Rick Haglund: Will the brand new UAW president’s powerful discuss translate to wins on the bargaining desk?

Fain seems to have ripped just a few pages out of Yokich’s playbook as he leads the union into contract negotiations this yr with GM, Ford and Stellantis. The talks might show to be probably the most fraught for employees and the automakers for the reason that home auto trade practically collapsed within the late 2000s.

The brand new UAW president, the primary to be immediately elected by the members, has drawn a line within the sand with automakers. Fain vowed to finish the two-tier wage construction by which newly employed employees earn lower than incumbent employees doing comparable jobs, halt wage-and-benefit concessions and root out corruption within the union.

“In the present day we put the businesses on discover: the combating UAW is again,” he mentioned in a video message to the union’s practically 400,000 members, most of whom are employed exterior of the auto trade in casinos, universities, hospitals, state and native governments and different organizations.

One longtime trade insider advised me he doesn’t assume the union and automakers will be capable of attain new contracts with out a walkout. The present four-year pacts expire on Sept. 14.

“I’m totally anticipating a strike. [Fain is] speaking powerful. It’s not simply him, it’s his complete crew,” mentioned veteran auto journalist John McElroy, who hosts a wide range of on-line automotive packages. “I don’t anticipate a kumbaya singalong.”

Fain’s bomb throwing comes as employees nationwide are organizing and demanding higher pay and dealing situations. Greater than 2,500 union illustration petitions have been filed with the Nationwide Labor Relations Board within the newest fiscal yr that ended on Sept. 30, a 53% enhance from 2021.

That was the best variety of union illustration petitions filed since 2016, in response to the NLRB. 

And a Gallup ballot final yr discovered that 71% of Individuals approve of labor unions, the best share since 1965. Little greater than half of Individuals authorised of unions only a decade in the past.

This is able to appear to be a superb yr for the UAW to money in on the bargaining desk. Regardless of plant shutdowns throughout the COVID pandemic and lingering laptop chip shortages, automakers are ringing up billions of {dollars} in income.

UAW members are benefitting from the windfall in document revenue sharing funds at GM and Stellantis and near-record payouts at Ford this yr.

However on the identical time, automakers are quickly slicing prices to afford billions of {dollars} in electrical automobile improvement. Ford laid off 3,000 salaried staff final August whereas 5,000 white-collar employees took buyouts at GM this month.

Earlier this yr, GM reportedly reduce 500 salaried jobs, a transfer described by McElroy as a direct response to fears that the Federal Reserve’s price hikes might push the economic system into recession later this yr.

Automakers are “listening to [Federal Reserve Chairman] Jerome Powell say, ‘I’m going to maintain elevating rates of interest till I kill this economic system,’ ” McElroy mentioned.

Have been that to occur, it might be unhealthy information for the UAW’s prospects on the bargaining desk.

Fain additionally faces the duty of attempting to restore a fractured union whereas on the identical time main essential nationwide auto contract talks for the primary time.

The chief of the upstart UAW Members United caucus, Fain narrowly defeated incumbent President Ray Curry by a 50.2%-to-49.8% margin. And solely about 14% of eligible members and retirees voted within the election.

“That alerts there’s disaffection within the UAW,” mentioned Harry Katz, a professor of collective bargaining at Cornell College. “I wouldn’t say [Fain] has an amazing mandate.”

Katz, who has studied auto trade labor negotiations for many years, mentioned it’s improper to assume the UAW all of the sudden grew a backbone with Fain’s election.

“Previous presidents weren’t wimps. They negotiated sturdy agreements” that have been according to financial realities on the time, mentioned Katz, a member of the UAW’s Public Assessment Board, an unbiased panel of teachers that guidelines on appeals involving member disputes with the union.

Katz mentioned he thinks the doubtless final result of this yr’s auto contract talks would be the UAW successful a better base wage, the restoration of a cost-of-living allowance and the narrowing of the two-tier wage hole.

However the UAW shall be exhausting pressed to protect and develop jobs, he mentioned, partially due to the transition to electrical automobiles. The union has estimated that 35,000 jobs may very well be worn out in vegetation that produce engines and transmissions for gasoline-powered automobiles.

The UAW, which at present has about 150,000 members on the Detroit Three, additionally has failed to prepare employees at overseas automakers and new electrical automobile producers, corresponding to Tesla and Rivian.

All of it provides as much as what may very well be a minefield for the comparatively unknown Fain, who should stability sharp-edged discuss with deft negotiating expertise.

“It’s not simple, even for an skilled bargainer,” Katz mentioned.