Speaker 1: Good morning. It's Friday, the fifteenth of September here in London.
Speaker 1: This is the BlueBag Day Recurate podcast. I'm Caroline Hepka.
Speaker 2: And I'm Stephen Carroll. Coming up today, a union representing
Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty thousand US auto workers goes on strike,
Speaker 2: hitting three of the country's biggest car makers.
Speaker 1: Arms shehes jumped by twenty five percent as this year's
Speaker 1: biggest IPO takes off.
Speaker 2: And we take a closer look at However, wilder weather
Speaker 2: swings have forced a complete redesign of some of the
Speaker 2: world's busiest airports.
Speaker 1: Let's start with a round up of our top stories.
Speaker 2: Workers at America's biggest auto union have gone on strike
Speaker 2: after a deadline to agree a deal with three major
Speaker 2: car makers. Past, GM, Ford and Stillantis are currently offering
Speaker 2: pay rises of up to twenty percent over four and
Speaker 2: a half years, but the United Auto Workers once thirty
Speaker 2: six percent union represents one hundred and fifty thousand workers.
Speaker 2: Speaking before the deadline passed, its president Sean Fain, made
Speaker 2: clear they would not be backing down.
Speaker 3: If we need to go all out, we will.
Speaker 2: Everything is on the table. One study suggests that even
Speaker 2: a ten day strike by Sean Fain's UAW Union could
Speaker 2: cast the US economy five point six billion dollars in
Speaker 2: last output and push the state of Michigan into recession.
Speaker 1: Shares in the UK based chip designer ARM have climbed
Speaker 1: twenty five percent after the year's biggest stock listing. Though
Speaker 1: ARM isn't well known amongst consumers, its technology is almost
Speaker 1: in every smartphone. The UK government failed in its bid
Speaker 1: to convince the firm, though to list in London, but
Speaker 1: the company's CEO Rene Haas has told Bloomberger that he
Speaker 1: is open to the idea of a secondary listing in Britain.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so today obviously we're in New York, but we're
Speaker 4: incredibly proud of our UK heritage and we are opening
Speaker 4: to considering that down the road.
Speaker 1: Has added that he's confident that the company's growth will
Speaker 1: be sustained. The IPO raised close to five billion dollars
Speaker 1: for investment firm soft Bank, which still owns ninety percent
Speaker 1: of ARM.
Speaker 2: China's economy is picking up steam as a summer travel
Speaker 2: boom and Beijing stimulus measures have helped to boost consumer
Speaker 2: spending and factory output. Industrial and realist retail sales growth
Speaker 2: jumped in August from a year earlier, far exceeding expectations.
Speaker 2: PBOC left its key policy rate on changed while injecting
Speaker 2: cash into the market for the tenth consecutive month. Still,
Speaker 2: weakness in the property market remains as prices continue to decline.
Speaker 1: The European Central Bank has raised interest rates for the
Speaker 1: tenth time in a row, announcing the move to four percent.
Speaker 1: ECB President Christine the God signaled a shift in gear
Speaker 1: that could mean the peak has been reached.
Speaker 5: The focus is probably going to move a bit more
Speaker 5: to the duration, but it is not to say, because
Speaker 5: we can't say that now that we are at peak.
Speaker 1: Many economists and investors has thought that a four percent
Speaker 1: base rate would be the high water mark. The central
Speaker 1: bank new outlook for economic growth shows markedly softer expansion
Speaker 1: and inflation staying above two percent until the end of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five. For Europe. Markets have also brought forward
Speaker 1: pricing now the first twenty five basis point ECB rate
Speaker 1: cut to dune next year. In the wake of Legard's comments.
Speaker 2: The US President's son has been charged with unlawfully purchasing
Speaker 2: of firearm as a legal issues muddy his father's bid
Speaker 2: for re election. After Hunter Biden's plea deal imploded earlier
Speaker 2: this year, prosecutors have begun to file a case against him.
Speaker 2: Democratic Congressman Jamie Raskin says backing the courts should be
Speaker 2: a bipartisan issue.
Speaker 4: We can all applaud the fact when the system in
Speaker 4: the courts is working and the justice system is working.
Speaker 4: And you know, I don't think people should applaud the
Speaker 4: system when it works for Hunter Biden, but then try
Speaker 4: to tear the system down when it works for Donald Trump.
Speaker 2: Maryland Representative and law professor Jamie Raskin reacting there to
Speaker 2: Republicans who are calling for more charges to be brought
Speaker 2: against Hunter Biden. The team investigating his Biden's son have
Speaker 2: signaled that they are considering bringing more serious charges for
Speaker 2: alleged failures to report millions of dollars in income, including
Speaker 2: from China and Ukraine.
