that began three weeks ago.In an online video, the president of the union, Shawn Fain, said all three companies had significantly improved their offers to the union, including providing bigger raises and offering cost-of-living increases. In what he described as a major breakthrough, Mr. Fain said G.M. was now willing to include workers at its battery factories in the company’s national contract with the U.A.W.G.M. had previously said that it could not include those workers because they are employed by joint ventures between G.M. and battery suppliers.“Here’s the bottom line: We are winning,” said Mr. Fain, wearing a T-shirt that read, “Eat the Rich.” “We are making progress, and we are headed in the right direction.”Mr. Fain said G.M. made the concession on battery plant workers after the union had threatened to strike the company’s factory in Arlington, Texas, where it makes some of its most profitable full-size sport-utility vehicles, including the Cadillac Escalade and the Chevrolet Tahoe. The plant employs 5,300 workers.G.M. has started production at one battery plant in Ohio, and has others under construction in Tennessee and Michigan. Workers at the Ohio plant voted overwhelmingly to be represented by the U.A.W. and have been negotiating a separate contract with the joint venture, Ultium Cells, that G.M. owns with L.G. Energy Solution.Ford is building two joint-venture battery plants in Kentucky and one in Tennessee, and a fourth in Michigan that is wholly owned by Ford. Stellantis has just started building a battery plant in Indiana and is looking for a site for a second.G.M. declined to comment about battery plant workers. “Negotiations remain ongoing, and we will continue to work towards finding solutions to address outstanding issues,” the company said in a statement. “Our goal remains to reach an agreement that rewards our employees and allows G.M. to be successful into the future”Shares of the three companies jumped after Mr. Fain spoke. G.M.’s stock closed up about 2 percent, Stellantis about 3 percent and Ford about 1 percent.The strike began Sept. 15 when workers walked out of three plants in Michigan, Ohio and Missouri, each owned by one of the three companies.The stoppage was later expanded to 38 spare-parts distribution centers owned by G.M. and Stellantis, and then to a Ford plant in Chicago and another G.M. factory in Lansing, Mich. About 25,000 of the 150,000 U.A.W. members employed by the three Michigan automakers were on strike as of Friday morning.“I think this strategy of targeted strikes is working,” said Peter Berg, a professor of employment relations at Michigan State University. “It has the effect of slowly ratcheting up the cost to the companies, and they don’t know necessarily where he’s going to strike next.”Here Are the Locations Where U.A.W. Strikes Are HappeningSee where U.A.W. members are on strike at plants and distribution centers owned by Ford, General Motors and Stellantis.The contract battle has become a national political issue. President Biden visited a picket line near Detroit last month. A day later, former President Donald J. Trump spoke at a nonunion factory north of Detroit and criticized Mr. Biden and leaders of the U.A.W. Other lawmakers and candidates have voiced support for the U.A.W. or criticized the strikes.When negotiations began in July, Mr. Fain initially demanded a 40 percent increase in wages, noting that workers’ pay has not kept up with inflation over the last 15 years and that the chief executives of the three companies have seen pay increases of roughly that magnitude.The automakers, which have made near-record profits over the last 10 years, have all offered increases of slightly more than 20 percent over four years. Company executives have said anything more would threaten their ability to compete with nonunion companies like Tesla and invest in new electric vehicle models and battery factories.The union also wants to end a wage system in which newly hired workers earn just over half the top U.A.W. wage, $32 an hour now, and need to work for eight years to reach the maximum. It is also seeking cost-of-living adjustments if inflation flares, pensions for a greater number of workers, company-paid retirement health care, shorter working hours and the right to strike in response to plant closings.In separate statements, Ford and Stellantis have said they agreed to provide cost-of-living increases, shorten the time it takes for employees to reach the top wage, and several other measures the union has sought.Ford also said it was “open to the possibility of working with the U.A.W. on future battery plants in the U.S.” Its battery plants are still under construction and have not hired any production workers yet.The union is concerned that some of its members will lose their jobs, especially people who work at engine and transmission plants, as the automakers produce more electric cars and trucks. Those vehicles do not need those parts, relying instead on electric motors and batteries.Stellantis’ chief operating officer for North America, Mark Stewart, said the company and the union were “making progress, but there are gaps that still need to be closed.”The union is also pushing the companies to convert temporary workers who now make a top wage of $20 an hour into full-time staff.Striking at only select locations at all three companies is a change from the past, when the U.A.W. typically called for a strike at all locations of one company that the union had chosen as its target. Striking at only a few locations hurts the companies — the idled plants make some of their most profitable models — but limits the economic damage to the broader economies in the affected states.It also could help preserve the union’s $825 million strike fund, from which striking workers are paid while they’re off the job. The union is paying striking workers $500 a week.G.M. said this week that the first two weeks of the strike had cost it $200 million. The three automakers and some of their suppliers have said that they have had to lay off hundreds of workers because the strikes have disrupted the supply and demand for certain parts.Santul Nerkar More

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      The Presidential Politics of the Autoworkers’ Strike

