Business

(NEW YORK) — Lordstown, Ohio, has been a crucial and valued site in the automotive industry, and now it is at the crossroads of what could be a major labor movement.

The 25-square-mile town was formally the site of a General Motors plant that employed thousands of unionized workers.

Last fall, a new plant focused on making electric vehicle batteries opened and hired many of the former GM workers, but those employees said their new positions, which were not unionized over a technicality, are a far cry from their previous positions.

Low pay, safety concerns, and other issues prompted many of the Lordstown Ultium Cells plant workers to fight for their benefits, and many say they are gearing up for an uphill battle.

“There’s a real push right now towards electric vehicles. We want to set the standard right here in Lordstown, Ohio,” David Green, one of the plant’s workers and union members, told ABC News Live.

Ultium Cells, a joint venture between GM and LG Electronics, will be producing the lithium-ion battery cells that will be used in electric vehicles as car manufacturers and the federal government push for more green offerings in the automotive industry.

Many long-time Lordstown factory workers who spent years at the GM plant applied and were given jobs at the Ultium plant, but they were not allowed to carry over their previous United Auto Workers union membership since the company was considered a parts supplier.

Mike Derose, an Ultium worker, told ABC News that a material worker at the plant was paid at the lowest rate of $15 an hour at first but that was bumped up to $20 an hour.

“That same type of person could be making closer to $30 if they were in a big three plant,” he said.

Dave Dellick, an Ultium worker and father of three, told ABC News that he had to take a second job because the plant’s $16.50 an-hour salary was not enough to provide for his family.

“When I applied to Ultium they said it’s going to be the next wave, the …, future going forward of batteries, electric vehicles,” he said. “So I’m thinking this could be a job I can retire from.”

In addition to the lower pay, workers also had safety concerns.

David Green, a plant worker, claimed to ABC News that there are currently no Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulations concerning certain chemicals that are used in EV battery production.

“The science hasn’t even caught up to the chemicals,” he said.

OSHA told ABC News that the plant currently has five open inspections.

Ultium Cells told ABC News in a statement, “The safety and well-being of our team members is our top priority. Ultium Cells follows all federal, state and local requirements for workplace and environmental safety, including those related to the handling of chemical materials.”

The frustrations among the workers ended with the majority of them voting to unionize with the United Autoworkers Union last December. They are the first EV battery plant in the country to successfully unionize.

The workers are currently in negotiations with the UAW and the plant’s management for the exact details of their contract, but those months of back and forth have been tough for some workers.

Dellick said several of his co-workers have quit their jobs at the plant in the last few months because of the low pay.

“Eventually they came to an agreement,” he said. “I think I almost got [a] $5 [an hour raise], so I’m up to $23 [an hour] now, but yeah, it’s been a kind of a long up-road climb like a mountain climb.”

GM said in a statement that it “is confident that Ultium Cells, and the UAW, will work in good faith to reach a reasonable agreement that is appropriate for battery supply operations.”

The Ultium workers’ efforts gained national attention last month when the Biden Administration and Dept. of Energy announced a $15.5 billion funding package focused on “retooling existing factories for the transition to electric vehicles – supporting good jobs and a just transition to EVs.”

The Ultium workers have support from Sen. Sherrod Brown.

“We have a tradition of these contracts creating middle-class wages and giving families a middle-class lifestyle, and they have taken that away because of bad trade agreements and other things,” Brown told ABC News. “We continue to fight for that disagreement in Lordstown.”

The plant workers said they hope their united stance can be a model for other factories that are transitioning to new products and technologies.

“The company is going to fight back…and we’ve got to just we’ve got to stand together and keep fighting,” George Goranitis, an Ultium plant worker, told ABC News.

 

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(NEW YORK) — A boycott against Bud Light has hammered sales for months, dethroning the brand as the nation’s most popular beer and demonstrating the longevity of an anti-trans consumer movement that erupted in April.

Even more, a reset of shelf space that takes hold every fall at major retailers could solidify the sales declines and make it much more difficult for Bud Light to return to its performance before the boycott, according to ABC News’ interviews with a former Anheuser-Busch executive, a local Bud Light wholesaler and beer industry analysts.

Bud Light is set to lose refrigerator space at a vast network of stores belonging to key beer sellers like Walmart and 7-Eleven, since the retailers typically reapportion shelf space based on recent sales performance, taking space away from struggling brands and giving it to hot-selling ones, the industry sources told ABC News.