Speaker 1: And lastly, Apple is facing a controversy in France over
Speaker 1: the iPhone twelve's radiation levels. Bluemoker has learned that it
Speaker 1: has advised its tech support staff not to volunteer any
Speaker 1: information to customers if they raise the issue. It comes
Speaker 1: as the French government asks Apple earlier this week to
Speaker 1: see sales of the iPhone twelve because tests showed that
Speaker 1: the device emits electromagnetic waves that are too strong. Apple
Speaker 1: rebutted the claims and said that it would engage with
Speaker 1: France to show that the iPhone twelve is compliant. Seems
Speaker 1: that we have a theme this week of the most
Speaker 1: weird and wonderful jobs that there might be out there
Speaker 1: for you. NASA has named a new person who's going
Speaker 1: to be in charge of UFOs, basically trying to find
Speaker 1: a sign scientific evidence based approach to understanding unexplained events
Speaker 1: in the sky. We all know that it's a US obsession,
Speaker 1: it seems to perhaps a global one, but now there's
Speaker 1: going to be one person sort of solely in charge
Speaker 1: of looking at it at NASA.
Speaker 2: Interestingly, they won't name the person, which is perhaps other
Speaker 2: email inbox isn't filled with their reports from people around
Speaker 2: the world. But it is someoney who has worked in
Speaker 2: the position for a while, according to NASA, and then
Speaker 2: they went on to name him after that, after saying
Speaker 2: they wouldn't originally. And Mark McInerney is the man. So
Speaker 2: I mean, this is going to be a very interesting
Speaker 2: position to watch to see what I wonder.
Speaker 1: Why, because for decades NASA has tried to ignore some
Speaker 1: perhaps sometimes unexplained, at least pubjects publicly unexplained objects in
Speaker 1: the sky. But then they started asking, you know, sourcing
Speaker 1: the public for information about it, and they want to
Speaker 1: have apparently a conversation that is less sensational and more
Speaker 1: about science. So yeah, there you go, strange and interesting
Speaker 1: jobs in the world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in our basket of strange interesting jobs of this week.
Speaker 2: Let's turn next to get the latest on that move,
Speaker 2: the thousands of members of the United Auto Workers who've
Speaker 2: gone on strike at selected General Motors, Ford and Stillantis
Speaker 2: plants in the United States. This comes after the union
Speaker 2: and automakers fail to reach a deal on a new
Speaker 2: labor contract. We've got Bloomberg, Crity Goop too with us
Speaker 2: in studio for more on this story. CREATI great to
Speaker 2: have you with us. What exactly has happened? The deadline
Speaker 2: has passed.
Speaker 3: The deadline has passed. Look, there's picketing happening right now
Speaker 3: in Detroit, Michigan and Missouri, and a lot of these
Speaker 3: carmaker plants across the United States. But mind you, it
Speaker 3: is the middle of the night and basically plants. Workers
Speaker 3: have quite literally walked off of the property and started picketing,
Speaker 3: including the president of the United Auto Workers Union, Sean
Speaker 3: Fain himself. Now he's the one who declared the strike,
Speaker 3: he's the one who's been in the bargaining table with
Speaker 3: gm Ford Stalantis. But he's representing about one hundred and
Speaker 3: fifty thousand people, mostly concentrated in Detroit, Michigan. But let
Speaker 3: me just kind of emphasize the scale of how big
Speaker 3: of a deal this is if the strike goes on
Speaker 3: long enough, because we're in the what early hours of it,
Speaker 3: It's been about two hours since that declaration has been made.
Speaker 3: If the strike goes on long enough, economists has said,
Speaker 3: not only will Detroit perhaps face the recession, the city
Speaker 3: of Detroit, but the entire state of Michigan that is
Speaker 3: in the top ten GDP contributors to the entire American economy.
Speaker 3: That's how big of a deal this is. But look,
Speaker 3: it affects people right here at home as well, in
Speaker 3: Europe and in London as well, and arguably in China.
Speaker 3: And the CEO of Mercedes Benz made a really great point.
Speaker 3: This changes the cost of labor because when you take
Speaker 3: one hundred and fifty thousand people out of the supply
Speaker 3: of labor. You are suddenly not only paying higher wages,
Speaker 3: you're looking for more people. And that's going to ultimately
Speaker 3: show up in how much a consumer pays for a vehicle.