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      Rikki Novetsky, Olivia Natt, Eric Krupke and John Ketchum and Marion Lozano, Rowan Niemisto and Listen and follow The DailyApple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicAlthough one major strike, against Hollywood studios, was finally resolved this past week, another, against U.S. vehicle makers, is expanding. The plight of the autoworkers has now become a major point of contention in the presidential race.Jonathan Weisman, a political correspondent for The Times, explains why the strike could be an essential test along the road to the White House.On today’s episodeJonathan Weisman, a political correspondent for The New York Times.Members of the United Automobile Workers are seeking a contract with substantial wage increases.Matthew Hatcher/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBackground readingA day after President Biden appeared on a picket line with United Automobile Workers, former President Donald J. Trump spoke at an auto parts factory.The U.A.W. strike could either accelerate a wave of worker actions or stifle labor’s recent momentum.There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.Jonathan Weisman More

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      In Michigan, Biden and Trump Offer a Preview of 2024

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      The candidates’ dueling styles were on clear display as the two men tried to woo voters affected by the United Automobile Workers strike.It’s going to be a long road to next November. And the first steps started this week.President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump traveled to Michigan, one day after the other, to speak directly to working-class voters in what amounted to a preview of a likely 2024 campaign.Their dueling styles were on clear display as the two men tried to woo voters affected by the United Automobile Workers strike. Mr. Biden has campaigned on a message of bolstering the middle class, protecting democratic norms and countering China. Mr. Trump, a criminal defendant several times over, has focused on vindicating himself, channeling conservative grievances and promoting America-first policies.Their differences are not just ideological and tactical but stylistic. Mr. Trump prefers a boisterous event that lets him take center stage, and Mr. Biden, so far, has opted for small fund-raisers where he can burnish his Scranton Joe persona.Voters have signaled that they would prefer a different set of options in 2024, but for now, the most likely choice is between the current and former president, who have sharply diverging visions for the future of the United States.In a speech on Wednesday, former President Donald J. Trump criticized the Biden administration’s clean-energy agenda.Doug Mills/The New York TimesRaucous rallies, like the one he held on Wednesday, allow Mr. Trump to test his messaging and give him political oxygen to power through the next news cycle. On Wednesday, as seven other Republican presidential candidates gathered in California for a primary debate, Mr. Trump bragged about being ahead of the field — at one point calling his rivals “job candidates” for a second Trump administration — and brought his usual bluster to a crowd of several hundred at a nonunion manufacturing facility.Guests circulated inside the facility, called Drake Enterprises, some wearing T-shirts emblazoned with Mr. Trump’s mug shot and a telling caption: “NEVER SURRENDER.”In an hourlong speech, Mr. Trump castigated the Biden administration’s clean-energy agenda, which includes a push for a transition to electric vehicles that has aggravated union workers who share his populist views on the economy.“A vote for Crooked Joe means the future of the auto industry will be based in China,” Mr. Trump told the crowd, warning that a transition to electric vehicles amounted to a “transition to hell.” He offered tepid support for the striking autoworkers, telling them that electric vehicles would undermine any success with a new contract: “It doesn’t make a damn bit of difference what you get because in two years you’re all going to be out of business.”Mr. Trump repeatedly overinflated the evening’s crowd size, at one point falsely claiming that there were 9,000 people waiting outside the venue. But in Michigan, he did what Mr. Biden has not done yet: He pleaded for endorsements and votes.“Your leadership should endorse me,” Mr. Trump said, “and I will not say a bad thing about them again and they will have done their job.”Mr. Trump spoke to a crowd of several hundred on Wednesday.Doug Mills/The New York TimesNever a big fan of a rally, Mr. Biden, who has for decades presented himself as a champion of the middle class, has so far limited most of his campaign appearances to fund-raisers or receptions with supporters. At those events, he opts to shake hands in rope lines and share stories of his decades in politics. He also warns his supporters of the grave risk he feels Mr. Trump continues to pose to the country.On Tuesday, before traveling to California for campaign events and a meeting with technology advisers, Mr. Biden became the first sitting president to join a picket line, visiting workers outside a General Motors facility in Belleville, Mich. — a sign of how important it was for him to court a powerful political bloc whose ranks are no longer full of reliably Democratic voters.“The middle class built this country,” Mr. Biden told striking workers on Tuesday. “And unions built the middle class. That’s a fact.”President Biden showed support for striking autoworkers by joining their picket line outside a General Motors facility west of Detroit.Pete Marovich for The New York TimesIn his short appearance with workers — Mr. Trump and several of supporters pointed out that the visit was only about 12 minutes — Mr. Biden spoke briefly and turned a bullhorn over to Shawn Fain, the U.A.W. president.Unlike Mr. Trump, the president did not take the chance to link his visit to Michigan to securing union backing. When asked if he hoped to receive the support of the U.A.W., which endorsed him in 2020 but has refrained so far out of complaints about his clean-energy agenda, Mr. Biden would only say, “I’m not worried about that.”Before Mr. Trump’s visit on Wednesday, the Biden campaign released an ad targeting the former president’s economic track record, accusing Mr. Trump of passing “tax breaks for his rich friends while automakers shuttered their plants and Michigan lost manufacturing jobs.”Age and energy have become prevailing concerns among voters about Mr. Biden, who spent this week crisscrossing the country. On Thursday, Mr. Biden, who is 80, is scheduled to deliver what is widely seen as a rebuttal to Mr. Trump’s appearance and the Republican primary debate.Mr. Trump, who is 77, relied on a teleprompter on Wednesday evening — as does Mr. Biden when he delivers prepared remarks. He could not resist the occasional aside, including an extended complaint about the paint job on Air Force One — “so inelegant,” said Mr. Trump, who tried to change the exterior of the plane when he was president. When he departed, he took his time navigating a set of stairs that led to the stage.President Biden became the first sitting president to join a picket line on Tuesday.Pete Marovich for The New York TimesIn recent appearances, Mr. Biden has spoken comparatively softly, and has tried to make light of concerns about his age. “I’ve never been more optimistic about our country’s future in the 800 years I’ve served,” he said at a campaign event this month.But at a reception in California on Wednesday, Mr. Biden had sharp words for his predecessor.