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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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      Will Voters Send In the Clowns?

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      I’m not a historian, but as far as I know, America has never seen anything like the current political craziness. There have been bitter disputes within Congress — in 1856, Charles Sumner, an abolitionist senator, was attacked and severely injured by a pro-slavery representative. But these were conflicts between parties, and slavery was nothing if not a substantive issue.This time, however, the craziness is entirely within the Republican Party, which has just decapitated itself, and the insurgents don’t even seem to have any coherent demands. Many people have been calling the G.O.P. a “clown car,” and understandably so. This is a party that seems incapable of governing itself, let alone governing the nation.Yet Americans, by a wide margin, tell pollsters that Republicans would be better than Democrats at running the economy. Will they continue to believe that? The fate of the nation may depend on the answer.Regular readers know that I’ve been trying to make sense of negative public perceptions of the economy since the beginning of last year. At the time some of the economic news was bad: Inflation was high and wages were lagging behind prices, although job growth was very good. So it made sense for Americans to be somewhat down on the economy; but it didn’t seem to make sense for views of the economy to be as negative as they had been during the depths of the 2008 financial crisis or circa 1980, when America had both high inflation and high unemployment.Since then, however, the puzzle has become much deeper. The economic news in 2023 has been almost all good — indeed, almost surreally good. Inflation has come way down. Most measures that try to get at “underlying” inflation, extracting the signal from the noise, indicate that we may be getting close to 2 percent inflation, which is the Federal Reserve’s target. This suggests that the war on inflation has been largely won — and this victory has come without the large rise in unemployment some economists had insisted was necessary.Furthermore, wages are no longer lagging behind inflation. Most workers’ real wages — wages adjusted for inflation — are now significantly higher than they were before the pandemic. (Pandemic-era wage numbers were distorted by large layoffs of low-wage workers.)As a recent analysis in The Economist pointed out, given the historical relationship between economic fundamentals and sentiment, you would have expected Americans to be feeling pretty good about the economy right now. Instead, they’re feeling very gloomy — or at least telling pollsters that they feel gloomy. The Economist, not mincing words, says that “Americans’ opinions about the state of the economy have diverged from reality.” And voters appear to be more down on Democrats’ economic management than ever. Why?There are two main stories being used to explain bad feelings about an objectively good economy.One story is that we’re in a “vibecession,” in which people are buying into a negative narrative — to some extent purveyed by the news media — that is at odds not just with data but also with their own experience. Indeed, surveys show a huge gap between Americans’ view of their own financial situation, which is pretty good, and their views of the economy, that is, what they think is happening to other people. The notion that there’s a disconnect between perceptions of the economy and personal experience seems to be validated by the fact that consumer spending remains robust despite low economic confidence.I’ve been particularly struck by what people say about the news they’ve been hearing. We’ve gained 13 million jobs since Joe Biden took office, yet Americans consistently report hearing more negative than positive news about employment.That said, there’s another possible explanation for bad economic feelings: Americans may be upset that prices are high even though they’re not rising as fast as they were last year.Now, there has to be some statute of limitations on how far back people’s sense of “normal” prices reaches; I doubt that people are angry because you can no longer get a McDonald’s hamburger for 15 cents. But public perceptions of inflation may depend on the change in prices over several years rather than the one-year-or-less numbers economists usually emphasize. And if you measure inflation over, say, the past three years, it hasn’t come down yet (which is a contrast with 1984, the year of Morning in America, when short-term inflation was around 4 percent but three-year inflation was steadily falling).Which story is right? There’s probably some truth to both: Americans are upset about past inflation, but they also have false perceptions about the current state of the economy.The big question politically is whether these negative views will change in time for the 2024 election. Will people finally hear about the good news? Will they still be angry in November 2024 that prices aren’t what they were in 2020?Honestly, I have no idea. Objectively, the economy is doing well. But perceptions may not match that reality, and Americans may, as a result, vote to send in the clowns.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. 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

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      Lo que hay que saber sobre la huelga contra tres fabricantes de automóviles en EE. UU.

