Speaker 1: The United Autoworkers' Union has been making a lot of
Speaker 1: news recently.
Speaker 2: Across twenty states, coast to coast.
Speaker 3: Thousands of workers already walking off the job.
Speaker 1: Taking unprecedented action against the Big three US automakers. The
Speaker 1: UAW won a historic contract by taking to the picket
Speaker 1: lines last year. It was a big win for organized
Speaker 1: labor at a time when union membership has been on
Speaker 1: the decline across multiple industries, and it was all spearheaded
Speaker 1: by the uaw's energetic new president, Sean Fain.
Speaker 2: Our fights not just for the UAW, our fights for
Speaker 2: the entire working class.
Speaker 1: Fane's known to go on Facebook Live wearing a t
Speaker 1: shirt that says eat the Rich. He took over the
Speaker 1: UAW last spring with a vision to rebuild it as
Speaker 1: a powerful force in America, and not just at the
Speaker 1: negotiating table with automakers.
Speaker 4: Shawn Fain's ambitions are to transform what it's like to
Speaker 4: work at the Big Three, but also to be part
Speaker 4: of broader transformations in society, to change the union contract
Speaker 4: and to change the social contract.
Speaker 1: That's my colleague Josh Edelson. He's a labor reporter at
Speaker 1: Bloomberg and one of the people who's been chasing this
Speaker 1: story since long before the UAW became front page news.
Speaker 1: Just last week, Fain made the news again by emphatically
Speaker 1: endorsing President Joe Biden to serve a second term.
Speaker 2: Of our endorsements must be earned. Joe Biden has earned it.
Speaker 1: And days later he slammed former President Donald Trump on
Speaker 1: CBS's face the nation.
Speaker 2: I can't fathom any union would support Donald Trump for president.
Speaker 1: This is big. Many of the union's almost four hundred
Speaker 1: thousand members live in the Ross Belt. That area swung
Speaker 1: the election for Trump in twenty sixteen and for Biden
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty. But the story of the UAW, its
Speaker 1: influence in the auto industry and in politics, it's complicated.
Speaker 1: Today I'm joined by two of my Bloomberg News colleagues
Speaker 1: who have been tracking the uaw's rise, fall, and rebirth.
Speaker 1: We'll hear from conversations they've had with Fane over the
Speaker 1: past year. We talk about the tug of war between
Speaker 1: union leadership and rank and file members over which president
Speaker 1: would serve them best. From Bloomberg's Washington Bureau. This is
Speaker 1: the Big Take DC podcast. I'm your host, Seleia Mosen
Speaker 1: Gabrielle Coppola reports on the auto industry for Bloomberg News.
Speaker 1: She's based in Detroit. Gabrielle, thanks for joining me. I
Speaker 1: want to go back in time a little bit as
Speaker 1: we start here. Tell me about what the UAW used
Speaker 1: to be in America.
Speaker 3: It was a powerful organization based on the industrial dominance
Speaker 3: and might of the United States and the post World
Speaker 3: War two era. When Walter Ruther was the president of
Speaker 3: the UAW in the fifties six, it was really powerful.
Speaker 3: He was very aligned with the Democratic Party and had
Speaker 3: a lot of political power. He was a real power broker.
Speaker 3: So they had a lot of power in Washington because
Speaker 3: you know, they were able to organize and deliver votes.
Speaker 3: I live here in Detroit and Michigan, and what the
Speaker 3: UAW meant for people was you could work a job
Speaker 3: in a factory without necessarily having a college education, and
Speaker 3: you could still afford to put your kids through college
Speaker 3: and you know, have a cottage on the lake.
Speaker 1: Back in the seventies, UAW membership peaked at around one
Speaker 1: point five million. Since then that number has dropped by
Speaker 1: two thirds.
Speaker 3: We started to see more globalization, you know, outsourcing, integration
Speaker 3: of China into the world economy, foreign car companies coming
Speaker 3: in and opening up a lot of plants in the
Speaker 3: non union South that started to erode their power. The
Speaker 3: other thing, I would say, they had a huge corruption
Speaker 3: scandal that ended up implicating dozens of people, both from
Speaker 3: two former UAW presidents, but also a few executives from
Speaker 3: what was then Fiat Chrysler. And I think it enabled
Speaker 3: the rise of Sean Fain because people wanted change after that.