“We’re running because our most important freedoms — the right to choose, the right to vote, the right to be who you are, to love who you love — has been attacked and shredded,” the president told supporters. “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans are determined to destroy American democracy because they want to break down institutional structures.” More

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      Trump to Speak at Nonunion Factory Amid UAW Strike, Skipping the Debate

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      A day after President Biden appeared on a union picket line, the former president spoke at an auto parts factory in Michigan.Seeking more of the voters who first paved his way to the White House in 2016, former President Donald J. Trump rallied at a Michigan auto parts factory on Wednesday night, setting up a clash of messages aimed at blue-collar workers one day after President Biden appeared on a strike line with United Automobile Workers.Mr. Biden affirmed Tuesday his support for U.A.W. strikers’ demands for a 40 percent pay raise, while Mr. Trump has given no indication that he backs the union’s position. In his appearance at a nonunion factory on Wednesday, Mr. Trump was seeking to drive a wedge between rank-and-file workers and their leaders and to attack Mr. Biden by suggesting that his support for electric vehicles would cost American autoworkers their jobs.“I will not allow, under any circumstances, the American auto industry to die,” Mr. Trump said. “I want it to thrive.”“Get your union leaders to endorse me, and I’ll take care of the rest,” Mr. Trump said.Coming at the same time that other Republican primary candidates were debating on national television in California, Mr. Trump’s appearance outside Detroit sent the message that he had all but moved on from his lower-polling rivals and was focused on the potential for a rematch with Mr. Biden in 2024.Mr. Trump spoke at Drake Enterprises in Clinton Township, north of Detroit. The company’s 150 employees make gearshift levers for heavy-duty trucks, as well as components that go into cars made by General Motors and Ford. Its president, Nathan Stemple, said it was a nonunion shop.Before the former president took the stage, a few hundred people were seated on the floor of the factory, and at least one man in a red U.A.W. T-shirt said he was a union member and voiced support for the strike. The Trump campaign made no effort to recruit attendees through U.A.W. locals, according to the union.Hours after appearing with Mr. Biden on a picket line on Tuesday outside a G.M. facility in Belleville, Mich., Shawn Fain, the president of the U.A.W., told CNN: “I find a pathetic irony that the former president is going to hold a rally for union members at a nonunion business.”Mr. Fain denounced Mr. Trump’s lack of support during a strike against G.M. in 2019 when he was in office and said he had no plans to meet with the former president during his visit.Mr. Trump has long sought to separate rank-and-file union members from union leaders, who largely endorse Democrats. He has had notable success: He won about four in 10 votes from union households in 2020, according to exit polls.Mr. Trump repeated his recent attacks on the Biden administration’s push for electric vehicles and repeated a claim he made that autoworkers were being sold out by their leadership.The U.A.W., which argues that the transition to electric vehicles is inevitable and that it is driven by consumer demand, seeks to ensure that zero-emission vehicles are made by workers earning union wages.On Tuesday, as Mr. Biden became the first president of modern times to join a picket line, Mr. Trump issued a statement predicting that “in three years there will be no autoworker jobs” if Mr. Biden’s policies prevail, but that “with me, there will be jobs and wages like you’ve never seen before.” He delivered that message again in his address on Wednesday.Marick Masters, a professor of business with a focus on labor issues at Wayne State University in Detroit, said the economic uncertainty around the transition to electric vehicles worried many autoworkers, providing Mr. Trump with a political opening.“There’s a big question about how successful these companies are going to be in the transition to electric vehicles,” he said. “Trump’s message resonates, and it cuts across a broad swath of workers.”Mr. Stemple, Drake’s president, said a too-rapid switch to electric vehicles would decimate his family company. He noted that electric vehicles did not require gearshift levers, one of his main products. “A lot of shops like us wouldn’t survive that transition if it happened rapidly,” he said.Jason Walsh, executive director of the BlueGreen Alliance, a group that seeks common ground between unions and environmentalists, said Mr. Trump’s claim that the E.V. transition would drive American jobs to China “is almost exactly backwards.”“What the Biden administration is trying to do is actually bring jobs back from China by investing in revitalizing American auto manufacturing,” he said.Mr. Trump’s record with autoworkers is decidedly mixed. During his term, he pressured automakers to keep their factories in the United States rather than Mexico. Auto manufacturing jobs climbed in his first year in office, before flattening and dipping — and then the pandemic sent them plunging. Under Mr. Biden, auto jobs have exceeded their highest level under Mr. Trump.The location of Mr. Trump’s speech carried political symbolism: Macomb County, north of Detroit, was home to the original “Reagan Democrats,” the blue-collar voters who in the 1980s deserted the party that had traditionally advanced their standard of living, in favor of Republican messaging coded in racial division. More

