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Speaker 1: The United Autoworkers' Union has been making a lot of

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Speaker 1: news recently.

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Speaker 2: Across twenty states, coast to coast.

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Speaker 3: Thousands of workers already walking off the job.

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Speaker 1: Taking unprecedented action against the Big three US automakers. The

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Speaker 1: UAW won a historic contract by taking to the picket

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Speaker 1: lines last year. It was a big win for organized

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Speaker 1: labor at a time when union membership has been on

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Speaker 1: the decline across multiple industries, and it was all spearheaded

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Speaker 1: by the uaw's energetic new president, Sean Fain.

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Speaker 2: Our fights not just for the UAW, our fights for

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Speaker 2: the entire working class.

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Speaker 1: Fane's known to go on Facebook Live wearing a t

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Speaker 1: shirt that says eat the Rich. He took over the

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Speaker 1: UAW last spring with a vision to rebuild it as

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Speaker 1: a powerful force in America, and not just at the

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Speaker 1: negotiating table with automakers.

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Speaker 4: Shawn Fain's ambitions are to transform what it's like to

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Speaker 4: work at the Big Three, but also to be part

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Speaker 4: of broader transformations in society, to change the union contract

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Speaker 4: and to change the social contract.

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Speaker 1: That's my colleague Josh Edelson. He's a labor reporter at

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg and one of the people who's been chasing this

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Speaker 1: story since long before the UAW became front page news.

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Speaker 1: Just last week, Fain made the news again by emphatically

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Speaker 1: endorsing President Joe Biden to serve a second term.

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Speaker 2: Of our endorsements must be earned. Joe Biden has earned it.

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Speaker 1: And days later he slammed former President Donald Trump on

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Speaker 1: CBS's face the nation.

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Speaker 2: I can't fathom any union would support Donald Trump for president.

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Speaker 1: This is big. Many of the union's almost four hundred

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Speaker 1: thousand members live in the Ross Belt. That area swung

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Speaker 1: the election for Trump in twenty sixteen and for Biden

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Speaker 1: in twenty twenty. But the story of the UAW, its

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Speaker 1: influence in the auto industry and in politics, it's complicated.

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Speaker 1: Today I'm joined by two of my Bloomberg News colleagues

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Speaker 1: who have been tracking the uaw's rise, fall, and rebirth.

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Speaker 1: We'll hear from conversations they've had with Fane over the

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Speaker 1: past year. We talk about the tug of war between

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Speaker 1: union leadership and rank and file members over which president

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Speaker 1: would serve them best. From Bloomberg's Washington Bureau. This is

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Speaker 1: the Big Take DC podcast. I'm your host, Seleia Mosen

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Speaker 1: Gabrielle Coppola reports on the auto industry for Bloomberg News.

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Speaker 1: She's based in Detroit. Gabrielle, thanks for joining me. I

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Speaker 1: want to go back in time a little bit as

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Speaker 1: we start here. Tell me about what the UAW used

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Speaker 1: to be in America.

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Speaker 3: It was a powerful organization based on the industrial dominance

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Speaker 3: and might of the United States and the post World

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Speaker 3: War two era. When Walter Ruther was the president of

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Speaker 3: the UAW in the fifties six, it was really powerful.

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Speaker 3: He was very aligned with the Democratic Party and had

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Speaker 3: a lot of political power. He was a real power broker.

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Speaker 3: So they had a lot of power in Washington because

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Speaker 3: you know, they were able to organize and deliver votes.

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Speaker 3: I live here in Detroit and Michigan, and what the

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Speaker 3: UAW meant for people was you could work a job

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Speaker 3: in a factory without necessarily having a college education, and

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Speaker 3: you could still afford to put your kids through college

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Speaker 3: and you know, have a cottage on the lake.

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Speaker 1: Back in the seventies, UAW membership peaked at around one

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Speaker 1: point five million. Since then that number has dropped by

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Speaker 1: two thirds.

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Speaker 3: We started to see more globalization, you know, outsourcing, integration

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Speaker 3: of China into the world economy, foreign car companies coming

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Speaker 3: in and opening up a lot of plants in the

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Speaker 3: non union South that started to erode their power. The

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Speaker 3: other thing, I would say, they had a huge corruption

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Speaker 3: scandal that ended up implicating dozens of people, both from

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Speaker 3: two former UAW presidents, but also a few executives from

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Speaker 3: what was then Fiat Chrysler. And I think it enabled

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Speaker 3: the rise of Sean Fain because people wanted change after that.