Speaker 1: Sean Fain the uaw's president. He won a close election
Speaker 1: last spring. Gabrielle and some of our colleagues have gotten
Speaker 1: to know him since then.
Speaker 3: So Sean Fain, He's in his early fifties. He's from Cocomo, Indiana.
Speaker 3: He was an electrician who worked for Chrysler for many years.
Speaker 3: He was a single dad, raised his daughters. He comes
Speaker 3: from a long line of union workers.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: He tells a story about his grandparents coming from you know,
Speaker 3: the South during the Depression era and coming up and
Speaker 3: getting jobs at GM or you know, at the Detroit Makers.
Speaker 5: It was the American dream, I mean three more for grandparents,
Speaker 5: you know, migrated here. They were destitute in the hills
Speaker 5: of Tennessee, Kentucky and they migrated north for good paying
Speaker 5: union jobs and change their lives.
Speaker 3: The union really brought his family into the middle class.
Speaker 3: So he really you talk about what the ideal, you know,
Speaker 3: image of what a UAW job is, that's what he
Speaker 3: grew up around. That's what he saw. His family in
Speaker 3: Indiana was very politically active.
Speaker 4: He said.
Speaker 3: His parents used to make him go around putting signs
Speaker 3: in people's lawns for local elections. Always very democratic.
Speaker 5: From the time we could walk, we were put out
Speaker 5: yard signs, you know, when mayor races or whatever. Really
Speaker 5: knocking on doors.
Speaker 3: Even when he wasn't in charge of the UAW, he
Speaker 3: was always kind of standing up to management whenever time
Speaker 3: they would have something that they wanted to go along
Speaker 3: with what the company proposed and he didn't think it
Speaker 3: was good for his members or his co workers, he
Speaker 3: would speak up. And you know, I'm sure that was
Speaker 3: not always appreciated that he made a lot of enemies
Speaker 3: that way.
Speaker 1: What about the rank and file of UAW members. What
Speaker 1: do they think of him?
Speaker 3: Oh, man, I think he's pretty popular. He won by
Speaker 3: a very narrow margin when he won the election, I
Speaker 3: mean barely a mandate, you could say. And I think
Speaker 3: he had a lot to prove, and he proved it
Speaker 3: with this contract, a twenty five percent wage increase plus
Speaker 3: cost of living adjustment.
Speaker 1: That hard fought contract came out of last year's strike.
Speaker 1: It took a lot to get tens of thousands of
Speaker 1: workers to walk off the job and to hold out
Speaker 1: until execs from Detroit's big three automakers came to a
Speaker 1: deal that they supported. They made sure to hit them
Speaker 1: where it hurt. The whole thing cost Ford GM and
Speaker 1: stillantis about ten billion dollars.
Speaker 3: People really love the way he just really stood up
Speaker 3: to the companies. Something he talks about a lot, and
Speaker 3: this is definitely how the UAW rank and file feel.
Speaker 3: They feel like they sacrificed a lot. And you know,
Speaker 3: two thousand and seven, two thousand and eight, two thousand
Speaker 3: and nine, to help save the car companies, people took
Speaker 3: wage cuts, buyouts, they gave up all kinds of benefits
Speaker 3: to keep the companies afloat when.
Speaker 5: The economic recession hit, they took it all and.
Speaker 3: In their mind, that was supposed to be temporary to
Speaker 3: get the company through a hard time. And then the
Speaker 3: companies went on to have this great really over you know,
Speaker 3: decade long period of boffo profits and you know, great
Speaker 3: car sales, and they said, hey, what about us.
Speaker 5: Our model right now is record profits equal record contracts,
Speaker 5: and these companies have had record profits for a decade
Speaker 5: and it's time for them to take care of the
Speaker 5: people that created its profits.
Speaker 3: They felt like they were really due, So I think
Speaker 3: Fame really voiced the frustration.
