What the UAW Wants From Its Fight With the Big Three

Joe Weisenthal (0:10)

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast. I'm Joe Weisenthal.

Tracy Alloway (0:15)

And I'm Tracy Alloway.

Joe Weisenthal (0:16)

Tracy, you know, a few episodes that we've done lately, from different angles, has suggested to me, we really need to talk more about, well, the sort of the labor aspect of building cars, or the labor aspect of sort of this renewed industrialization in the US.

Tracy Alloway (0:35)

Right, because there is this whole discussion going on about whether or not the manufacturing process of EVs is significantly different to gas engine cars. And I think there's an ongoing debate about whether or not you need fewer workers in order to make an electrical vehicle, rather than say a traditional combustion engine.

Joe Weisenthal (0:57)

Right, so, you know, this to my mind, so we just did this, recently did an episode with Corey Cantor of Bloomberg NEF, where we talked about this.

We talked about it back in April at the Econ Twitter event, where there was a lot of talk about this sort of like pressure to drive down cost for batteries. But it also came up, you know, we talked to Jared Bernstein of the White House. And I think there's this tension, because obviously the sort of organized labor is this really important pillar of the Democratic Party and for the White House. And at the same time, there's this question about whether this push that the administration is making is gonna leave a lot of workers behind or cost a lot of jobs as part of this transition.

Tracy Alloway (1:37)

Right, there is this ongoing tension between wanting to create a vibrant and competitive EV industry and battery making in the United States, but also attaching better work conditions to it for workers. Like how do you actually compete against cheap labor in say China or Mexico when it comes to making EVs or batteries while sort of making sure that your workers have good wages, good living conditions and all of that.

Joe Weisenthal (2:07)

And then of course there's the fact that UAW, their contract with the big three automakers, GM, Ford and Stellantis, I believe it expires September 14th. So that is a date that is fast approaching and setting aside EVs and bionomics and industrialization, all these things we talk about, this has been a sort of summer of intense labor action. It was a pretty intense contract negotiation at UPS with the Teamsters, seems to have been resolved, averted without a strike.

But there is a lot of labor activity that seems to be happening right now.

Tracy Alloway (2:40)

Hot union summer, can we say that?

Joe Weisenthal (2:43)

I'm sure it's been said, I guarantee it's been said.

Tracy Alloway (2:46)

But this actually reminds me, I mean, one of the earlier episodes we did during the pandemic was about labor power in previous pandemics. I think we were talking about the great plague from the middle ages and what happened after that. But that was a big theme of that particular historical event, which is if you lose a big chunk of the workforce, well, suddenly all the remaining laborers are empowered and they can start asking for better conditions. And so to some extent, fast forward to 2023, we are basically seeing the continued outcome of a lot of the disruptions from the pandemic, plus some of these new efforts from the Biden administration.

Joe Weisenthal (3:26)

And the unemployment rate is low, there's still a lot of jobs and inflation is high. So people rightfully expect to have wages that improve their cost of living. So they're not falling behind. All right, many things coming together at once. So we really need to do an episode on exactly this topic. And I believe we have two perfect guests. We are gonna be speaking with Dan Vicente. He is the director of Region 9 at the UAW. And we are also going to be speaking with Alex Press, a staff writer at Jacobin Magazine, who's been covering labor action for a long time. I always talk to Alex when I want to understand something that's going on with the labor movement. So Dan and Alex, thank you so much for coming on the Odd Lots podcast.

Alex N. Press (4:07)

Yeah, thanks so much for having us.

Joe Weisenthal (4:10)

Dan, let me start with you. What is the, what do you do? What does it mean that you're the director of Region 9 at the UAW?

Daniel Vicente (4:18)

So I am the chief executive for all of the United Auto Workers in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Central and Western New York.

So we cover a wide range of sectors to include the auto sector, but higher education workers, cafeteria workers, casino dealers in Atlantic City, public defenders in Philadelphia County, Delaware County, Pennsylvania, all sorts of things. We represent all sorts of different workers throughout the three states.