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Speaker 1: Sean Fain the uaw's president. He won a close election

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Speaker 1: last spring. Gabrielle and some of our colleagues have gotten

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Speaker 1: to know him since then.

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Speaker 3: So Sean Fain, He's in his early fifties. He's from Cocomo, Indiana.

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Speaker 3: He was an electrician who worked for Chrysler for many years.

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Speaker 3: He was a single dad, raised his daughters. He comes

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Speaker 3: from a long line of union workers.

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Speaker 4: You know.

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Speaker 3: He tells a story about his grandparents coming from you know,

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Speaker 3: the South during the Depression era and coming up and

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Speaker 3: getting jobs at GM or you know, at the Detroit Makers.

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Speaker 5: It was the American dream, I mean three more for grandparents,

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Speaker 5: you know, migrated here. They were destitute in the hills

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Speaker 5: of Tennessee, Kentucky and they migrated north for good paying

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Speaker 5: union jobs and change their lives.

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Speaker 3: The union really brought his family into the middle class.

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Speaker 3: So he really you talk about what the ideal, you know,

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Speaker 3: image of what a UAW job is, that's what he

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Speaker 3: grew up around. That's what he saw. His family in

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Speaker 3: Indiana was very politically active.

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Speaker 4: He said.

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Speaker 3: His parents used to make him go around putting signs

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Speaker 3: in people's lawns for local elections. Always very democratic.

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Speaker 5: From the time we could walk, we were put out

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Speaker 5: yard signs, you know, when mayor races or whatever. Really

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Speaker 5: knocking on doors.

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Speaker 3: Even when he wasn't in charge of the UAW, he

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Speaker 3: was always kind of standing up to management whenever time

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Speaker 3: they would have something that they wanted to go along

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Speaker 3: with what the company proposed and he didn't think it

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Speaker 3: was good for his members or his co workers, he

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Speaker 3: would speak up. And you know, I'm sure that was

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Speaker 3: not always appreciated that he made a lot of enemies

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Speaker 3: that way.

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Speaker 1: What about the rank and file of UAW members. What

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Speaker 1: do they think of him?

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Speaker 3: Oh, man, I think he's pretty popular. He won by

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Speaker 3: a very narrow margin when he won the election, I

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Speaker 3: mean barely a mandate, you could say. And I think

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Speaker 3: he had a lot to prove, and he proved it

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Speaker 3: with this contract, a twenty five percent wage increase plus

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Speaker 3: cost of living adjustment.

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Speaker 1: That hard fought contract came out of last year's strike.

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Speaker 1: It took a lot to get tens of thousands of

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Speaker 1: workers to walk off the job and to hold out

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Speaker 1: until execs from Detroit's big three automakers came to a

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Speaker 1: deal that they supported. They made sure to hit them

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Speaker 1: where it hurt. The whole thing cost Ford GM and

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Speaker 1: stillantis about ten billion dollars.

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Speaker 3: People really love the way he just really stood up

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Speaker 3: to the companies. Something he talks about a lot, and

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Speaker 3: this is definitely how the UAW rank and file feel.

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Speaker 3: They feel like they sacrificed a lot. And you know,

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Speaker 3: two thousand and seven, two thousand and eight, two thousand

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Speaker 3: and nine, to help save the car companies, people took

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Speaker 3: wage cuts, buyouts, they gave up all kinds of benefits

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Speaker 3: to keep the companies afloat when.

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Speaker 5: The economic recession hit, they took it all and.

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Speaker 3: In their mind, that was supposed to be temporary to

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Speaker 3: get the company through a hard time. And then the

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Speaker 3: companies went on to have this great really over you know,

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Speaker 3: decade long period of boffo profits and you know, great

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Speaker 3: car sales, and they said, hey, what about us.

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Speaker 5: Our model right now is record profits equal record contracts,

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Speaker 5: and these companies have had record profits for a decade

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Speaker 5: and it's time for them to take care of the

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Speaker 5: people that created its profits.

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Speaker 3: They felt like they were really due, So I think

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Speaker 3: Fame really voiced the frustration.

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Speaker 1: He also notched another win when Biden flew to Michigan

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Speaker 1: in September. It was the first time a sitting US

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Speaker 1: president joined a picket line.