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      El sindicato y General Motors, Ford Motor y Stellantis siguen teniendo grandes diferencias en materia de salarios.[Lee aquí, en inglés, el minuto a minuto de la huelga automotriz en EE. UU.]El sindicato United Auto Workers (UAW), que representa a alrededor de 150.000 trabajadores de plantas automotrices estadounidenses, decretó una huelga ‘limitada y dirigida’ contra tres de las mayores fabricantes de automóviles del país la madrugada del viernes cuando el sindicato y las empresas no llegaron a un acuerdo para suscribir nuevos contratos.Las tres fabricantes —General Motors, Ford Motor y Stellantis, propietaria de Chrysler, Jeep y Ram— habían dicho que podrían verse obligadas a suspender o ralentizar la producción si no era posible llegar a un acuerdo para la medianoche del jueves. El presidente del UAW, Shawn Fain, enfatizó que el jueves es la “fecha límite, no un punto de referencia”.El sindicato buscaba negociar un contrato independiente a cuatro años con cada fabricante de automóviles. El UAW nunca se ha ido a huelga en las tres empresas al mismo tiempo, sino que ha preferido hacerlo una por una. Pero Fain había dicho que, en esta ocasión, tanto él como sus colegas están dispuestos a irse a huelga en las tres empresas.¿Cuál es el punto de desacuerdo en el conflicto laboral?La remuneración es el tema principal de las negociaciones.El UAW exige un aumento salarial del 40 por ciento en un periodo de cuatro años, lo cual, según Fain, no dista del aumento en el sueldo de los directores ejecutivos de dichas empresas en los últimos cuatro años.Hasta el pasado 8 de septiembre, la postura de ambas partes era muy distinta: las empresas ofrecían un incremento en los sueldos de entre un 14 y un 16 por ciento en cuatro años. Fain calificó la oferta de “ofensiva” y señaló que el sindicato está firme en su objetivo de un aumento del 40 por ciento.¿Qué papel desempeña el cambio a los autos eléctricos en las negociaciones?La industria automotriz se encuentra en plena transición masiva a los vehículos operados con batería, por lo que GM, Ford y Stellantis están invirtiendo miles de millones de dólares en el desarrollo de nuevos modelos y la construcción de fábricas. Las empresas han dicho que esas inversiones les dificultan pagarles salarios más altos a los trabajadores. Afirman que ya de por sí se encuentran en gran desventaja competitiva con respecto a fabricantes de automóviles no sindicalizadas como Tesla, que domina el mercado de los vehículos eléctricos.Al UAW le preocupa que las empresas aprovechen la transición a los automóviles eléctricos para recortar empleos o contratar más trabajadores no sindicalizados. El sindicato busca que las fabricantes de automóviles cubran a los trabajadores de las fábricas de baterías en sus contratos nacionales con el UAW. En este momento, esos trabajadores no tienen representación sindical o bien se encuentran en negociaciones de contratos independientes. Pero las empresas argumentan que legalmente no pueden aceptar esa solicitud porque esas plantas son proyectos de coinversión.¿Qué ocurrió en la última huelga del UAW?La huelga más reciente del UAW ocurrió en 2019, y fue contra General Motors. Casi 50.000 empleados de General Motors dejaron de trabajar durante 40 días. La empresa informó que la huelga le había costado 3600 millones de dólares.La huelga concluyó después de que ambas partes llegaron a un acuerdo que le puso fin a una estructura salarial de dos niveles conforme a la cual a los empleados más nuevos se les pagaba mucho menos que a los veteranos. GM también convino en pagarles más a los trabajadores.¿Cómo afectaría a la economía una huelga contra las tres fabricantes de automóviles?Una pausa prolongada en la producción de automóviles podría producir una reacción en cadena en muchas partes de la economía estadounidense.Una huelga de 10 días podría costarle a la economía 5000 millones de dólares, según cálculos de Anderson Economic Group. Una huelga más prolongada podría comenzar a afectar los inventarios de automóviles en las distribuidoras, lo que elevaría el precio de los vehículos.La industria automotriz se encuentra en una situación más vulnerable que en 2019, la última vez que el UAW se fue a huelga. Al principio de la pandemia, la producción de automóviles se detuvo y produjo una reducción marcada en la oferta de vehículos. Los inventarios de autos nacionales se mantienen en aproximadamente una cuarta parte del nivel que tenían a finales de 2019.¿Una huelga tendrá ramificaciones políticas?Definitivamente podría tenerlas.El presidente Joe Biden se ha descrito como “el presidente más partidario de los sindicatos laborales” e intentó cimentar sus relaciones con los sindicatos laborales antes de arrancar su campaña de reelección. Pero el UAW, que por lo regular apoya a los candidatos demócratas, como lo hizo con Biden en su contienda en 2020, no ha declarado que vaya a apoyarlo en la campaña de 2024.El sindicato teme que la decisión de Biden de promover los vehículos eléctricos pueda erosionar más la cantidad de miembros de los sindicatos en la industria automotriz. Fain ha criticado al gobierno por otorgar grandes incentivos federales y préstamos para nuevas fábricas sin exigir que esas plantas empleen a trabajadores sindicalizados.El expresidente Donald Trump, que muy probablemente conseguirá la candidatura republicana, ha intentado ganarse a los miembros del UAW. Ha criticado las políticas de Biden para la industria automotriz y el clima por considerarlas negativas para los trabajadores y los consumidores.J. Edward Moreno es el becario David Carr 2023 en el Times. Más de J. Edward Moreno More

