https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/09/18/joe-biden-uaw-strike-electric-cars-esg-green/
As the clock turned 12:01am on Friday, the United Auto Workers (UAW) began their strike against Ford and General Motors. Not all union workers left the assembly line as part of the “rolling strike,” where some workers stay on the job (and earn their paychecks) while others walk the picket line. They’ll probably be picketing for a while: the union and the auto companies are still far apart on key demands.
Joe Biden has given the union his strong backing, proudly claiming he is the most pro-union president in history. He may well be, but the irony is that most of the union demands seek to undo the damage caused by his own policies.
All Americans, including autoworkers, have faced two consecutive years of falling incomes and spending-fuelled inflation under Biden – a loss the UAW wants to make up for under new contracts. The prospect of job losses from electric vehicles – directly tied to Biden’s aggressive environmental policies – has driven another key demand from the U. They want to protect their union jobs as the industry follows Biden’s mandates, shifts to EVs, and slices the number of hours needed to produce every car and truck.
Those demands would be hard for companies to meet under the best conditions. They are much harder because the administration’s massive, mandated disruption of the auto and truck market creates huge uncertainty for manufacturers. They simply don’t know if ordinary consumers will buy the more expensive EVs at the same pace they have bought gas powered ones. This uncertainly makes manufacturers even more reluctant than usual to offer pay hikes and job guarantees.
That’s not all the bad news for negotiators. Right now, traditional manufacturers are losing buckets of money on EVs. They are saddled with legacy costs and facilities and are forced to compete with a host of new firms without them, spearheaded by Elon Musk’s Tesla.