Detroit automakers survived a pandemic and semiconductor shortage. They were embracing a historic transition to the electric-vehicle era, underwritten by billions in subsidies from the Biden administration. Profits were rolling in.The walkout led by United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain at three General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis NV factories is no ordinary labour-versus-industry clash.
The UAW strike also is perilous for President Joe Biden, who has made building an EV and battery manufacturing industry a pillar of his economic agenda.
Enter Fain, the first UAW president to be directly elected by the membership, after two of his predecessors and their underlings did prison time for spending union funds on golf clubs, luxury lodgings and steak dinners with champagne and cigars. When Stellantis and UAW leadership gathered for the second time last month, Mark Stewart, the COO for North America, wasn’t physically present — he joined via videoconference from Acapulco, Mexico, where he has a second home.
All the while, Fain has made gospel of criticising the companies’ CEO pay packages and multibillion-dollar share buybacks. He rattled off these figures during his latest national media appearance on Monday, telling NPR that the union had “minimal” conversations with all three carmakers over the weekend.
When Bill Ford, Farley and about a dozen executives arrived at the conference room on the second floor of Ford’s headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan, they were greeted at the door by UAW Vice President Chuck Browning, who explained Fain wasn’t coming.