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Speaker 5: We've adopted to states that our endorsements will be earned,

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Speaker 5: not not freely.

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Speaker 3: Given, and made Biden sweat about it a little bit

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Speaker 3: and do more to support the union.

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Speaker 1: But not every member of the UAW agrees with Fain

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Speaker 1: on this. In fact, a Bloomberg News Morning Consult poll

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Speaker 1: found that a lot of Michigan autoworkers support Trump over Biden.

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Speaker 3: For a long time, the UAW for the most part,

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Speaker 3: and you know, most unions have been reliably in the

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Speaker 3: Democratic Party's camp. But I think there's been like sort

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Speaker 3: of a sense of you know, slow burning crisis inside

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Speaker 3: of like we've seen this writing on the wall for

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Speaker 3: a long time. The unonization is going down. If we

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Speaker 3: don't turn this around, then you know, we're not going

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Speaker 3: to have much political power. We're not going to exist.

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Speaker 1: Coming up, how that slow burning crisis is shaping autoworkers' votes,

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Speaker 1: how electric vehicles are shaping the narrative, and how these

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Speaker 1: tensions could shape the twenty twenty four election. Sean Faine's

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Speaker 1: endorsement of President Biden wasn't a given, my colleague Josh

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Speaker 1: Adelson says, it was a chip that Fain held tightly

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Speaker 1: for a reason.

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Speaker 4: Sean Fain made a point of showing that the UAW

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Speaker 4: was not going to jump on board with endorsing Joe

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Speaker 4: Biden at the point that the AFL, CIO and much

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Speaker 4: of organized labor was doing so. Sean Fayne made a

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Speaker 4: point of saying that being a Democrat running for president,

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Speaker 4: even running against Donald Trump, was not enough to get

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Speaker 4: an endorsement, that the endorsement had to be earned, and

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Speaker 4: he gave Joe Biden opportunities to earn it, including making

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Speaker 4: history by showing up on the picket line.

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Speaker 6: UAW, you saved the autobile industry back and two accoutation

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Speaker 6: in four made a lot of sacrifices gave him a lot,

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Speaker 6: and the companies were in trouble, and now they're doing

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Speaker 6: incredibly well.

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Speaker 5: And guess what you should be doing incredibly well too.

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Speaker 4: We saw at the uaw's convention in DC a taste

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Speaker 4: of what Sean Fayn's argument for Joe Biden well looks like.

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Speaker 2: Let's take a look at the candidates in their own

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Speaker 2: words and their own actions.

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Speaker 4: And it has some of the trash talking and some

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Speaker 4: of the societal vision and some of the knack for

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Speaker 4: spectacle that we've come to expect from Sean Feinne. At

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Speaker 4: one point, he said, we had a strike during the

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Speaker 4: Trump administration, and here, here's everything that was done by

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Speaker 4: Donald Trump to support those workers.

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Speaker 2: And I want to show you a picture.

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Speaker 4: He showed a blank page.

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Speaker 5: He said nothing.

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Speaker 2: He did nothing, not a damn thing, because he doesn't

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Speaker 2: care about the American worker.

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Speaker 4: Sean Feinne also specifically called Donald Trump a scab and

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Speaker 4: said if Donald Trump was your coworker, he would be

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Speaker 4: anti union, he would be a company man.

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Speaker 1: Fine continued to slam Trump unface the nation on Sunday.

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Speaker 2: Donald Trump has a history of serving himself and standing

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Speaker 2: for pa billionire class, and that's contrary to everything that

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Speaker 2: working class people stand for.

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Speaker 4: Now.

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Speaker 1: Sure, all of this strong language may not seem that

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Speaker 1: surprising coming from the leader of an auto union in

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Speaker 1: the United States, but remember it's not the nineteen seventies anymore.

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Speaker 1: The voter base that used to be so solidly with

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Speaker 1: the Democratic Party not anymore.

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Speaker 4: There's been a long running explicit and implicit competition between

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Speaker 4: Donald Trump and Joe Biden about who speaks for workers

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Speaker 4: in America, who speaks for people who felt like they've

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Speaker 4: been forgotten, Who actually will be good for union members

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Speaker 4: in particular.

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Speaker 5: The anxiety for our workers is more or less, in

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Speaker 5: my opinion, job security.

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Speaker 1: And there's one key battleground in the auto industry when

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Speaker 1: it comes to job security right now, electric vehicles.

