There is a decent episode on this on The Daily by the NYT. Gives some historical context of the give and take of the unions and big 3.<p>One takeaway, this particular new union leader is the first directly elected one in a very long time. Prior to this the union leader was selected in a good 'ole boys manner by union reps and sort of rotated. After the justice department found quite a bit of graft and bribery they required a new election and Shawn Fain won in a razor thin recount.<p>As a result the UAW for the first time in a long time got a populist representative of the average union worker, thus the hard line strike. So for those of you against unions because of corruption, etc. This is what it looks like when there is at least less of that, a good thing.<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/12/podcasts/the-daily/ford-general-motors-strike.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/12/podcasts/the-daily/ford-g...</a>
I honestly don't know how the Big 3 will be able to fiscally handle the UAWs demands all while tooling up for an EV future. They'll have to raise prices of existing profitable vehicles (trucks & crossovers) in order to pay for all this. Meanwhile Tesla will be miles ahead in terms of technology and room to lower prices while still turning a profit, and if any of their foreign competitors are able to successfully come up with an attractive EV crossover (admittedly a big if), then they could be in for some real trouble.
Auto profits are falling. Whule I wish everyone higher pay, there must be enough pie for a bigger slice. This will likely, and sadly, get worse for both workers and automakers before it gets better, or offshored.
Pretty good gig: get unsustainable pay and pensions during good times. Funnel a bunch of it into politics. Get pensions guaranteed and bailed out in bad times. Been this way since the 60s