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Speaker 1: Let's get to the labor story, because it has been

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Speaker 1: pervasive this year. Hollywood studios and actors are scheduled to

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Speaker 1: resume contract negotiations today. That follows the end of the

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Speaker 1: UAW United Auto Workers six week strike that costs the

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Speaker 1: Big three automakers supposedly two point nine billion dollars, but

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Speaker 1: got huge gains for the workers. At least I think

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Speaker 1: they're huge, you know, twenty five percent is the headline

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Speaker 1: figure that uaw's are going to be getting from gm

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Speaker 1: Ford and Stillantis, really record breaking wage hikes thanks to

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Speaker 1: the strikes and the new leadership. Let's talk about the

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Speaker 1: state of labor with the former US Labor Secretary, Robert

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Speaker 1: Reich currently University of California at Berkeley, professor. It's great

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Speaker 1: to get you on the program. Thanks so much for

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Speaker 1: your time, Professor. What do you make first of all

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Speaker 1: of the games we've seen out of the UAW, out

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Speaker 1: of the most recent negotiations with gm Ford and Stallantis.

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Speaker 2: Well, Matt, this agreement has not been ratified by members yet,

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Speaker 2: but it is groundbreaking, if not earth shattering, And I

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Speaker 2: say that because it marks a really substantial increase not

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Speaker 2: only in wages, cost of living, adjustments and a lot

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Speaker 2: of other things that well, if you had asked me

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Speaker 2: six months ago, I would say very unlikely that it

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Speaker 2: becomes part of the new bargain. And yet there it is,

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Speaker 2: and it's the Big three Stilantis, GM Ford I would expect,

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Speaker 2: And we can get into this if you want that

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Speaker 2: very very soon. We are going to see the UAW

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Speaker 2: targets Tesla and also the US divisions of some of

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Speaker 2: the foreign automakers like Hondo, Toyota and BMW. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Well, I mean, how do you think they're going to

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Speaker 1: be seen by workers in those shops in the Carolina's

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Speaker 1: in California in Tennessee. Are they going to want the

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Speaker 1: same kind of gains and go to the union for

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Speaker 1: help or do you think those companies are going to

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Speaker 1: have to give workers raises in order to keep the

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Speaker 1: unions out.

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Speaker 2: Well, what we've seen historically is that when unions make

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Speaker 2: some progress in an industry, the non unionized shops in

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Speaker 2: that industry do tend to want to make defensive moves

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Speaker 2: that has provide wage increases and benefit increases to keep

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Speaker 2: the unions out. I don't know what's going to happen,

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Speaker 2: but undoubtedly the pressure is going to be increasing on

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Speaker 2: Tesla and Honda, Toyota and BMW in the United States.

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Speaker 3: Now, when it comes to productivity, which is an issue

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Speaker 3: in the United States, it's certainly an issue here in Canada.

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Speaker 3: We talked actually with the head of the union that

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Speaker 3: just represented the new automaker deals here in Canada today,

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Speaker 3: who had a conversation with our head Central Bank about,

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Speaker 3: in her opinion, the economic realities of productivity and how

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Speaker 3: it's measured today perhaps not fully recognizing the story of

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Speaker 3: the worker. And I know you've been thinking about that

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Speaker 3: as well in recent months. What more can you tell

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Speaker 3: us about your assessment on that front.

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Speaker 2: Well, generally speaking, just to stand back from the tumult

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Speaker 2: right now, predativity has been increasing. I think that a

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Speaker 2: lot of the measures we have used of productivity traditionally

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Speaker 2: don't quite work in the Internet age, with a lot

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Speaker 2: of the technology that workers surround themselves with. I don't

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Speaker 2: think there's any question that workers, whether we're talking about

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Speaker 2: auto workers or production workers, generally are substantially more productive

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Speaker 2: than they were, say, ten years ago, and yet their

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Speaker 2: wages have not really kept up. And that statement could

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Speaker 2: be not only the last ten years in terms of relevance.

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Speaker 2: But really the last forty years, if you look at

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Speaker 2: production workers and hourly workers, generally non supervisory workers, they

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Speaker 2: have experienced relatively stagnant wages adjusted for inflation. I think

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Speaker 2: that that has generated a kind of a very strong

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Speaker 2: built up desire on the part of workers and really

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Speaker 2: on the part of the public in general, to increase

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Speaker 2: the wages of these people. And we see the wages

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Speaker 2: have increased substantially. Well, even even post pandemic, there's been

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Speaker 2: an increase if you say, if you look at inflation

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Speaker 2: adjusted wages, but nowhere near what it would be had

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Speaker 2: wages kept up with productivity gains over the last ten

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Speaker 2: thirty forty years.

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Speaker 3: Now against that backdrop, and at a time when we

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Speaker 3: are seeing a fresh storyline around workers getting their fair share.

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Speaker 3: One of the other big narratives this year, which you've

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Speaker 3: commented on as well, is this AI transition. We have

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Speaker 3: new labor deals, yes, but what does this AI story

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Speaker 3: mean in terms of how many employees there are at

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Speaker 3: businesses and how this conversation productivity and worker pay is

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Speaker 3: going to come up in a world dominated by artificial intelligence.

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Speaker 2: I'm not a futurologist, Matt, but if we look at

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Speaker 2: the trends, the present trends, and I'm not talking about

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Speaker 2: I'm talking about everything from software to algorithms to new

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Speaker 2: kinds of labor saving devices, all the way through. What

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Speaker 2: ai've seems to promise there is going to be a

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Speaker 2: big issue not just for non supervisory workers hourly workers,

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Speaker 2: but also for all professionals across the board in terms

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Speaker 2: of their bargaining leverage. They're going to lose bargaining leverage.

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Speaker 2: Most of us and I included myself, professors, everybody who

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Speaker 2: is part of the knowledge economy, we are going to

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Speaker 2: be replicated and substitutable by artificial intelligence. Not immediately, but

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Speaker 2: certainly that looks like it is in the cards. AI

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Speaker 2: is not staying static. AI is getting better and better,

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Speaker 2: and yet human beings, human brains with regards to the

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Speaker 2: professional class, are not necessarily keeping up. And so I

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Speaker 2: wouldn't be surprised if, say, twenty years from now, most

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Speaker 2: of us were either working part time or dependent on

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Speaker 2: a universal basic income, or working in ways that really

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Speaker 2: made us vulnerable to kind of a spot auction market

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Speaker 2: in which are worth well we actually were earning at

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Speaker 2: any given time was dependent on the value that we

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Speaker 2: added at that moment, and that in turn dependent on

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Speaker 2: artificial intelligence. In other words, we could find ourselves, most

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Speaker 2: of us, working for what might be considered to be

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Speaker 2: artificial intelligence.

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Speaker 1: Great to get your insight. Really appreciate you joining us,

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Speaker 1: and I hope we can get you back. Robert Reich

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Speaker 1: their former US Labor secretary. Right now, he's a professor

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Speaker 1: at Berkeley