Shawn Fain for President

[Lowell]

Okay, he already is President, of the UAW. A year and a half ago he, as a literal unknown, squeaked into the Presidency by a mere 500 votes and ousted a UAW old guard that has been stained by the corruption of two its recent presidents and had gone soft on bargaining with management. It was the first democratic election in the Union history where the workers voted directly for their President.

Fain has now rocketed to national and international fame for using an innovative and brilliant bargaining tactics that has won UAW workers their greatest victory ever. By taking on all of the Big 3 at once, but limiting strikes to targeted plants, he both stung the companies to action while limiting damage to them and the striking workers.

Wages always get the biggest billing and there he won big gaining a 25% increase over the life of the contract. For historical comparison, the union said its workers saw pay increases of 23% for all the years from 2001 through 2022. COLA was regained and the biggest thorn, tiers, was resolved.

The impact of this victory will not go unnoticed by nonunion auto workers, particularly in nonunion foreign automakers here in the States that Fain has promised to target. At the very least their employers will be forced to raise pay and benefits to fend off organizing efforts.

Here in Michigan, a lot more money will be in the hands of workers to the benefit of our economy.

Bravo Shawn Fain!

[Lowell]

Also worthy of note in terms of jobs and impact on the Detroit economy are the investment agreements won as cited in today's Free Press. Ford's $8.1 commitment is detailed in the article. The others are still being determined.

In its tentative deal with the UAW, Ford has proposed $8.1 billion in plant investments by the end of the 2023 agreement. Here's where the investments are to go to:

Assembly operations

• Chicago Assembly Plant in Illinois: $400 million to continue building the Ford Explorer, including the hybrid electric and Police Interceptor Utility. Lincoln Aviator will continue through its product life cycle.
• Dearborn Truck Plant/Rouge Electric Vehicle Center [[REVC): $900 million to continue building the F-150, including hybrid electric and Raptor. The all-electric F-150 Lightning will continue through its product life cycle. An all-new EV truck will be added.
• Flat Rock Assembly Plant: $50 million to continue building the Mustang. Pending program approval, new product will be added.
• Kansas City Assembly Plant in Claycomo, Missouri: $1 billion to continue building the F-150, including hybrid electric and Police Interceptor. Transit will continue. The Transit EV will continue through its planned product life cycle.
• Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville: $750 million to continue building Super Duty, Expedition including hybrid, and Lincoln Navigator including hybrid electric.
• Louisville Assembly in Kentucky: $1.2 billion to continue building the Escape through its planned product life cycle and the Lincoln Corsair through its planned product life cycle. A new EV product will be added.
• Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne including Integral Stamping and Assembly and Body Stamping Unit: $250 million to continue building the Ranger and Ranger Raptor, the Bronco and Bronco Raptor. A third production crew will be added. Stamping for the Mustang, Bronco, Bronco Raptor, Ranger, Ranger Raptor, F-150, Expedition, Navigator and Super Duty will continue. Stamping for the Escape and the Corsair will continue through their planned life cycle.
• Ohio Assembly Plant in Sheffield: $2.1 billion to continue building Super Duty, F-650 and F-750 pickups, E-Series cutaway and stripped chassis. A new EV van will be added.

Engine operations

• Dearborn Engine Plant: $20 million to continue building the Duratec engine and 5.2L SC engine. An all-new EV battery pack is planned.
• Cleveland Engine Plant in Brook Park, Ohio: $100 million to continue making the Duratec and Cyclone engines.
• Lima Engine Plant in Ohio: $90 million to continue making Cyclone and Nano engines.
• Woodhaven Forging: $3 million to continue the current engine family forgings. A forged steel crankshaft for the 7.3L engine program will be added.