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      Shawn Fain, U.A.W. Leader, Says He Won’t Meet Trump in Michigan

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      Shawn Fain, the president of the United Automobile Workers union, said he was opposed to meeting the former president during his visit to Michigan on Wednesday.The leader of the United Automobile Workers union ruled out meeting former President Donald J. Trump, the 2024 Republican front-runner, when he visits Michigan on Wednesday, casting him as an out-of-touch billionaire who has been hostile toward the industry’s workers, who are currently on strike.When Shawn Fain, the U.A.W. president, was asked by CNN in an interview on Tuesday whether he would be open to such an audience with Mr. Trump, he said that there was no upside.“I see no point in meeting with him because I don’t think the man has any bit of care about what our workers stand for, what the working class stands for,” Mr. Fain said. “He serves a billionaire class, and that’s what’s wrong with this country.”His remarks came just hours after President Biden, at the invitation of Mr. Fain, joined a picket line outside a General Motors facility in Belleville, Mich., near Detroit.Mr. Trump’s campaign did not address Mr. Fain’s specific criticism on Wednesday, but contended that rank-and-file unions members did not uniformly share his views.“The reality is that there’s a disconnect between the political leadership of some of the labor unions and the working middle-class employees that they purport to represent,” said Steven Cheung, a spokesman for the Trump campaign. “President Trump will be in Michigan talking with union workers and ensuring American jobs are protected.”Mr. Fain stopped short of endorsing Mr. Biden’s re-election, but he had harsh words for Mr. Trump and his planned speech at a nonunion plant in Macomb County, Mich.“I find a pathetic irony that the former president is going to hold a rally for union members at a nonunion business,” Mr. Fain said.Mr. Fain said that Mr. Trump had blamed U.A.W. members and their contracts for the troubles of automakers during the 2008 recession. As a presidential candidate in 2015, he added, Mr. Trump supported moving jobs in the industry out of the Midwest, with fewer protections for union workers. Mr. Fain also asked why the former president did not show solidarity with General Motors workers in 2019, while Mr. Trump was in office, when they were on strike for 60 days.“I didn’t see him hold a rally,” Mr. Fain said. “I didn’t see him stand up at the picket line, and I sure as hell didn’t hear him comment about it. He was missing in action.” More

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      Trump, Weighing In on Auto Strike, Has a Mixed Legacy on Unions

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      The former president will be making a campaign stop in Michigan on Wednesday amid the United Automobile Workers’ strike. He has both appeased unions and sought to circumvent them.As a businessman, Donald J. Trump at first tried to circumvent labor unions, then spent decades largely appeasing them to avoid costly strikes.During his first presidential campaign, he boiled down labor issues to a grievance about other countries taking advantage of the United States.As president, he made appointments and adopted policies often more antagonistic to organized labor than those of many other Republicans.When Mr. Trump arrives in the Detroit area on Wednesday to interject himself into the United Auto Workers strike, he will bring with him a record of interactions with organized labor that, whether out of pragmatism or opportunism, has few straight lines.What may resonate the loudest with the current and former factory workers whom Mr. Trump hopes to reach is his decades-long history of reducing a host of economic and labor issues to the complaint that America’s leaders have allowed other countries to “rip off” the United States. He used that line of reasoning in announcing the Michigan trip, arguing that “dumb” government programs to promote electric vehicles would push all automobile production to China. “The all Electric Car is a disaster for both the United Auto Workers and the American Consumer,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform.He deployed the same logic in criticizing Shawn Fain, the United Auto Workers’ president, though what he thought Mr. Fain should do differently was not clear. “I think he’s not doing a good job in representing his union, because he’s not going to have a union in three years from now,” Mr. Trump said in a recent interview broadcast on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “Those jobs are all going to be gone because all of those electric cars are going to be made in China.”In many ways, that argument is a replay of one of the greatest hits from Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign, when he aligned himself with workers at a Carrier furnace plant in Indianapolis who faced layoffs after the company announced plans to move the operation to Mexico. At rally after rally, he said it would be easy for him to stop such departures, a message that appealed to former factory workers and those who felt at risk. In Detroit, that approach would allow him to strike a note of support to both workers and companies without choosing sides in the most consequential labor dispute in years.Members of the United Auto Workers union at a rally in Detroit last week.Cydni Elledge for The New York TimesMr. Trump’s visit will serve other political purposes as well. He has scheduled a prime-time speech at an auto parts manufacturer as a distraction from the Republican primary debate he chose not to attend, much as his interview with Tucker Carlson was scheduled to be released during the last primary debate. And in the contest to win over blue-collar voters, the appearance pits him directly against President Biden, who on Tuesday took the unusual step of appearing with Mr. Fain and speaking out in support of the union’s contract demands.Mr. Trump’s early interactions with labor unions were based on less complex concerns. As a young real-estate developer in 1980, Mr. Trump hired a nonunion crew of 200 undocumented Polish workers to demolish the Bonwit Teller department store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, clearing the way for what would become Trump Tower, his signature building and the first new construction he pursued on his own. The men were paid as little as $4 an hour, less than half the union wage, and worked 12-hour shifts without safety gear. Though he saved money in the short term, the long-term costs were significant. The treatment of those workers led to 15 years of litigation. Mr. Trump paid $1.375 million to settle the case, including a $500,000 payment to a union benefits fund. The terms of the settlement remained sealed until Mr. Trump became president and a judge released them over his objections.For the rest of his building career, Mr. Trump generally hired large construction companies, allowing him to complete major projects with a minimum number of full-time employees. Those companies typically handled the hiring and management of union workers. It was an era when organized crime lorded over many of the building trade unions in New York.