Speaker 1: He also notched another win when Biden flew to Michigan
Speaker 1: in September. It was the first time a sitting US
Speaker 1: president joined a picket line.
Speaker 5: We've adopted to states that our endorsements will be earned,
Speaker 5: not not freely.
Speaker 3: Given, and made Biden sweat about it a little bit
Speaker 3: and do more to support the union.
Speaker 1: But not every member of the UAW agrees with Fain
Speaker 1: on this. In fact, a Bloomberg News Morning Consult poll
Speaker 1: found that a lot of Michigan autoworkers support Trump over Biden.
Speaker 3: For a long time, the UAW for the most part,
Speaker 3: and you know, most unions have been reliably in the
Speaker 3: Democratic Party's camp. But I think there's been like sort
Speaker 3: of a sense of you know, slow burning crisis inside
Speaker 3: of like we've seen this writing on the wall for
Speaker 3: a long time. The unonization is going down. If we
Speaker 3: don't turn this around, then you know, we're not going
Speaker 3: to have much political power. We're not going to exist.
Speaker 1: Coming up, how that slow burning crisis is shaping autoworkers' votes,
Speaker 1: how electric vehicles are shaping the narrative, and how these
Speaker 1: tensions could shape the twenty twenty four election. Sean Faine's
Speaker 1: endorsement of President Biden wasn't a given, my colleague Josh
Speaker 1: Adelson says, it was a chip that Fain held tightly
Speaker 1: for a reason.
Speaker 4: Sean Fain made a point of showing that the UAW
Speaker 4: was not going to jump on board with endorsing Joe
Speaker 4: Biden at the point that the AFL, CIO and much
Speaker 4: of organized labor was doing so. Sean Fayne made a
Speaker 4: point of saying that being a Democrat running for president,
Speaker 4: even running against Donald Trump, was not enough to get
Speaker 4: an endorsement, that the endorsement had to be earned, and
Speaker 4: he gave Joe Biden opportunities to earn it, including making
Speaker 4: history by showing up on the picket line.
Speaker 6: UAW, you saved the autobile industry back and two accoutation
Speaker 6: in four made a lot of sacrifices gave him a lot,
Speaker 6: and the companies were in trouble, and now they're doing
Speaker 6: incredibly well.
Speaker 5: And guess what you should be doing incredibly well too.
Speaker 4: We saw at the uaw's convention in DC a taste
Speaker 4: of what Sean Fayn's argument for Joe Biden well looks like.
Speaker 2: Let's take a look at the candidates in their own
Speaker 2: words and their own actions.
Speaker 4: And it has some of the trash talking and some
Speaker 4: of the societal vision and some of the knack for
Speaker 4: spectacle that we've come to expect from Sean Feinne. At
Speaker 4: one point, he said, we had a strike during the
Speaker 4: Trump administration, and here, here's everything that was done by
Speaker 4: Donald Trump to support those workers.
Speaker 2: And I want to show you a picture.
Speaker 4: He showed a blank page.
Speaker 5: He said nothing.
Speaker 2: He did nothing, not a damn thing, because he doesn't
Speaker 2: care about the American worker.
Speaker 4: Sean Feinne also specifically called Donald Trump a scab and
Speaker 4: said if Donald Trump was your coworker, he would be
Speaker 4: anti union, he would be a company man.
Speaker 1: Fine continued to slam Trump unface the nation on Sunday.
Speaker 2: Donald Trump has a history of serving himself and standing
Speaker 2: for pa billionire class, and that's contrary to everything that
Speaker 2: working class people stand for.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 1: Sure, all of this strong language may not seem that
Speaker 1: surprising coming from the leader of an auto union in
Speaker 1: the United States, but remember it's not the nineteen seventies anymore.
Speaker 1: The voter base that used to be so solidly with
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party not anymore.
Speaker 4: There's been a long running explicit and implicit competition between
Speaker 4: Donald Trump and Joe Biden about who speaks for workers
Speaker 4: in America, who speaks for people who felt like they've
Speaker 4: been forgotten, Who actually will be good for union members
Speaker 4: in particular.