Speaker 1: How the company is then reacting and responding to this,
Speaker 1: it's obviously after a series of negotiations.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, Stalantis was the first to respond. And look,
Speaker 3: Stalantis is a really interesting component here because it's the one,
Speaker 3: only one company of the three that is not actually
Speaker 3: American in Detroit, right, this is a European company. And
Speaker 3: we've had CEO Carlos Tavaz on the network multiple times
Speaker 3: and one of the criticisms of that was that he
Speaker 3: wasn't as involved in the negotiations with the union. So
Speaker 3: his very first commentary was that he was disappointed that
Speaker 3: the UAW wasn't willing to engage. But again, the UAW
Speaker 3: has made the point that Carlos Tavaraz wasn't willing to
Speaker 3: engage by making the trip to Detroit. So there are
Speaker 3: two sides to the story here. The commentary Stalanta's made
Speaker 3: as they are in contingency mode, they are preparing for
Speaker 3: the worst. They're expecting this to go much much longer,
Speaker 3: and and it very well could.
Speaker 2: What what could be the impact of this down the
Speaker 2: line obviously say we're in the early hours of this
Speaker 2: as well, but disruption to these lie these lines of
Speaker 2: production could be huge.
Speaker 3: Massive, absolutely massive. And FOURD and GM are really going
Speaker 3: to take the brunt of it here simply because of
Speaker 3: the presence that they have in the United States as well.
Speaker 3: I think the timeline really matters here because look at
Speaker 3: what the negotiating terms actually were. The union came out
Speaker 3: and said came out was swinging really and said over
Speaker 3: the next four and a half year contract, a forty
Speaker 3: six percent pay raise.
Speaker 1: That is a staggering that's a lot.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that is a.
Speaker 3: Lot for even the highest of achievers. But that has
Speaker 3: still been negotiated down to about thirty six percent. And
Speaker 3: GM ford have come out and said, look, we'll give
Speaker 3: you twenty percent over four and a half years, which
Speaker 3: again is not a number of scoff app but is
Speaker 3: still significantly lower than what they're asking for at thirty
Speaker 3: six percent. So seeing a lot of pain there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, But I suppose you know, low unemployment, high
Speaker 1: inflation means really quiet eyewatering numbers. I mean, I suppose
Speaker 1: the other thing is the impact on electric vehicle makers.
Speaker 1: This is the great change that the US is making
Speaker 1: the rest of the world is meant to be making.
Speaker 1: I mean, I remember back in the day when I
Speaker 1: was living in the US and we had the Great
Speaker 1: Financial Crisis, and you know, Obama bailing out Detroit effectively
Speaker 1: having to help out those those huge names because there
Speaker 1: was so many difficulties for them. Massively important industry for
Speaker 1: the US.
Speaker 3: Oh massively. And you know, these blue collar workers really
Speaker 3: take it as a point of pride. So it's not
Speaker 3: just about the money here or or the working conditions.
Speaker 3: It really is about this kind of industry that they've
Speaker 3: built with their hands. And I would argue, I mean,
Speaker 3: let's take a quick case study here, Tesla. For example,
Speaker 3: when you think of electric vehicles, a lot of that
Speaker 3: process is automated, a lot of that process has to
Speaker 3: do with engineering with batteries, not necessarily physical manual labor
Speaker 3: or design, for example, And that's really where you start
Speaker 3: to see the structural shift in the auto industry really
Speaker 3: take hold. And that's of course one of the concerns
Speaker 3: on top of pay as well. But look, you're seeing
Speaker 3: that happen across the country in Hollywood, you're seeing that
Speaker 3: in shipping, You're seeing that in Wall Street, You're even
Speaker 3: seeing that in Silicon Valley.
Speaker 6: So this is a.
Speaker 3: True labor movement that really couldn't have this large of
Speaker 3: an effect if you weren't seeing it in every industry
Speaker 3: in every part of the country.
Speaker 2: What about the political ramifications of this as well, because
Speaker 2: for obviously this is something that's going to be brought
Speaker 2: up both in election campaigns but also democratic prisments in
Speaker 2: the white How important is that in this background.
Speaker 3: It's really interesting actually because the UAW, when you think
Speaker 3: of Democrats versus Republicans, Democrats traditionally favor unions. Republicans traditionally
Speaker 3: favorite kind of corporations and fewer regulations and things like that.
Speaker 3: A lot of union workers had actually voted for President Biden.