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      What to Know About the Potential Autoworkers Strike

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      The union and the carmakers remain far apart on wages.The United Auto Workers union, which represents about 150,000 workers at U.S. car plants, could strike against three of the country’s largest automakers on Friday if the union and the companies are unable to reach new contracts.The three automakers — General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis, which owns Chrysler, Jeep and Ram — could be forced to stop or slow production if an agreement isn’t reached by midnight on Thursday. The president of the U.A.W., Shawn Fain, said that Thursday was the “deadline, not a reference point.”The union is negotiating a separate four-year contract with each automaker. The U.A.W. has never struck against all three companies at once, preferring to target one at a time. But Mr. Fain has said he and his members are willing to strike against all three this time.What’s at issue in the labor dispute?Compensation is at the forefront of negotiations.The U.A.W. is demanding 40 percent wage increases over four years, which Mr. Fain says is in line with how much the salaries of the companies’ chief executives have increased in the past four years.As of last Friday, the two parties remained far apart, with the companies offering to raise pay by 14 to 16 percent over four years. Mr. Fain called that offer “insulting” and has said that the union is still seeking a 40 percent pay increase.What role is the switch to electric cars playing in the negotiations?The auto industry is in the middle of a sweeping transition to battery-powered vehicles, and G.M., Ford and Stellantis are spending billions of dollars to develop new models and build factories. The companies have said those investments make it harder for them to pay workers substantially higher wages. Automakers say they are already at a big competitive disadvantage compared with nonunion automakers like Tesla, which dominates the sale of electric vehicles.The U.A.W. is worried that the companies will use the switch to electric cars to cut jobs or hire more nonunion workers. The union wants the automakers to cover workers at the battery factories in their national contracts with the U.A.W. Right now those workers are either not represented by unions or are negotiating separate contracts. But the automakers say they cannot legally agree to that request because those plants are set up as joint ventures.What happened in the last U.A.W. strike?The U.A.W. most recently went on strike in 2019 against General Motors. Nearly 50,000 General Motors workers walked out for 40 days. The carmaker said that strike cost it $3.6 billion.The strike ended after the two sides reached a contract that ended a two-tier wage structure under which newer employees were paid a lot less than veteran workers. G.M. also agreed to pay workers more.How would a strike against the three automakers affect the economy?A long pause in car production could have ripple effects across many parts of the U.S. economy.A 10-day strike could cost the economy $5 billion, according to an estimate from Anderson Economic Group. A longer strike could start affecting inventories of cars at dealerships, pushing up the price of vehicles.The auto industry is in a more vulnerable place than it was in 2019, the last time the U.A.W. staged a strike. In the earlier part of the pandemic, car production came to a halt, sharply reducing the supply of vehicles. Domestic car inventories remain at about a quarter of where they were at the end of 2019.Will a strike have political ramifications?It definitely could.President Biden has called himself “the most pro-labor union president” and sought to solidify his ties with labor unions ahead of his re-election campaign. But the U.A.W., which usually endorses Democratic candidates including Mr. Biden in his 2020 run, has held off endorsing him for the 2024 race.The union fears that Mr. Biden’s decision to promote electric vehicles could further erode union membership in the auto industry. Mr. Fain has criticized the administration for awarding large federal incentives and loans for new factories without requiring those plants to employ union workers.Former President Donald J. Trump, who is most likely to secure the Republican nomination, has been seeking to win over U.A.W. members. He has criticized Mr. Biden’s auto and climate policies as bad for workers and consumers. More

