Yahoo Autos Strike Continues As UAW And Big Three Are No Closer To A Contract
Good morning! It’s Monday, September 18, 2023, and this is The Morning Shift, your daily roundup of the top automotive headlines from around the world, in one place. Here are the important stories you need to know.
1st Gear: Shawn Fain On UAW Strike Progress: “I Don’t Really Want To Say We’re Closer”
The United Auto Workers are still striking against the Big Three, and it seems they may be doing so for quite a while. UAW President Shawn Fain made the rounds on news programs this past weekend to talk about how insufficient the offers from GM, Ford, and Stellantis have been — and how the union won’t be backing down without fair contracts. From Automotive News:
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Later Sunday morning, on CBS’s “Face The Nation,” Fain said the automakers’ most recent offers were insufficient. On Saturday, Stellantis released details of its most recent offer, which matched the 20 percent raises offered by GM and Ford.
“It’s definitely a no-go; we’ve made that very clear to the companies,” Fain said.
Fain also had a few words to say directly to the Big Three CEOs, after they stammered their way through invented justifications of their multimillion-dollar salaries. Also from Automotive News:
On both shows, Fain blasted recent comments by General Motors CEO Mary Barra that a majority of her compensation is based on performance.
“To say they’re paid for their performance, that’s completely incorrect,” Fain said. “They’re paid for our workers’ performance and it’s a shame that they make those millions off the backs of exploiting workers at poverty wages.”
Damn, it’s almost like the company wouldn’t perform at all without the workers. Barra et. al. may make the decisions, but the members of the UAW make the cars. I wonder which is more important.
2nd Gear: Turkey Wants A Tesla Factory
Tesla seems to always want growth, larger and larger until it blots out the sun, but that growth can be constrained by pesky things like “factory capacity” and “international trade.” The company’s four factories can only take it so far, so it’s only natural that Elon Musk is shopping around for new real estate. If he happens to be able to back an anti-democratic authoritarian in the process, well that’s just a bonus. From the Associated Press:
ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on Elon Musk, the head of electric carmaker Tesla, to establish a factory in Turkey during a meeting in New York, Erdogan’s office said Monday.
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The statement said Erdogan told Musk that Turkey would welcome cooperation on artificial intelligence and Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet service. Musk said SpaceX wanted to secure the necessary license to offer Starlink in Turkey.
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Turkish Industry and Technology Minister Mehmet Fatih Kacir, who attended the meeting, said Musk described Turkey as “among the most important candidates for Tesla investment.”
He added that Musk and Erdogan also discussed Turkey’s armed aerial drone program.
Of course, these talks are early — it’s entirely possible someone will do a mean tweet at Musk tomorrow, and he’ll forget the whole Turkey thing in order to focus on that. Who knows? The man cannot be predicted.