“We had very little, if anything, to do with the unions,” said Barbara Res, who oversaw the construction of Trump Tower for Mr. Trump and worked with him for years. “That’s one of the benefits of having a construction manager. They take care of that crap.”When Mr. Trump ran casinos in Atlantic City, the owners negotiated as an association with the local hotel and casino workers union. John R. O’Donnell, who managed the Trump Plaza casino for several years starting in the late 1980s, said Mr. Trump was so terrified by the threat of lost business during a strike that he would mine his fellow association members and their lawyers for details on the owners’ strategy and then surreptitiously pass that information along to local union leaders. He said Mr. Trump’s typical efforts to reduce costs “did not apply when it came to the union,” because he was adamant that a strike “cannot happen.”“He worked against the association to help the unions, to the detriment of the rest of the city,” Mr. O’Donnell said. “He was going to sign a contract regardless.”In New York City, Mr. Trump developed a professional relationship with Peter Ward, the longtime president of the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council, which had members working in Trump-owned or -operated hotels. In 2011, Mr. Ward led his union to support Mr. Trump’s brief effort to take over operation of the Tavern on the Green restaurant in Central Park, which had been closed by a bankruptcy.“We have a long and good history with him,” Mr. Ward told The New York Post at the time of the Tavern on the Green agreement.During the transition after Mr. Trump won the 2016 election, Mr. Ward was among those on the president-elect’s official schedule for a face-to-face meeting at Trump Tower.Not all employees at Mr. Trump’s hotels and golf courses are unionized. Workers at the hotel that Mr. Trump co-owns in Las Vegas with the casino mogul Phillip Ruffin began a unionization drive in 2014. The owners pushed back against the effort, but ultimately signed a contract with the union the month after the 2016 election. In 2018, workers at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J., told a reporter for The New York Times that many employees there were undocumented immigrants; one worker said a manager had directed her to someone to help her obtain fraudulent records.After decades taking a counterintuitive approach to organized labor as a business owner, Mr. Trump made a sharp turn to the right once elected. Two of his choices for top Labor Department posts had been reliable antagonists of organized labor throughout their careers: Andrew Puzder, who as chief executive of a fast-food company repeatedly argued that labor regulations stifled economic growth; and Patrick Pizzella, a conservative lobbyist and government official who had spent years promoting the interests of businesses against those of unions.Mr. Puzder withdrew his nomination because of a lack of congressional support. Mr. Pizzella served as deputy secretary and acting secretary under Mr. Trump. As a lobbyist in the 1990s, he had been hired by the Northern Mariana Islands, a commonwealth of the United States where some workers earned less than $1 an hour, to ensure that Congress did not impose federal minimum wage and immigration laws there.As president, Mr. Trump signed executive orders that undid longstanding protections for two million unionized federal workers, including making it easier to fire and discipline government employees. His appointees demoted the senior civil servants who resolved most labor cases. Mr. Trump has said that if re-elected he will fire thousands of federal workers whom he considers part of a “deep state” filled with “villains.”His line of complaint about other countries taking advantage of the United States dates back to his earliest comments on national affairs. In September 1987, during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, Mr. Trump bought full-page advertisements in three major newspapers, including The Times, arguing that Japan, Saudi Arabia and other countries were “laughing at America’s politicians” because the United States paid their defense costs. “I was tired, and I think a lot of people are tired, of watching other countries ripping off the United States,” he said on CNN that night. “This is a great country. They laugh at us behind our backs. They laugh at us because of our own stupidity, and the leaders.”Nearly 30 years later, during the 2016 presidential campaign, Mr. Trump repeated almost those exact words after a video of Carrier managers announcing layoffs to employees in the Indiana plant gained wide attention. He said such moves would stop under his presidency because he would impose a 35 percent tariff on goods shipped from foreign factories that had replaced plants in the United States. “We’re going to make our products here,” he said. “Companies are taking advantage of us. And countries are abusing us. And the way you stop it is so easy.”The message resonated with voters at his rallies, as well as with Carrier employees. “I loved it,” Jennifer Shanklin-Hawkins, a worker at the company, told The Times. “I was so happy Trump noticed us.”Mr. Trump never instituted the sort of targeted tax threat he said would be so easy. He and Mike Pence, the vice president and former governor of Indiana, did help persuade Carrier to keep about 850 of those 1,400 jobs in Indiana, in exchange for $7 million in incentives from the state. The rest of the workers were laid off, and hundreds more workers at a nearby Carrier factory were also let go. Some said they ended up feeling like props for the Trump campaign.“There was still a layoff,” Ms. Shanklin-Hawkins told a reporter with The Indianapolis Star in 2020. “He lied completely.”Noam Scheiber More

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      The Teacher Shortage: Why, and What to Do?