Speaker 5: The anxiety for our workers is more or less, in
Speaker 5: my opinion, job security.
Speaker 1: And there's one key battleground in the auto industry when
Speaker 1: it comes to job security right now, electric vehicles.
Speaker 4: There's been a view for years from companies, sometimes from
Speaker 4: the union, that electric vehicles are likely to lead to
Speaker 4: fewer jobs. There are union members concerned that the transition
Speaker 4: to electric vehicles will be a transition away from them,
Speaker 4: away from the particular workers who've had these jobs, away
Speaker 4: from union members in general, away from the painstakingly negotiated
Speaker 4: pay and benefits and safety standards that exist in union contracts.
Speaker 1: That's a fear Trump has played into He's used it
Speaker 1: as leverage against Biden, who passed policies that mandate electric
Speaker 1: vehicle production. Bloomberg's Gabrielle Coppola heard this first hint at
Speaker 1: a Trump rally in Michigan last fall.
Speaker 5: Now they want to go all electric and put you
Speaker 5: all out of business?
Speaker 4: You know that, right?
Speaker 3: Was classic Trump kind of hyperbole about how you know,
Speaker 3: just kind of taking your worst anxiety, worst nightmare and
Speaker 3: projecting this is what's going to happen if you don't
Speaker 3: vote for me. You know, you're not going to have
Speaker 3: one job left in this state.
Speaker 6: Biden's mandate isn't a government regulation, it's a government assassinated
Speaker 6: of your jobs and of your industry.
Speaker 3: Really capping into people's fears about change that's coming from
Speaker 3: electric vehicles.
Speaker 1: That contract Fine secured from the Big three automakers included
Speaker 1: some protections around EV jobs, So he started to make
Speaker 1: some headway on the issue. And Josh Edelson said that
Speaker 1: from his many conversations with UAW members, more of them
Speaker 1: seemed open to an EV future than not.
Speaker 4: As one said, we don't have the VCR like we
Speaker 4: used to do, why should cars be any different? But
Speaker 4: want to make sure that that's a future that they
Speaker 4: would be part of, and academics with proprietary Info pointing
Speaker 4: out that at least in the short to medium term,
Speaker 4: electric vehicles could involve more jobs.
Speaker 1: There is one other complication. The country's biggest EV maker, Tesla,
Speaker 1: isn't unionized.
Speaker 4: Tessa's the world's most valuable automaker, it's the iconic EV company.
Speaker 4: It's led by maybe the most prominent anti union executive,
Speaker 4: certainly the richest anti union executive in the world in
Speaker 4: our galaxy.
Speaker 1: He's talking about Elon Musk. At the New York Times
Speaker 1: deal Book Summit in November, Musk pretty much scoffed at
Speaker 1: the idea of Tesla workers creating a union.
Speaker 4: I disagree with the idea of union's past word a
Speaker 4: reason that is different than through made expectors, which is
Speaker 4: I just don't like anything which creates kind of a
Speaker 4: lords and peasants sort of thing. Elon Musk has shown
Speaker 4: he is not too worried about bad press or legal
Speaker 4: conflicts in the past during organizing efforts by the UAW,
Speaker 4: the National Labor Relations Board has ruled that Tesla repeatedly
Speaker 4: violated the law, including by firing an activist Tesla has
Speaker 4: denied wrongdoing.
Speaker 1: During one of Josh's conversations with Sean Fain, he posed
Speaker 1: the Tesla question.
Speaker 4: Some people say Elon Musk is the most powerful unionvester
Speaker 4: the world, more powerful than some governments countries. Can you
Speaker 4: beat Elon Musk and organize Tesla.
Speaker 5: I think we can beat anybody. It's going to come
Speaker 5: down to the working class people and the people that
Speaker 5: work for him decide if they want their fair share
Speaker 5: and if they want to get justice, or if they
Speaker 5: want him to be able to continue to build rocket
Speaker 5: ships and fly himself to the moon.
Speaker 1: Where this all nets out when it comes time for
Speaker 1: auto workers to vote in November is hard to say.