Transmission and driveline

• Livonia Transmission: $120 million to continue building 10R transmission, 8FM transmission, and 6R transmission through its planned product life cycle. Current gears will continue.
• Sharonville Transmission in Cincinnati, Ohio: $160 million to continue 10R transmission and current gear families. And 6R transmission will continue through its planned product life cycle.
• Van Dyke Electric Powertrain Center in Sterling Heights: $230 million to continue current EV power unit, 8F57 transmission, HF55 transmission and 6F and HF45 through their planned life cycles. A new EV power unit will be added.
• Rawsonville Components in Ypsilanti: $200 million to continue GEN IV battery and add additional capacity, continue BEV H and BEV G batteries through their planned life cycle, add an all new hybrid battery. AIS, Carbon cannisters, sequencing and 10R oil pump will continue, coil on plug and 6R oil pump will continue through their planned life cycles.
• Sterling Axle: $130 million to continue axle production for the F-150, Super Duty, Mustang, Expedition, Navigator, Explorer, Transit. Lincoln Aviator axle production continues through its product life cycle.

Stamping

• Buffalo Stamping in New York: $80 million to continue stamping for Super Duty, Expedition, Navigator, E-Series and medium-duty F-Series trucks. Continue stamping Edge, Lincoln Nautilus through their planned product life cycles. Add stamping for an all new EV.
• Chicago Stamping: $30 million to continue stamping for Explorer, Transit and Super Duty. Continue stamping for Aviator through its planned life cycle.
• Dearborn Stamping: $150 million [[shared with plant below) to continue stamping for F-150, Expedition, Navigator, Bronco, Super Duty. Stamping for Lightning will continue through its planned life cycle. Stamping for all new EV at REVC.
• Dearborn Diversified Manufacturing: $150 million [[shared with plant above) to continue hydroforming for the F-150, Expedition, Navigator, Bronco, Super Duty. Axle, shock, tire front wheel end assembly for F-150. Tire and wheel will continue for Edge through its planned life cycle.
• Woodhaven Stamping: $150 million to continue stamping for Explorer, Bronco, Mustang and service parts. Stamping for a new EV will be added. Stampings and hot metal forming for Escape, Corsair and Aviator will continue through their planned life cycle. Stampings and hot metal forming for Explorer will continue.

The UAW also negotiated the right to strike over a plant closing or sale.
Where General Motors stands on product commitments

A UAW spokesman told the Detroit Free Press on Tuesday that the list for GM has not yet been released.

Where Stellantis stands on product commitments

A UAW spokesman told the Free Press that the complete list for Stellantis has not yet been released. The tentative agreement, though, does include the reopening of the Belvidere Assembly Plant in Illinois with a new vehicle and the addition of more than 1,000 jobs at an EV battery facility.

Contact Phoebe Wall Howard: 313-618-1034 or phoward@freepress.com. Follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter @phoebesaid.

[Jimaz]

Okay, he already is President, of the UAW. A year and a half ago he, as a literal unknown,...

Unknown indeed. His name sounded familiar when I first heard it but google couldn't find much of interest.

It sounded Irish so then it didn't take long to discover that I was confusing "Shawn Fain" with "Sinn Féin," the Irish political party.

Not sure how much of a connection there is but I found that interesting.

[401don]

I think like a sports team that's signs an expensive free agent or makes a big trade the jury is out for a while. Let's check back in 5 yrs. and see how the domestic automakers are handling the higher costs vs. the competition, and how ev's are impacting both the companies and employee levels.

[Lowell]

The money certainly not going to UAW management. Shawn Fain's annual salary is $347,389. He is essentially running a billion dollar corporation with $288 M in revenue. The top salary in comparable-size corporations would be deep into seven figures.

In addition to labor peace the companies are gaining labor loyalty and the costs are well within their earnings. Labor is only 5% of vehicle cost. This is win-win.

I think like a sports team that's signs an expensive free agent or makes a big trade the jury is out for a while. Let's check back in 5 yrs. and see how the domestic automakers are handling the higher costs vs. the competition, and how ev's are impacting both the companies and employee levels.

[401don]

The money certainly not going to UAW management. Shawn Fain's annual salary is $347,389. He is essentially running a billion dollar corporation with $288 M in revenue. The top salary in comparable-size corporations would be deep into seven figures.

In addition to labor peace the companies are gaining labor loyalty and the costs are well within their earnings. Labor is only 5% of vehicle cost. This is win-win.

I didn't mean to imply Fain was the free agent. I meant to just draw a comparison with the uaw contract and a free agent signing. People are quick to judge either way but it takes a few years to see the outcome. Hopefully the foreign automakers are pressured to increase wages. Fain's success in unionizing them will be interesting to watch.