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      UAW Standoff Poses Risk for Biden’s Electric Vehicle Commitment

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      A looming auto industry strike could test the president’s commitment to making electric vehicles a source of well-paying union jobs.President Biden has been highly attuned to the politics of electric vehicles, helping to enact billions in subsidies to create new manufacturing jobs and going out of his way to court the United Automobile Workers union.But as the union and the big U.S. automakers — General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis, which owns Chrysler, Jeep and Ram — hurtle toward a strike deadline set for Thursday night, the political challenge posed by the industry’s transition to electric cars may be only beginning.The union, under its new president, Shawn Fain, wants workers who make electric vehicle components like batteries to benefit from the better pay and labor standards that the roughly 150,000 U.A.W. members enjoy at the three automakers. Most battery plants are not unionized.The Detroit automakers counter that these workers are typically employed in joint ventures with foreign manufacturers that the U.S. automakers don’t wholly control. The companies say that even if they could raise wages for battery workers to the rate set under their national U.A.W. contract, doing so could make them uncompetitive with nonunion rivals, like Tesla.And then there is former President Donald J. Trump, who is running to unseat Mr. Biden and has said the president’s clean energy policies are costing American jobs and raising prices for consumers.White House officials say Mr. Biden will still be able to deliver on his promise of high-quality jobs and a strong domestic electric vehicle industry.The head of the United Automobile Workers, Shawn Fain, center, wants his union’s wages and labor standards to apply to nonunion workers who make electric vehicle components.Brittany Greeson for The New York Times“The president’s policies have always been geared toward ensuring not only that our electric vehicle future was made in America with American jobs,” said Gene Sperling, Mr. Biden’s liaison to the U.A.W. and the auto industry, “but that it would promote good union jobs and a just transition” for current autoworkers whose jobs are threatened.But in public at least, the president has so far spoken only in vague terms about wages. Last month, he said that the transition to electric vehicles should enable workers to “make good wages and benefits to support their families” and that when union jobs were replaced with new jobs, they should go to union members and pay a “commensurate” wage. He is encouraging the companies and the union to keep bargaining and reach an agreement, one of Mr. Biden’s economic advisers, Jared Bernstein, told reporters on Wednesday.A strike could force Mr. Biden to be more explicit and choose between his commitment to workers and the need to broker a compromise that averts a costly long-term shutdown.“Battery workers need to be paid the same amount as U.A.W. workers at the current Big Three,” said Representative Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California who has promoted government investments in new technologies.Mr. Khanna added, “It’s how we contrast with Trump: We’re for creating good-paying manufacturing jobs across the Midwest.”At the heart of the debate is whether the shift to electric vehicles, which have fewer parts and generally require less labor to assemble than gas-powered cars, will accelerate the decline of unionized work in the industry.Foreign and domestic automakers have announced tens of thousands of new U.S.-based electric vehicle and battery jobs in response to the subsidies that Mr. Biden helped enact. But most of those jobs are not unionized, and many are in the South or West, where the U.A.W. has struggled to win over autoworkers. The union has tried and failed to organize workers at Tesla’s factory in Fremont, Calif., and Southern plants owned by Volkswagen and Nissan.A Ford Lightning plant in Dearborn, Mich. The U.A.W. worries that letting battery makers pay lower wages will allow G.M., Ford and Stellantis to replace much of their current U.S. work force with cheaper labor.Brittany Greeson for The New York TimesAs a result, the union has focused its efforts on battery workers employed directly or indirectly by G.M., Ford and Stellantis. The going wage for this work tends to be far below the roughly $32 an hour that veteran U.A.W. members make under their existing contracts with three companies.Legally, employees of the three manufacturers can’t strike over the pay of battery workers employed by joint ventures. But many U.A.W. members worry that letting battery manufacturers pay far lower wages will allow G.M., Ford and Stellantis to replace much of their current U.S. work force with cheaper labor, so they are seeking a large wage increase for those workers.