Speaker 1: Gabrielle told me the UAW isn't unique in that way.
Speaker 3: I think the union is divided just like America is divided. So,
Speaker 3: you know, Trump, I think a big part of his
Speaker 3: rise has been his appeal to working class voters and
Speaker 3: really speaking to this more populist kind of anger about,
Speaker 3: you know, injustice in the US economy. And I spoke to,
Speaker 3: you know, a Chrysler worker who is a big Trump fan,
Speaker 3: and he told me I only felt safe when Trump
Speaker 3: was president. He's the only one that can really is
Speaker 3: really going to fight to protect auto jobs. You know,
Speaker 3: I certainly think that Fain has a lot of credibility
Speaker 3: with his memory, you know, and like I said, he's
Speaker 3: proved himself with this with this contract. But people who
Speaker 3: love Trump love Trump.
Speaker 1: Gabriel, you live in Detroit, so naturally what's going on
Speaker 1: in the UAW is influencing your day to day. But
Speaker 1: going into this election year, why do you think that
Speaker 1: the everyday American across the country outside of Detroit, why
Speaker 1: should they care?
Speaker 3: I mean, the auto industry is sort of not only symbolically,
Speaker 3: but it is sort of the backbone of working class jobs,
Speaker 3: blue collar jobs in America where you don't need a
Speaker 3: nationally need to college degree to get a path to
Speaker 3: the middle class. So I think those jobs are really
Speaker 3: important for people's standard of living and being able to
Speaker 3: kind of climb up the economic ladder. I think on
Speaker 3: a national level, we've seen that in the past few years,
Speaker 3: really ever since the pandemic, we have learned that, you know,
Speaker 3: the ability to make stuff is important almost from a
Speaker 3: national security level.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: We saw this during the pandemic when we couldn't get chips.
Speaker 3: We had spiral and inflation car prices when crazy we
Speaker 3: couldn't get you know, Ppe, we couldn't get drugs. Certainly
Speaker 3: in the White House, there's this recognition that, oh man,
Speaker 3: we outsourced all these jobs. We all thought they were
Speaker 3: kind of unimportant, kind of commodity, low skill jobs. Well,
Speaker 3: turns out we need them for own economic resilience. And
Speaker 3: turns out that when you outsource those jobs to other countries,
Speaker 3: those other countries take that knowledge, they learn and they
Speaker 3: build on it, and they become really good economic competitors,
Speaker 3: you know, And so you've kind of like, you know,
Speaker 3: given away all your leverage.
Speaker 1: Do you think the UAW has power to shape the
Speaker 1: election in any way?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I do, because I think no matter what, the
Speaker 3: strike really engaged people. You know, it restored their faith
Speaker 3: in the Union, and it just got people mobilized and
Speaker 3: acting in a community or in manner, you know, supporting
Speaker 3: people on the picket line. You know, Fain has really
Speaker 3: built a real cult of personality. He's very popular beyond
Speaker 3: the UAW. Just whenever I mention him, people from all
Speaker 3: different walks of life, different class backgrounds, they like him.
Speaker 3: He's just like this popular hero. People are into him.
Speaker 3: I think that Biden is really counting on him to
Speaker 3: kind of connect with and speak to blue collar voters
Speaker 3: who might be swayed by the attentions of Trump, you know,
Speaker 3: because Trump is also a very compelling speaker. I've seen
Speaker 3: it up close. He tells a really good story. So
Speaker 3: I think the UAW definitely has power. Whether or not
Speaker 3: it's enough to help Joe Biden, you know, push things
Speaker 3: over the top, I really don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well that's gonna be a big question. Gabrielle, thanks
Speaker 1: so much for joining me. Was great to hang out.
Speaker 3: Thank you, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Big Take DC podcast from
Speaker 1: Bloomberg News. I'm Seleiah Mosen. This episode was produced by
Speaker 1: Julia Press and Naomi Shaven. It was fact checked by
Speaker 1: Tiffany Choi. A special thanks to David Welch, Jeff Green
Speaker 1: and Jeff Muscus. Alex Sagira and Blake Maples are mix engineers.
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