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Speaker 4: There's been a view for years from companies, sometimes from

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Speaker 4: the union, that electric vehicles are likely to lead to

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Speaker 4: fewer jobs. There are union members concerned that the transition

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Speaker 4: to electric vehicles will be a transition away from them,

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Speaker 4: away from the particular workers who've had these jobs, away

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Speaker 4: from union members in general, away from the painstakingly negotiated

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Speaker 4: pay and benefits and safety standards that exist in union contracts.

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Speaker 1: That's a fear Trump has played into He's used it

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Speaker 1: as leverage against Biden, who passed policies that mandate electric

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Speaker 1: vehicle production. Bloomberg's Gabrielle Coppola heard this first hint at

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Speaker 1: a Trump rally in Michigan last fall.

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Speaker 5: Now they want to go all electric and put you

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Speaker 5: all out of business?

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Speaker 4: You know that, right?

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Speaker 3: Was classic Trump kind of hyperbole about how you know,

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Speaker 3: just kind of taking your worst anxiety, worst nightmare and

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Speaker 3: projecting this is what's going to happen if you don't

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Speaker 3: vote for me. You know, you're not going to have

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Speaker 3: one job left in this state.

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Speaker 6: Biden's mandate isn't a government regulation, it's a government assassinated

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Speaker 6: of your jobs and of your industry.

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Speaker 3: Really capping into people's fears about change that's coming from

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Speaker 3: electric vehicles.

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Speaker 1: That contract Fine secured from the Big three automakers included

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Speaker 1: some protections around EV jobs, So he started to make

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Speaker 1: some headway on the issue. And Josh Edelson said that

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Speaker 1: from his many conversations with UAW members, more of them

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Speaker 1: seemed open to an EV future than not.

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Speaker 4: As one said, we don't have the VCR like we

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Speaker 4: used to do, why should cars be any different? But

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Speaker 4: want to make sure that that's a future that they

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Speaker 4: would be part of, and academics with proprietary Info pointing

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Speaker 4: out that at least in the short to medium term,

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Speaker 4: electric vehicles could involve more jobs.

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Speaker 1: There is one other complication. The country's biggest EV maker, Tesla,

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Speaker 1: isn't unionized.

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Speaker 4: Tessa's the world's most valuable automaker, it's the iconic EV company.

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Speaker 4: It's led by maybe the most prominent anti union executive,

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Speaker 4: certainly the richest anti union executive in the world in

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Speaker 4: our galaxy.

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Speaker 1: He's talking about Elon Musk. At the New York Times

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Speaker 1: deal Book Summit in November, Musk pretty much scoffed at

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Speaker 1: the idea of Tesla workers creating a union.

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Speaker 4: I disagree with the idea of union's past word a

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Speaker 4: reason that is different than through made expectors, which is

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Speaker 4: I just don't like anything which creates kind of a

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Speaker 4: lords and peasants sort of thing. Elon Musk has shown

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Speaker 4: he is not too worried about bad press or legal

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Speaker 4: conflicts in the past during organizing efforts by the UAW,

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Speaker 4: the National Labor Relations Board has ruled that Tesla repeatedly

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Speaker 4: violated the law, including by firing an activist Tesla has

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Speaker 4: denied wrongdoing.

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Speaker 1: During one of Josh's conversations with Sean Fain, he posed

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Speaker 1: the Tesla question.

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Speaker 4: Some people say Elon Musk is the most powerful unionvester

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Speaker 4: the world, more powerful than some governments countries. Can you

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Speaker 4: beat Elon Musk and organize Tesla.

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Speaker 5: I think we can beat anybody. It's going to come

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Speaker 5: down to the working class people and the people that

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Speaker 5: work for him decide if they want their fair share

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Speaker 5: and if they want to get justice, or if they

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Speaker 5: want him to be able to continue to build rocket

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Speaker 5: ships and fly himself to the moon.

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Speaker 1: Where this all nets out when it comes time for

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Speaker 1: auto workers to vote in November is hard to say.

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Speaker 1: Gabrielle told me the UAW isn't unique in that way.