“What we want is for the E.V. jobs to be U.A.W. jobs under our master agreements,” said Scott Houldieson, chairperson of Unite All Workers for Democracy, a group within the union that helped propel Mr. Fain to the presidency.The union’s officials have pressed the auto companies to address their concerns about battery workers before its members vote on a new contract. They say the companies can afford to pay more because they collectively earned about $250 billion in North America over the past decade, according to union estimates.But the auto companies, while acknowledging that they have been profitable in recent years, point out that the transition to electric vehicles is very expensive. Industry executives have suggested that it is hard to know how quickly consumers will embrace electric vehicles and that companies needed flexibility to adjust.Even if labor costs were not an issue, said Corey Cantor, an electric vehicle analyst at the energy research firm BloombergNEF, it could take the Big Three several years to catch up to Tesla, which makes about 60 percent of fully electric vehicles sold in the United States.A strike could force Mr. Biden to choose between his commitment to workers and the need to avert a costly shutdown of the U.S. auto industry.Bill Pugliano/Getty ImagesData from BloombergNEF show that G.M., Ford and Stellantis together sold fewer than 100,000 battery electric vehicles in the United States last year; in 2017, Tesla alone sold 50,000. It took Tesla another five years to top half a million U.S. sales. (The Big Three also sold nearly 80,000 plug-in hybrids last year.)The three established automakers had hoped to use the transition to electric cars to bring their costs more in line with their competitors, said Sam Fiorani, vice president of global vehicle forecasting at AutoForecast Solutions, a research firm. If they can’t, he added, they will have to look for savings elsewhere.In a statement, Stellantis said its battery joint venture “intends to offer very competitive wages and benefits while making the health and safety of its work force a top priority.”Estimates shared by Ford put hourly labor costs, including benefits, for the three automakers in the mid-$60s, versus the mid-$50s for foreign automakers in the United States and the mid-$40s for Tesla.Ford’s chief executive, Jim Farley, said in a statement last month that the company’s offer to raise pay in the next contract was “significantly better” than what Tesla and foreign automakers paid U.S. workers. He added that Ford “will not make a deal that endangers our ability to invest, grow and share profits with our employees.”Mr. Biden and Democratic lawmakers had sought to offset this labor-cost disadvantage by providing an additional $4,500 subsidy for each electric vehicle assembled at a unionized U.S. plant, above other incentives available to electric cars. But the Senate removed that provision from the Inflation Reduction Act.Such setbacks have frustrated the U.A.W., an early backer of Mr. Biden’s clean energy plans. In May, the union, which normally supports Democratic presidential candidates, withheld its endorsement of Mr. Biden’s re-election.“The E.V. transition is at serious risk of becoming a race to the bottom,” Mr. Fain said in an internal memo. “We want to see national leadership have our back on this before we make any commitments.”The next month, Mr. Fain chided the Biden administration for awarding Ford a $9.2 billion loan to build three battery factories in Tennessee and Kentucky with no inducement for the jobs to be unionized.A BMW battery plant in South Carolina. The U.A.W. has struggled to unionize autoworkers in the South.Juan Diego Reyes for The New York TimesMr. Biden tapped Mr. Sperling, a Michigan native, to serve as the White House point person on issues related to the union and the auto industry around the same time. By late August, the Energy Department announced that it was making $12 billion in grants and loans available for investments in electric vehicles, with a priority on automakers that create or maintain good jobs in areas with a union presence.Mr. Sperling speaks regularly with both sides in the labor dispute, seeking to defuse misunderstandings before they escalate, and said the recent Energy Department funding reflected Mr. Biden’s commitment to jump-start the industry while creating good jobs.Complicating the picture for Mr. Biden is the growing chorus of Democratic politicians and liberal groups that have backed the autoworkers’ demands, even as they hail the president’s success in improving pay and labor standards in other green industries, like wind and solar.Nearly 30 Democratic senators signed a letter to auto executives this summer urging them to bring battery workers into the union’s national contract. Dozens of labor and environmental groups have signed a letter echoing the demand.The groups argue that the change would have only a modest impact on automakers’ profits because labor accounts for a relatively small portion of overall