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      More from our inbox:Mr. McCarthy, Put Country Before EgoDebate, Yes, but Without an AudienceReauthorize PEPFARHow Unions Help Companies Eleanor DavisTo the Editor:Re “People Don’t Want to Be Teachers Anymore. Can You Blame Them?,” by Jessica Grose (newsletter, nytimes.com, Sept. 13):As a retired teacher, I read this with heartfelt interest. Ms. Grose noted the cost of getting a degree, low pay and lack of respect as leading causes for our current shortage of teachers.Then again, when I entered the College of Education at the University of Minnesota in 1980, my friends thought I was crazy. There was little respect even then. Pay was even worse.I began as a pre-law student my freshman year in college. And then it happened. I saw the light. I remembered those teachers who had saved me. Teachers who had seen potential in me that I could not see for myself. My life was transformed by teachers.The courtroom seemed like a selfish ambition. The classroom felt like a journey of love, an opportunity to be inspired and to inspire each and every day. I walked into my college guidance counselor’s office and asked to transfer into the College of Education.No regrets. The 35 years I spent in the classroom taught me so many important lessons. I learned the importance of believing in excellence. I learned that I could help others become excellent. And most important, I discovered that belonging to a professional learning community was eternally gratifying.I understand that people don’t want to be teachers anymore. That was true in the 1980s, too. But for many of us who did become teachers, bliss. Can you say the same in your job today?Dan LarsenBarrington, Ill.To the Editor:Jessica Grose is spot on that financial barriers, mental wellness, culture wars and a profession that is out of step with the wants and needs of this generation are all contributing to teacher shortages across the country, especially in low-income communities.She also notes that people who consider teaching later in life could be a source of optimism. Don’t count Gen Z out. We just welcomed over 2,200 new Teach for America teachers — 40 percent more than last year, and most are recent college graduates.This generation is giving us so much optimism: They understand the experiences and needs of today’s students, and want careers that have meaningful impact, align with their values and foster community. Collectively we have to create the conditions for this generation to say yes to careers in education.Jemina R. BernardStamford, Conn.The writer is president and chief operating officer of Teach for America.To the Editor:I agree with everything Jessica Grose has to say in this piece about the current decline in the number of college graduates who choose to become teachers. I would, however, suggest an additional reason for this decline. Simply put, women graduates today have more career choices than in the past.When I graduated in 1962, most of my friends and I became teachers. What were our choices? Teaching, nursing, or go to Katharine Gibbs and learn to type. Today I have two 24-year-old granddaughters; one is an architectural engineer, the other is enrolled in a graduate program that will enable her to become a clinical researcher.Neither even considered a career as a teacher. Nor did my 51-year-old daughter, who is an attorney.Beverly StautzenbachVenice, Fla.Mr. McCarthy, Put Country Before Ego Kenny Holston/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Hard Right in Congress Sows Havoc,” by Carl Hulse (news analysis, front page, Sept. 25):Mr. Hulse’s article is deeply disturbing insofar as 20 or so radical conservative Republicans can force a government shutdown.There is a simple solution if Speaker Kevin McCarthy would choose to put the country before his own political ego and his party: Walk across the aisle with willing Republicans and speak with Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic minority leader, to vote with the Democrats to approve the budget.Mr. McCarthy should ask himself what a leader and patriot like Senator John McCain would do in a similar situation. Mr. McCarthy’s constituents might surprise him with their support if he demonstrates some real courage.Brian HousealBrunswick, MaineDebate, Yes, but Without an Audience Brian Snyder/ReutersTo the Editor:My suggestion to improve the debates being broadcast on TV would be to get rid of the audience. Then candidates would no longer waste time throwing out these sound bites for the applause and cheers.Perhaps that may help them to listen to the question posed to them by the moderator and possibly answer it.In addition, getting rid of the audience might even force people watching the debates at home to think for themselves when making a decision regarding a candidate, since they would have no idea what everyone else is thinking.Imagine that.Laura KleinPinecrest, Fla.Reauthorize PEPFARAdministering an H.I.V. test in 2012 at a Johannesburg clinic supported by PEPFAR.Foto24/Gallo Images, via Getty ImagesTo the Editor:Re “Will Republicans Abandon This Medical Triumph?” (column, Sept. 21):Nicholas Kristof’s piece about PEPFAR is spot on: PEPFAR’s work to prevent and treat H.I.V. and AIDS around the world has saved over 25 million lives, and should absolutely be reauthorized by Congress.But even beyond that extraordinary achievement, PEPFAR has ushered in a culture of accountability and efficiency across virtually all sectors of global health, not just H.I.V. and AIDS care.PEPFAR’s accountability standards require foreign governments and implementing NGOs to use data, evaluations (such as randomized control trials), and advanced analytics to measure results and demonstrate value for money.The result: It now costs PEPFAR dramatically less to save each life. In 2014, it cost $315 to give lifesaving treatment to one person for one year. By 