Speaker 3: That's not surprising. The UAW specifically has not endorsed President
Speaker 3: Biden in the reelection for twenty twenty four, which is
Speaker 3: really interesting because most unions do they lean Democrat. So
Speaker 3: you've actually seen President Traumas some of the other Republican
Speaker 3: candidates go after the UAW and say, hey, will you
Speaker 3: endorse us instead? In one hundred and fifty thousand votes
Speaker 3: in Detroit in Michigan. That's not something to scoff at
Speaker 3: and could really change the entire game of how the
Speaker 3: election works out in a year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely so interesting, CHRITTI, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: being with us on Bloomberg BAJ this morning. Bloeberg's Pretty
Speaker 1: so to a story about airports across the world. They
Speaker 1: are making changes to their runways and other infrastructure in
Speaker 1: order to adapt to increasingly extreme weather conditions as climate
Speaker 1: change takes its toll. Bloomberg's Aerospace with Paul To Kate
Speaker 1: Duffy joins us for more on this story. Now, good morning, Kate,
Speaker 1: thanks for your time. How is climate change then having
Speaker 1: an impact on airports?
Speaker 6: So, what we're seeing is that climate change is having
Speaker 6: a profound impact on airports, so much so that it
Speaker 6: can sometimes disrupt air travel by causing delays and cancelations.
Speaker 6: And the extreme weather conditions derived from climate change include
Speaker 6: higher precipitation levels, storm surges, higher temperatures, and this could
Speaker 6: all destroy airport infrastructure over time. So, for example, the
Speaker 6: London looton Airport's runway last year during the heat wave
Speaker 6: suffered a surface defect, and more recently, sudden rainfall in
Speaker 6: Frankfurt's airport caused the airfield to flood, making it almost
Speaker 6: making it look like planes were parked in a lake.
Speaker 6: And meanwhile, over in Alaska, underlying permafrost is thawing due
Speaker 6: to higher temperatures, drawing runways and roads as well. So
Speaker 6: this isn't just specified to airports in one corner of
Speaker 6: the world. This is all over.
Speaker 2: How urgent is this issue? And I suppose how widespread
Speaker 2: are we talking? You mentioned some of the diverse locations there,
Speaker 2: but I suppose how many airports are really looking at this?
Speaker 6: Yeah, so those are some of the airports that I
Speaker 6: spoke to. But there's no doubt that the aviation industry
Speaker 6: is taking the matter extremely seriously. So eurice Control, for example,
Speaker 6: that's the European Airspace Coordinator, has called on airports as
Speaker 6: well as airlines to adapt to the more frequent weather
Speaker 6: conditions that we are seeing. While the Portable Authority of
Speaker 6: New York and New Jersey they said that they're on
Speaker 6: very high alert because of the threats of climate change,
Speaker 6: and from the airports I've spoken to, it's clear that
Speaker 6: that the issue affects different latitudes, which is why it's
Speaker 6: so prevalent, and it's obviously important to keep global air
Speaker 6: traffic flowing, keep it smooth. And if airports don't adapt
Speaker 6: to the weather extremes in their climate, this could leave
Speaker 6: them exposed to damage and disruption and obviously forcing delays
Speaker 6: and cancelations.
Speaker 1: What are airports doing about it then, and also obviously
Speaker 1: the costs must be significant.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So different airports are making different adaptations according to
Speaker 6: the climatic changes that they're experiencing. So in Alaska, one
Speaker 6: of the measures that they've been implemented is slotting insulation
Speaker 6: into the ground to thermally protect the permafrost because when
Speaker 6: it thaws, as I said, this can destroy runways and roads.
Speaker 6: And in New York, the port is looking to elevate
Speaker 6: or relocate buildings to other areas of the airport which
Speaker 6: are less flood like prone. And that's because a lot
Speaker 6: of New York airports are low lying and near bodies
Speaker 6: of water, so whenever there's increased precipitation or storm surges,
Speaker 6: this can increase the risk of flooding. And in fact,
Speaker 6: JFK is undergoing a nineteen billion dollar transformation and part
Speaker 6: of that includes adaptations to climate change, such as flood doors,
Speaker 6: whereas closer to home we're having different issues. So in France,
Speaker 6: Nice Airport has cut back on the amount of industrial
Speaker 6: water that it uses for cleaning because of a lack
Speaker 6: of water and higher temperatures, and ship Or Airport in
Speaker 6: Amsterdam is tackling the blazing heat by creating shadowed areas
Speaker 6: and also tackling the high precipitation by redesigning runways so
Speaker 6: they're elevated slightly in the center and then slope down
Speaker 6: towards the sides. So there's different adaptations for different airports.
Speaker 6: But in terms of costs, I mean it's not cheap.
Speaker 2: This is Bloomberg Daybreak Europe morning brief on the stories
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