costs, a claim that some independent experts back.Yen Chen, principal economist of the Center for Automotive Research, a nonprofit group in Ann Arbor, Mich., said labor accounted for only about 5 percent of the cost of final assembly for a midsize domestic sedan based on an analysis the group ran 10 years ago. Mr. Chen said that figure was likely to be lower today, and lower still for battery assembly, which is highly automated.Beyond the economic case, however, Mr. Biden’s allies say allowing electric vehicles to drive down auto wages would be a catastrophic political mistake. Workers at the three companies are concentrated in Midwestern states that could decide the next presidential election — and, as a result, the fate of the transition to clean energy, said Jason Walsh, the executive director of the BlueGreen Alliance, a coalition of unions and environmental groups.“The economic effects of doing that are enormously harmful,” he said. “The political consequences would be disastrous.” More

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      Restaurants and Unions Agree to Raise Pay to $20 an Hour in California

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      The deal will avoid a ballot fight over a law passed last year that could have resulted in higher pay and other changes opposed by restaurant companies and franchisees.Labor groups and fast-food companies in California reached an agreement over the weekend that will pave the way for workers in the industry to receive a minimum wage of $20 per hour.The deal, which will result in changes to Assembly Bill 1228, was announced by the Service Employees International Union on Monday, and will mean an increase to the minimum wage for California fast-food workers by April. In exchange, labor groups and their allies in the Legislature will agree to the fast-food industry’s demands to remove a provision from the bill that could have made restaurant companies liable for workplace violations committed by their franchisees.The agreement is contingent on the withdrawal of a referendum proposal by restaurant companies in California that would have challenged the proposed legislation in the 2024 ballot. Businesses, labor groups and others have often used ballot measures in California to block legislation or advance their causes. The proposed legislation would also create a council for overseeing future increases to the minimum wage and enact workplace regulations.“With these important changes, A.B. 1228 clears the path for us to start making much-needed improvements to the policies that affect our workplaces and the lives of more than half a million fast-food workers in our state,” Ingrid Vilorio, a fast-food worker and union member, said in a statement released by the S.E.I.U.Sean Kennedy, executive vice president of public affairs at the National Restaurant Association, said the deal also benefited restaurants. “This agreement protects local restaurant owners from significant threats that would have made it difficult to continue to operate in California,” he said. “It provides a more predictable and stable future for restaurants, workers and consumers.”Last year, the California Legislature passed Assembly Bill 257, which would have created a council with the authority to raise the minimum wage to $22 per hour for restaurant workers. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed it on Labor Day last year.But the bill met fierce opposition from business interests and restaurant companies, and a petition received enough signatures to put a measure on the November 2024 ballot to stop the law from going into effect.Other business groups in California have successfully used that tactic to change or reverse legislation they opposed.In 2020, ride-sharing and delivery companies like Uber and Instacart campaigned for and received an exemption from a key provision of Assembly Bill 5, which was signed by Mr. Newsom and would have made it much harder for the companies to classify drivers as independent contractors rather than employees.Those companies collected enough signatures to get the issue on the ballot as Proposition 22, which passed in November 2020. More than $200 million was spent on that measure, making it the costliest ballot initiative in the state at the time.And in February, oil companies received enough signatures for a measure that aims to block legislation banning new drilling projects near homes and schools. That initiative will be on the 2024 ballot.In response to calls from advocacy groups who have said the referendum process unfairly benefits wealthy special-interest groups, and in an effort to demystify a system that many Californians say is confusing, Mr. Newsom signed legislation on Sept. 8 that aims to simplify the referendum process. More

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      ‘I’m OK, but Things Are Terrible’

