Posts tagged Supply chain
Why it seems like everyone’s going on strike on Biden’s watch
September 19, 2023 // Biden was able to intervene directly in talks between railroads and rail workers since federal law gives the government a big say in that industry’s labor relations due to its economic importance. And his top Labor Department official was involved in a deal this year between West Coast ports and dockworkers. Here’s how the administration publicly stepped in — or didn’t — in some of organized labor’s most high-profile moments.
UAW strike 2023 against Detroit automakers: Live updates, news from the picket sites
September 15, 2023 //
The UAW Might Drive the Big Three off a Cliff
September 14, 2023 // Automakers face this reality every day. General Motors is losing money on every electric vehicle, a situation that it hopes to change by 2025, though the path is far from certain. Ford’s EV line is expected to lose $4.5 billion this year, up nearly 50 percent over last year. Stellantis’s CEO has said the costs of the EV transition are “beyond the limits,” meaning the industry can’t continue down this road without making EVs prohibitively expensive.
Right-to-work was key to pandemic recovery
September 11, 2023 // Workers themselves have more flexibility to switch jobs, move within companies, and start businesses, all of which have economic as well as personal benefits. Job creators find it easier to expand and hire more people, and other companies are more likely to move from out-of-state, creating more jobs. These benefits have been clear for decades. Right-to-work states see more jobs created, faster-growing wages, and higher personal income growth than states that force workers to pay unions they don’t support. The pandemic clarified the need for this policy like never before, as government lockdowns, economic mandates, and supply-chain issues caused countless businesses to cut jobs or even shut down for good. Workers and job creators needed all the help they could get, and right-to-work was a huge source of relief. In fact, it still is, with some of the pandemic’s negative effects still lingering.
Biden’s Union Problems Are a Gift to Trump
September 8, 2023 // Former President Donald Trump, who won Michigan by just under 11,000 votes in one of the biggest political upsets of the 2016 election, weighed in on the possibility of a strike over the Labor Day weekend, referring to Fain as a "respected" union head and vowing to stop the "madness" of electric vehicles. A labor action from UAW is likely to open up an opportunity for Trump to seize one of Michigan's most critical counties. Recent polls show that Biden is in a statistical dead heat against Trump. The Democrat is leading by just one percentage point, according to RealClearPolitics' polling averages. "Fain is in no hurry to endorse President Biden when a significant number of UAW members supported former President Trump in previous elections," Arthur Wheaton, the director of Labor Studies at Cornell University, told Newsweek. "Why risk fractures in union solidarity during a crucial bargaining period. No upside to endorsing now and plenty of potential downside in an extremely difficult bargaining time at the Detroit Three." Political consultant Jay Towsend said that while a UAW strike would be unlikely to damage Biden's image as a union supporter, the economic impact and turmoil that a labor action could cause would give his re-election campaign "a headache it does not need, especially in rust-belt states he must win."
From Strikes to New Union Contracts, Labor Day’s Organizing Roots Are Especially Strong Across the Country This Year
September 5, 2023 // The first U.S. Labor Day celebration took place in New York City on Sept. 5, 1882. Some 10,000 workers marched in a parade organized by the Central Labor Union and the Knights of Labor. A handful of cities and states began to adopt laws recognizing Labor Day in the years that followed, yet it took more than a decade before President Grover Cleveland signed a congressional act in 1894 establishing the first Monday of September as a legal holiday.
ABC: Final Davis-Bacon Rule Undermines Taxpayer Investments in Infrastructure
August 9, 2023 // “The final rule comes in the midst of challenging economic conditions facing the construction industry, including high materials costs and a skilled labor shortage of more than half a million in 2023,” said Brubeck. “The onerous new requirements and artificial inflation of construction costs imposed by this rule will only exacerbate these headwinds and undermine taxpayer investments in infrastructure.” ABC submitted nearly 70 pages of comments on the DOL’s proposed rule, and its more than 50 significant changes, urging the DOL to withdraw the proposal. The 1931 Davis-Bacon Act and related regulations require contractors and subcontractors that perform work on federal and federally funded construction projects of $2,000 or more to pay a government-determined prevailing wage and benefit rate on an hourly basis to on-site construction workers. According to the DOL rulemaking, the Davis-Bacon Act and 71 active Related Acts collectively apply to an estimated $217 billion in federal and federally assisted construction spending per year—about 63% of all government construction put in place—and provide government-determined wage rates for an estimated 1.2 million U.S. construction workers. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that repealing the 1930s-era Davis-Bacon Act would save the federal government $24.3 billion in spending between 2023 and 2032. A May 2022 study found that the Davis-Bacon Act costs taxpayers an extra $21 billion a year, increases the price tag of construction projects by at least 7.2% and inflates construction workforce wages by 20.2% compared to local market averages if the DOL calculated prevailing wages using modern and scientific methodology via the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
‘This is a problem’: Biden faces looming strikes that could rock economy
July 25, 2023 // Privately, some Democrats said the White House was caught off-guard by Fain’s ascension to the top of UAW. They described Biden’s team as currently being in an information-gathering mode about the union’s new leadership — a stark contrast from the close relationship it had enjoyed with former UAW president Ray Curry. Other Democrats said the White House was clearly aware of Fain’s criticism of how the Biden administration had doled out federal funds. But privately, some people in Biden’s orbit have continued to express worries that there’s distance between his agenda and a major union representing voters in a state key to his reelection. Biden’s senior staff has told allies “that the rhetoric from the new UAW leadership is concerning, this is a problem, and we’ve got to figure this out together,” according to a person familiar with the administration’s thinking.
Michigan businesses urged to prepare for UPS strike by Teamsters
July 21, 2023 // So just how big is UPS to cause such concerns? It transports about 6 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product. When it comes to total revenue from the nation’s domestic shipping, the U.S. Postal Service had the largest share at 32 percent in 2022 followed by UPS at 24 percent, Amazon Logistics at 23 percent, and FedEx with 19 percent, per the Pitney Bowes Parcel Shipping Index. UPS averaged 24.3 million parcels a day last year and 6.2 billion for 2022, which generated a company record $100.3 billion in revenue,
Teamsters, UPS battle may be just a warmup for future Amazon fight, experts say
July 10, 2023 // Such a protest would be the largest single-company strike in decades; the union last walked off the job at UPS in 1997 for a 15-day strike that snarled the package supply chain worldwide. But talks between the Teamsters, who represent about 340,000 UPS workers, and the company collapsed Wednesday despite appearing to have reached a deal days earlier. Each side blamed the other for walking away after marathon Independence Day negotiations failed to yield an agreement despite signs of early progress.