UAW's New President Wants Big Three To Know He Isn't Playing Around

The three automakers face a wild card entering contract negotiations in the coming days: a new reform-minded president who is trying to restore camaraderie at the UAW after a multiyear corruption scandal. He is already throwing out the traditional playbook used by past union leaders and girding for a strike, potentially at more than one company.

Fain’s rejection of this long-celebrated ceremony, in which auto chief executives and union leaders would gather before the press for a cordial handshake, is yet another sign that this summer’s talks are going to be challenging.

“There’s no point in having a big pomp and [circumstance] ceremony where we act like we’re friends, and we’re working together, when we’re not,” said Fain, while meeting with workers at a Ram truck factory in Sterling Heights, Mich.

“The membership comes first. That’s our job.”

The handshake tradition dates back to at least the 1960s and has long marked a nervous period in the Motor City as work rules and contract economics are laid out for the following years. The pageantry around the negotiations’ start has become symbolic for both sides.

Fain is looking to protect jobs and boost hourly wages, especially for less-senior workers, in an era when all three car companies are converting their fleets from gas-powered vehicles to electric ones.

Inflation has also hit a four-decade high, hurting workers’ pocketbooks, and the union plans to push for the return of yearly cost-of-living adjustments and other benefits lost during harder times when the union made concessions to help the car companies survive.

Mike Caldwell, a union representative at the Ram truck factory, said many of these items are must-haves to win his support for any tentative agreement reached.

“It seems like they’re willing to step up and address a lot of these things,” Caldwell said of the new union leadership.

Lucid Group said its second-quarter production dropped from the previous three months while deliveries stayed flat, sending the shares of the luxury electric-vehicle maker down about 12% on Wednesday.

The Saudi Arabia-backed startup has been struggling to ramp up production in the face of supply chain issues, while a price war started by market leader Tesla in January has intensified competition.

Lucid delivered 1,404 vehicles in the quarter to June 30, compared with 1,406 deliveries in the previous quarter. Its production fell 6% sequentially to 2,173 vehicles.

The company had trimmed its 2023 production forecast and reported a lower-than-expected first-quarter revenue in May as it took a hit from Tesla’s price war and rising interest rates.