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Speaker 3: I think the union is divided just like America is divided. So,

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Speaker 3: you know, Trump, I think a big part of his

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Speaker 3: rise has been his appeal to working class voters and

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Speaker 3: really speaking to this more populist kind of anger about,

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Speaker 3: you know, injustice in the US economy. And I spoke to,

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Speaker 3: you know, a Chrysler worker who is a big Trump fan,

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Speaker 3: and he told me I only felt safe when Trump

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Speaker 3: was president. He's the only one that can really is

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Speaker 3: really going to fight to protect auto jobs. You know,

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Speaker 3: I certainly think that Fain has a lot of credibility

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Speaker 3: with his memory, you know, and like I said, he's

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Speaker 3: proved himself with this with this contract. But people who

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Speaker 3: love Trump love Trump.

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Speaker 1: Gabriel, you live in Detroit, so naturally what's going on

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Speaker 1: in the UAW is influencing your day to day. But

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Speaker 1: going into this election year, why do you think that

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Speaker 1: the everyday American across the country outside of Detroit, why

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Speaker 1: should they care?

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Speaker 3: I mean, the auto industry is sort of not only symbolically,

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Speaker 3: but it is sort of the backbone of working class jobs,

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Speaker 3: blue collar jobs in America where you don't need a

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Speaker 3: nationally need to college degree to get a path to

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Speaker 3: the middle class. So I think those jobs are really

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Speaker 3: important for people's standard of living and being able to

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Speaker 3: kind of climb up the economic ladder. I think on

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Speaker 3: a national level, we've seen that in the past few years,

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Speaker 3: really ever since the pandemic, we have learned that, you know,

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Speaker 3: the ability to make stuff is important almost from a

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Speaker 3: national security level.

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Speaker 1: You know.

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Speaker 3: We saw this during the pandemic when we couldn't get chips.

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Speaker 3: We had spiral and inflation car prices when crazy we

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Speaker 3: couldn't get you know, Ppe, we couldn't get drugs. Certainly

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Speaker 3: in the White House, there's this recognition that, oh man,

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Speaker 3: we outsourced all these jobs. We all thought they were

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Speaker 3: kind of unimportant, kind of commodity, low skill jobs. Well,

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Speaker 3: turns out we need them for own economic resilience. And

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Speaker 3: turns out that when you outsource those jobs to other countries,

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Speaker 3: those other countries take that knowledge, they learn and they

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Speaker 3: build on it, and they become really good economic competitors,

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Speaker 3: you know, And so you've kind of like, you know,

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Speaker 3: given away all your leverage.

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Speaker 1: Do you think the UAW has power to shape the

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Speaker 1: election in any way?

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Speaker 3: Yeah? I do, because I think no matter what, the

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Speaker 3: strike really engaged people. You know, it restored their faith

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Speaker 3: in the Union, and it just got people mobilized and

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Speaker 3: acting in a community or in manner, you know, supporting

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Speaker 3: people on the picket line. You know, Fain has really

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Speaker 3: built a real cult of personality. He's very popular beyond

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Speaker 3: the UAW. Just whenever I mention him, people from all

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Speaker 3: different walks of life, different class backgrounds, they like him.

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Speaker 3: He's just like this popular hero. People are into him.

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Speaker 3: I think that Biden is really counting on him to

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Speaker 3: kind of connect with and speak to blue collar voters

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Speaker 3: who might be swayed by the attentions of Trump, you know,

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Speaker 3: because Trump is also a very compelling speaker. I've seen

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Speaker 3: it up close. He tells a really good story. So

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Speaker 3: I think the UAW definitely has power. Whether or not

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Speaker 3: it's enough to help Joe Biden, you know, push things

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Speaker 3: over the top, I really don't know.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, well that's gonna be a big question. Gabrielle, thanks

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Speaker 1: so much for joining me. Was great to hang out.

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Speaker 3: Thank you, thanks for having me.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Big Take DC podcast from

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg News. I'm Seleiah Mosen. This episode was produced by

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Speaker 1: Julia Press and Naomi Shaven. It was fact checked by

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Speaker 1: Tiffany Choi. A special thanks to David Welch, Jeff Green

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Speaker 1: and Jeff Muscus. Alex Sagira and Blake Maples are mix engineers.

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Speaker 1: Our story editors are Caitlin Kenny, Wendy Benjaminson, and Michael Sheppard.

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Speaker 1: Nicole Beemster Bower is our executive producer. Sage Bauman is

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Speaker 1: the head of Podcasts. If you like what you heard,

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Speaker 1: please be sure to subscribe, rate, and review the show.

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Speaker 1: It'll help other listeners find us. Thanks for tuning in,