2022, that had fallen to $59. Those are industry-changing results.Countries are now using tactics developed by PEPFAR for other health programs, from disaster response to seasonal outbreaks.With PEPFAR’s focus on efficiency and results, the American people can be confident that another five-year authorization would be money well spent.Hannah CooperTyler SmithThe writers are the co-founders of Cooper/Smith, an organization focused on using data to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of foreign aid programs.How Unions Help Companies Evan Cobb for The New York TimesTo the Editor:What has been missing in articles about the current United Auto Workers strike at General Motors, Ford and Stellantis is that having a union is not just about fighting for good wages and benefits but also about fighting for its important role in helping companies.Having a union, whether it’s at G.M., Starbucks or a hospital, can help management avoid making bad decisions, create innovative changes by utilizing the skills and knowledge of the frontline staff, and optimize the use of new technologies.Having a “collective voice” to pressure management to avoid making bad decisions and consider alternative approaches has resulted in improving productivity and the quality of products in companies and hospitals up to 30 percent, reducing costs and at times creating new jobs and additional revenue.Maybe the current strike can help U.S. managers realize that unions can be of benefit to them, too, rather than view them as a burden?Peter LazesWest Stockbridge, Mass.The writer is a visiting professor at the School of Labor and Employment Relations, Penn State, and co-author of the book “From the Ground Up: How Frontline Staff Can Save America’s Healthcare.” More

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      What Republicans Say (and Don’t Say) About the Auto Workers’ Strike

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      It has been interesting to watch the response of Republicans to the United Auto Workers strike against the Big Three American car manufacturers: General Motors, Ford and Stellantis (formerly Chrysler).The most openly anti-worker view comes from Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, who condemned the striking workers as insolent and ungrateful in a stunning display of conservative anti-labor sentiment. “I think Ronald Reagan gave us a great example when federal employees decided they were going to strike,” Scott said at a campaign event in Iowa. “He said, ‘You strike, you’re fired.’ Simple concept to me, to the extent that we can use that once again.” Scott also criticized the union’s demands. “The other things that are really important in that deal is that they want more money working fewer hours. They want more benefits working fewer days.” In America, he continued, “that doesn’t make sense.”Most other Republicans have sidestepped any discussion of the workers themselves in favor of an attack on electric vehicles and the Biden administration’s clean energy policies. “I guarantee you that one of the things that’s driving that strike is that Bidenomics, and their green energy, electric vehicle agenda is good for Beijing and bad for Detroit, and American autoworkers know it,” former Vice President Mike Pence said during a recent interview on CNBC.Donald Trump took a similar swing at the same target. “The all Electric Car is a disaster for both the United Auto Workers and the American Consumer,” Trump wrote last week. “They will all be built in China and, they are too expensive, don’t go far enough, take too long to charge, and pose various dangers under certain atmospheric conditions. If this happens, the United Auto Workers will be wiped out, along with all other auto workers in the United States. The all Electric Car policy is about as dumb as Open Borders and No Voter I.D. IT IS A COMPLETE AND TOTAL DISASTER!”That much was expected. But beyond the presidential contenders, there were also the ostensibly populist Republicans who have placed workers at the center of their case.“Autoworkers deserve a raise — and they deserve to have their jobs protected from Joe Biden’s stupid climate mandates that are destroying the U.S. auto industry and making China rich,” Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri said. Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio wrote that he was “rooting for the autoworkers across our country demanding higher wages and an end to political leadership’s green war on their industry.” Likewise, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida pinned the strike on “a radical climate agenda that seeks the end of gas-powered cars even if it means destroying American jobs,” adding: “Instead of supporting either union bosses or C.E.O.s we need to support American workers who want policies that protect their jobs.”You’ll notice that for all the talk about workers, not one of these more populist Republicans has actually said their demands should be met. They haven’t affirmed the right of labor to strike. They haven’t even blamed management for the strike, despite the fact that the U.A.W. is taking aim at rising corporate profits, which it believes could support higher wages, cost-of-living protections and stronger benefits — and the two-tier system that pays new workers less than veteran workers for the same work.And they haven’t voiced support for the largest, most ambitious organizing goal of the U.A.W. — the unionization of new electric vehicle and battery factories, either as part of a new contract or pursued through new organizing. If anything, Republican attacks on electric vehicles work to obscure the nature of the conflict, which is less about a new product category than about the balance of power between labor and management in the American auto industry.As (my former editor and colleague) Harold Meyerson notes in a piece for The American Prospect:The long-term future of the U.A.W. truly hinges on its ability to unionize the Big Three’s non-union competitors and their own non-union E.V. factories springing up in the right-to-work South. As today’s Wall Street Journal points out, the S.E.C. reports that total compensation (wages and benefits) for the median-paid worker at Tesla’s factories is a bare $34,084, while for the median worker at GM, it’s $80,034; at Ford, $74,691; and at Stellantis, $68,683. Total compensation at the Big Three and non-Big Three new E.V. and battery factories, as well as at the non-E.V. foreign-owned auto factories that are spread across the South, also falls well short of the levels that U.A.W. members make at the Big Three.