Posts tagged Supply chain
Right-to-work was key to pandemic recovery
October 31, 2023 // Of course, right-to-work isn’t the only policy that helps states rebuild. Most of the best performers also have lower tax rates and impose less red tape on entrepreneurs. These and other pro-liberty policies encourage job creation and wage growth. But you don’t have to think hard to realize the benefits that come from protecting workers’ freedom. 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.
UAW members grow weary five weeks into strike, supply starts to thin
October 20, 2023 // Fletcher says workers are waiting for Ford and Stellantis to put all Electric Vehicle battery production in a UAW agreement similar to what GM pledged to do two weeks ago. But he said he feels Ford has given them a good enough offer he can live with. "Like I tell all these young guys – they’re wanting the moon and the stars – take what you can get before you lose what you got," he said. Experts in the auto industry are saying the strike has prompted a widening shortage of midsize trucks, which were already in short supply when the strike began in mid-September.
Prolonged UAW strike will ‘collapse’ supply chains, Ford chair warns
October 18, 2023 // “This should not be Ford versusthe UAW,” Ford said. “This should be Ford and the UAW versus Toyota, Honda, Tesla, and all the Chinese companies that want to enter our home market. Toyota, Honda, Tesla and the others are loving this strike because they know the longer it goes on, the better it is for them. They will win and all of us will lose.” UAW President Shawn Fain disagreed with Ford’s framing. “It’s not the UAW and Ford against foreign automakers,” Ford said, in remarks published by Detroit News reporter Jordan Grzelewski. “It’s autoworkers everywhere against corporate greed.” Ford warned that an extended strike would challenge supply chains not only at the automaker, but throughout the economy.
AUTOS Ford lays off 700 who were building electric version of F-150
October 17, 2023 // The company said it will temporarily cut one of the three shifts at its Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Dearborn, Michigan, near the company's main headquarters. It will rotate the layoffs between the three shifts. Ford had temporarily closed the plant this summer to upgrade its production capability, and the company said this latest layoff is related to "multiple constraints, including the supply chain and working through processing and delivering vehicles held for quality checks after restarting production in August."
Ford says it is ‘at the limit’ with UAW contract offer
October 13, 2023 // Ford officials said on Thursday that cutting a deal that does not allow the company to survive makes no sense and that striking the Kentucky truck plant would also hurt the UAW's profit-sharing checks. In a sign of the strike's expanding impact, Delta Air Lines (DAL.N) said on Thursday it is feeling a pinch from the automotive and entertainment labor strikes. Delta President Glen Hauenstein said the UAW strike has curtailed a "significant" amount of business in Detroit. Automakers have more than doubled initial wage hike offers, agreed to raise wages along with inflation and improved pay for temporary workers, but the union wants higher wages still, the abolishment of a two-tier wage system and the expansion of unions to battery plants. The UAW has room to expand its walkouts and increase the pressure on the Detroit Three to offer bigger wage gains, richer retirement packages and more assurances that new electric vehicle battery plants will be unionized.
Auto suppliers say if UAW strikes expand to more plants, it could mean the end for many
September 20, 2023 // There are about 1,000 supplier facilities in Michigan, he said, noting that 96 of the top 100 suppliers to the North American auto market either have their headquarters or a facility in Michigan. So if the strike expands to other automaker plants and lasts into weeks, the job layoffs could reach into tens of thousands. "You have the direct employment and you have the multiplier affect of each of the automotive jobs and that is between six to 10 people for every one automaker job, so it’s substantial," Stevens said. "This is the largest industry in our economy. It has an economic contribution of over $300 billion annually to the state of Michigan.
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.