[jcole]

I've been wondering why parents would have named their son that since the first time I heard his name.

Unknown indeed. His name sounded familiar when I first heard it but google couldn't find much of interest.

It sounded Irish so then it didn't take long to discover that I was confusing "Shawn Fain" with "Sinn Féin," the Irish political party.

Not sure how much of a connection there is but I found that interesting.

[Jimaz]

I've been wondering why parents would have named their son that since the first time I heard his name.

And of course "Shawn" itself isn't an unusual name so the real question is whether his name was chosen to sound similar to "Sinn Féin." {I believe "Sinn" is pronounced like the word "shin."}

It's just close enough to wonder whether there's a story there. But maybe there isn't. ¯\_{ツ}_/¯

Etymologies "Я" Us

• Sinn Féin

[renf]

Thank you, Lowell, for listing the major investments that Ford will make
to modernize their plants or build new ones, several of them near the
Detroit area. Perhaps the most effective way to increase the state's
near stagnant population is to create more job opportunities here.

The investments by the Detroit Medical Center and others in a new
medical/residential campus along west Grand will also lead to a rise
in employment. As our population ages, the very labor intensive
medical sector will need many more employees.

[Richard]

The money certainly not going to UAW management. Shawn Fain's annual salary is $347,389. He is essentially running a billion dollar corporation with $288 M in revenue. The top salary in comparable-size corporations would be deep into seven figures.

In addition to labor peace the companies are gaining labor loyalty and the costs are well within their earnings. Labor is only 5% of vehicle cost. This is win-win.

They do not tell you what his perks are above the base salary,considering the others were raking in over $5 million a year in “extras”.

Why should his salary be higher then the average workers? He pushes the socialist agenda,but in typical fashion,he excludes himself.

He says,billionaires should not exist,756 billionaires in the U.S. out of 350 million and without their investments and job creation where would we be?

Locally if you turned back the clock and Mr Gilbert did not exist or all of the billion dollar companies,where would Detroit be today.

We already experienced what happens when the money leaves cities and places like Cuba are fine examples of what it looks like when you depend on the government in order to fund your city.

Everybody wants everybody else to live equally,but them.

There seems to be some convoluted thought patterns if the one with money shared it with everybody else we would all be rich,without thinking that the ones with money got it by creating it.

Its not like there is some big pile of cash sitting there waiting to be split up.

By that reasoning if the auto workers are making $70 per hour and the waitress is making $15 per hour,the auto workers should take a lower wage or split their paycheck with the waitress.

[Henry Whalley]

Bravo Shawn Fain!

Agreed 100%

For the past fifty years or more -- at least since the assassination of Walter Reuther -- there have been few credible or admirable "leaders" in the U.S. labor movement. Mostly there have been co-opted clowns, scoundrels, and Persons Who Lunch, to paraphrase Merle Rubine. My feelings toward labor during those years has been somewhere on a spectrum between apathy and disdain.

But then, by Jove, the U.S. DOJ accidentally began breathing new life into labor's moribund anus when it forced the Teamsters into receivership and cleared the swamp at Solidarity House.

So, Lady Justice, be careful what you wish for.
Justice_GettyImages-1140705087.jpg [[2246×1335) [[wp.com)

I'm optimistic that after fifty years, the political pendulum is beginning to swing away from the neoliberal hoax and toward a new deal that will be fair to workers like my old man [God rest his soul.]

Sean O'Brien for Vice President!

[canuck]

Agreed 100%

For the past fifty years or more -- at least since the assassination of Walter Reuther -- there have been few credible or admirable "leaders" in the U.S. labor movement. Mostly there have been co-opted clowns, scoundrels, and Persons Who Lunch, to paraphrase Merle Rubine. My feelings toward labor during those years has been somewhere on a spectrum between apathy and disdain.

But then, by Jove, the U.S. DOJ accidentally began breathing new life into labor's moribund anus when it forced the Teamsters into receivership and cleared the swamp at Solidarity House.

So, Lady Justice, be careful what you wish for.
Justice_GettyImages-1140705087.jpg [[2246×1335) [[wp.com)

I'm optimistic that after fifty years, the political pendulum is beginning to swing away from the neoliberal hoax and toward a new deal that will be fair to workers like my old man [God rest his soul.]