“In short,” he concludes, “the union won’t long be able to realize the kind of gains its members need unless it can level up the standards at Tesla et al., lest it be compelled to face a long-term leveling down to Elon Musk’s idea of what a proper division of revenue should be.”Or as the U.A.W.’s first-ever directly member-elected president, Shawn Fain, wrote last week in a Guardian opinion essay co-authored with Representative Ro Khanna of California:The electric vehicle transition must be as much about workers’ rights as it is about fighting the climate crisis. We will not let the E.V. industry be built on the backs of workers making poverty wages while C.E.O.s line their pockets with government subsidies. There is no good reason E.V. manufacturing can’t be the gateway to the middle class. But the early signs of this industry are worrying. We will not let corporate greed manipulate the transition to a green economy into a roll back of economic justice.The extent to which Republicans are indifferent to these questions of power is key, because it puts the lie to the idea that the party has become pro-worker in any sense other than a few words and the occasional nod to blue-collar cultural identity. Josh Hawley, for example, opposed a 2018 effort to repeal Missouri’s anti-union “right to work” law. Marco Rubio, according to the AFL-CIO’s scorecard of members of Congress, is among the most anti-labor Republicans in the Senate. J.D. Vance railed against “union bosses” in his 2022 campaign, and Donald Trump (along with Mike Pence) ran one of the most anti-union presidential administrations in recent memory.In other words, Republican support for workers remains little more than rhetoric, signifying nothing. They have no apparent problem with management granting workers a modest increase in wages, but remain hostile to workers who seek to organize themselves as a countervailing force to corporate and financial power.What I WroteMy Tuesday column was on the basic analytical problem with the constant calls for Joe Biden to step away from the 2024 Democratic nomination.Absent an extraordinary turn of events, Biden will be on the ballot next year. He wants it, much of the institutional Democratic Party wants it, and there’s no appetite among the men and women who might want to be the next Democratic president to try to take it away from him. Democrats are committed to Biden and there’s no other option, for them, but to see that choice to its conclusion.My Friday column, building somewhat on the Tuesday one, was on Donald Trump, abortion and the political burdens of presidential leadership.Trump is no longer the singular figure of 2016. He is enmeshed within the Republican Party. He has real commitments to allies and coalition partners within the conservative movement. He is the undisputed leader of the Republican Party, yes, but he can’t simply jettison the abortion issue, which remains a central concern for much of the Republican base.And in the most recent episode of my podcast with John Ganz, we discussed the film “The American President” with Linda Holmes of NPR’s “Pop Culture Happy Hour.”Now ReadingSamuel Clowes Huneke on “wokeness” for The Los Angeles Review of Books.Michael Szalay on the politics of prestige television for Public Books.Dinah Birch on anonymous letters for The London Review of Books.Lola Seaton on “political capitalism” for The New Left Review.Amy C. Offner on neoliberalism for Dissent.Photo of the WeekA photo from the archive! This is the Art Deco Model Tobacco building in Richmond, Va., built around 1940. I took this photo in 2018 with a camera I have long since sold. The building itself has been converted into apartments.Now Eating: Greek-Style White BeansThis is a very simple recipe for Greek-style white beans from The Rancho Gordo Vegetarian Kitchen series, Volume 1. The book calls for lima beans, but any large white bean will do. You’ll want to use dried beans. Other than that, however, the recipe is yours to play with. I cook anchovies along with the vegetables and tomatoes for some additional umami, and I tend to let the beans cook in the oven for longer than 30 minutes — I like them a little on the drier side. I also go a little easy on the olive oil.Be sure to garnish with additional feta and a lot of herbs — dill, parsley and mint all work well here. You would also do well to buy, or make, some pita bread to have on the side.Ingredients½ cup olive oil (divided use)1 large carrot, peeled and finely chopped1 celery stalk, finely chopped½ onion, finely chopped2 tablespoons tomato paste½ pound large white beans, cooked and drained1 large, ripe tomato, chopped3 tablespoons minced fresh dillsalt and freshly ground pepperfeta cheeseDirectionsPreheat the oven to 350 degrees.In a large skillet, warm 2 tablespoons of the olive oil over medium heat. Add the carrot, celery, and onion; sauté until the vegetables are soft, about 5 minutes. Stir in the tomato paste.In a large baking dish, combine the sautéed vegetables, beans, tomato and remaining olive oil. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and dill. Add feta, if desired.Bake until the beans are soft and creamy, about 30 minutes. More