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      If President Biden loses his bid for re-election, a key factor will be the widespread perception that the economy is doing badly on his watch. Poll after poll shows Americans rating economic conditions as very bad and giving Biden very low approval for his economic management.The strange thing is that these bad ratings are persisting even as the economy, by any normal measure, has been doing extremely well. Indeed, we’ve just experienced what Goldman Sachs is calling the “soft landing summer.” Inflation is down by almost two-thirds since its peak in June 2022, and this has happened without the recession and huge job losses many economists insisted would be necessary. Real wages, especially for nonsupervisory workers, are significantly higher than they were before the pandemic.Oh, and to correct a widespread misconception: No, these figures don’t exclude food and energy prices. The government does calculate measures of “core” inflation excluding those prices, but those are only for analytical and policy purposes.So why are people so negative about an economy that by all standard measures is doing very well?When I first began writing about the disconnect between public economic perceptions and what appeared to be economic reality, I got a lot of pushback, of two distinct kinds.First, there was the argument that there were real economic problems that justified public negativity. People really hate inflation, even if their incomes are keeping up, and a year ago real wages were still somewhat depressed. But at this point inflation is way down and real wages are up.Second, there was the argument that, in effect, the customer is always right: If people feel that they’re doing badly, you should figure out why, not lecture them that they should be feeling better.But here’s the funny thing: There’s substantial evidence that people don’t feel that they personally are doing badly. Both surveys and consumer behavior suggest, on the contrary, that while most Americans feel that they’re doing OK, they believe that the economy is doing badly, where “the economy” presumably means other people.Let me run through some of this evidence.The Federal Reserve conducts an annual survey of the economic well-being of households. At the end of 2022, 73 percent of households said that they were “at least doing OK financially,” down from the previous year (presumably because of the end of many pandemic aid programs) but not significantly below the number in 2019. In 2019, however, half the population said that the national economy was good or excellent; in 2022 that number was down to just 18 percent.Are people still doing OK? Well, consumer spending has been strong, suggesting that American families aren’t too worried about their financial situation.What about inflation? According to a recent poll by The Wall Street Journal, 74 percent of Americans say that inflation has moved in the wrong direction over the past year — a result stunningly at odds with the data, which shows inflation plunging. But are people really experiencing rising inflation?As it happens, several organizations regularly survey consumers to ask how much inflation they expect, and these expectations have come way down, which is completely at odds with claims that inflation is getting worse.Even better, I’d argue, are surveys that ask businesses not about the national economy but about their own prices or costs.The National Federation of Independent Business asks small-business owners whether they have increased or reduced prices over the past three months. More businesses are raising than are lowering prices, but the difference is much smaller than it was last year. The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta asks businesses how much they expect their costs to rise over the next year; their median answer is 2.5 percent, down from 3.8 percent last year.So when people are asked about their own experiences, not “the economy,” what they say about inflation is consistent with official data showing rapid improvement.The bottom line is that there is a real disconnect between what Americans say about the economy and reality — not just official data, but even their own experiences. It’s silly to deny that this disconnect exists.What explains negativity about a good economy? Partisanship is surely a factor: Republicans’ assessment of the current economy roughly matches what it was in June 1980, when unemployment was twice as high and inflation four times as high as they are now. Beyond that, the events of the past few years — not just inflation and higher interest rates but also the disruption Covid caused to everyone’s lives, and perhaps the sense that America is coming apart politically — may have engendered a sourness, an unwillingness to acknowledge good news even when it happens.Now Biden administration officials are trying hard to sell their economic accomplishments, as they should — if they don’t, who will? But will public opinion turn around? Nobody knows. We’re living in a world in which what people believe may have little to do with facts, including the facts of their own lives.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More