Sean O'Brien for Vice President!

Va-va-voom HW!

I saw a Lady under a red light that just looked like your Lady Justice the other day…


Aside from that, I’m all for a good Union and good leaders, and screw the billionaire pilot fishes, sycophants, etc, etc…

[Jimaz]

... I saw a Lady under a red light that just looked like your Lady Justice the other day….

Oh. OH! Scathing metaphor! Was her name Clarence Thomas?

[Henry Whalley]

I saw a Lady under a red light that just looked like your Lady Justice the other day…

We've never seen Lady Justice in this country, but I like to think that she would look hot

In the meantime, please tell me the location of that red light.

[Henry Whalley]

Oh. OH! Scathing metaphor! Was her name Clarence Thomas?

May have been him in drag, or what evangelicals call "working undercover" or could have been Stephen Johnson Field, Roger Taney, James Clark McReynolds, Melville Fuller, Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, Samuel Alito, John Roberts, William Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia, or Aileen Cannon.

[canuck]

We've never seen Lady Justice in this country, but I like to think that she would look hot

In the meantime, please tell me the location of that red light.

I want to say maybe the corner of Ste Catherine and the aptly named "Darling” street is as close to a red light left in Montreal.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/DPAv67CzMVDTr9v3A?g_st=ic

I’m also thinking that a Lady Justice’s scales would be used for something else in that context…

[Henry Whalley]

...Let's check back in 5 yrs. and see how the domestic automakers are handling the higher costs vs. the competition...

But seriously, the only solid evidence of a conspiracy in the deaths five assassinated leaders, JFK, Malcolm X, MLK, RFK, and Walter Philip Reuther, is in the case of WPR. Am I the only one who finds it curious that a conspiracy industry never arose surrounding the demise of WPR? Both our mainstream media and tabloids have hardly pursued the story. Four attempts. The evidence is there -- look it up. Why the Silence of the Lambs?

Walter Reuther - Wikipedia

[canuck]

May have been him in drag, or what evangelicals call "working undercover" or could have been Stephen Johnson Field, Roger Taney, James Clark McReynolds, Melville Fuller, Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, Samuel Alito, John Roberts, William Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia, or Aileen Cannon.

Hey! Let’s not forget Elliott Spitzer!

[Henry Whalley]

Hey! Let’s not forget Elliott Spitzer!

Is that Spitz or Swallowz?

[canuck]

Is that Spitz or Swallowz?

Lolz…

[jcole]

My exact reason for wondering that and if it led him on his career path; sort of pushed him to being rebellious

And of course "Shawn" itself isn't an unusual name so the real question is whether his name was chosen to sound similar to "Sinn Féin." {I believe "Sinn" is pronounced like the word "shin."}

It's just close enough to wonder whether there's a story there. But maybe there isn't. ¯\_{ツ}_/¯

Etymologies "Я" Us

• Sinn Féin

[Jimaz]

Shawn Fain's bold negotiation strategy for UAW wasn't nuts. It worked.
Opinion

UAW President Shawn Fain deserves a lot of credit for the success of his "Go Big Or Go Home" contract negotiation strategy, and I believe in giving credit where credit is due. He swung for the bleachers when more than a few folks were wondering if maybe Shawn was kinda nuts asking for the things he was asking for. A 40% pay raise? Please. Get real, Shawn. Seriously.

OK, so when it was all said and done, he didn’t get a 40% raise for his union members [[his opening ask was based on the 40% pay raise already received by automotive corporate CEOs over a three-year period); he got them a 25% raise. Some of them even got more. When was the last time your paycheck got a 25% bump?...

Indeed, Ford was the last auto company to agree to unionization. And that was because Henry’s wife, Clara Bryant Ford. After witnessing the notorious Battle of the Overpass, where Bennet’s goons beat strikers bloody, Clara told her husband that if he didn’t put an end to these bloody tactics, she would leave him. This was in 1941....

[Baselinepunk]

Great guy -- awesome work!

[1953]

This guy strikes me as a low-class jerk and I'm very disappointed that the autos didn't sink themselves, rather than give him a single dime.

1953

[Henry Whalley]

This guy strikes me as a low-class jerk...

Physician, Heal Thyself...