“During a busy shopping period on a Friday or Saturday night, if you don’t have the beer available cold on the shelf, consumers pick something else,” former Anheuser-Busch InBev executive Anson Frericks told ABC News, calling shelf space “the single largest determinant of sales in a store.”

“There will be a dramatic shift,” Frericks added.

Sales of Bud Light have recorded declines for five consecutive months after a product endorsement from Dylan Mulvaney, a transgender influencer, sparked backlash among many conservatives.

The boycott gained momentum, meanwhile, after the initial response from the company was perceived as conciliatory to conservatives by some LGBTQ advocates, prompting frustration on the left.

Anheuser-Busch did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment, nor did Walmart or 7-Eleven.

Over a four-week period ending in early September, sales of Bud Light slid 27% compared to the same period a year prior, according to data from Bump Williams Consulting and Nielsen NIQ reviewed by ABC News.

Meanwhile, sales of rival brands have surged. During that same four-week period, Coors Light sales climbed 20% compared to a year ago; while sales of Yuengling’s light lager jumped a staggering 80%, the data showed.

The disparate performance of Bud Light and its competitors will be reflected in the display changes made by retailers, leaving Bud Light at a disadvantage as it tries to recover lost sales, Dave Williams, vice president of analytics and insights at Bump Williams Consulting, told ABC News.

“There’s explosive growth on one side and sharp decline on the other,” Williams said. “This does have that ripple effect where if Bud Light loses space on the shelf, that could make it a longer-term endeavor to claw back to where they were if they’re ever able to do that in the first place.”

Typically, about 80% of beer sales take place at retailers or other locations where consumers take the product home; while 20% of sales occur at bars and restaurants where customers drink the product on site, according to a report from Beer Market Analysis.

In recent months, rival executives have trumpeted the potential benefits of shelf space changes at retailers.

Constellation Brands CEO Bill Newlands, whose company makes the newly top-selling Modelo brand, told investors on an earnings call in June that a change in retail displays “works to our advantage.”

“Some of that is coming because of the growth and velocities that you’re seeing on our brands,” Newlands said. “But also the decrease that you’ve seen from some of our competitors.”

Molson Coors, the maker of Coors Light, held an earnings call last month during which CEO Gavin Hattersley said the company had already heard from nearly 20 top retailers saying that the company’s brands would receive additional shelf space as part of the reset.

“We’re working hard at making sure that shelf resets reflect the current reality in the marketplace, which shows that there is a strong momentum behind all of our core brands,” Hattersley said.

The impending loss of shelf space for Bud Light imperils roughly 500 independent wholesalers that sell and deliver the beer, Carlos Laboy, a beverage industry analyst at HSBC, told ABC News, noting that many of the distributors have already seen their revenue from Anheuser-Busch beverages this year decline by a third or more.

In turn, some wholesalers are cutting back their services and frequency of visits to retailers, Laboy said, further threatening sales performance. “Expect more wholesaler cutbacks now,” he added.

A general manager at an Anheuser-Busch distributor in Wisconsin, who declined to share their name, told ABC News that the shelf resets at retailers “could be an issue” but added that they do not expect a “drastic change.”

“The boycott has lasted longer than anybody thought,” the general manager said. “Every retailer has their own opinion for what sales warrant on their shelves. Time will tell.”

To be sure, industry analysts said that Bud Light sales could still recover to the levels at which they stood before the boycott, pointing to another shelf reset in the spring that offers Anheuser-Busch an opportunity to win back lost shelf space.

“These things are fluid,” Gerald Pascarelli, a beer industry analyst at Wedbush, told ABC News. “It depends on where consumer preference is and what trends are. They will change.”

Still, the impending reallocation of shelf space carries significant risk for Bud Light in the coming months, the industry analysts said.

“You’ve got to be on the shelf first to be selling,” Williams said.

 

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(NEW YORK) — A union representing nearly 150,000 autoworkers launched a strike early Friday morning against the Big 3 U.S. automakers — General Motors, Ford and Stellantis.

The United Auto Workers, or UAW, and the car manufacturers failed to reach a contract agreement before a deadline set by the union for Thursday at 11:59 p.m. ET. Less than two hours before the deadline, UAW president Shawn Fain announced the plants where union members would strike if a tentative agreement wasn’t reached in time. By midnight Friday, which amounted to approximately 12,700 union workers, including ones at GM in Wentzville, Missouri; Stellantis in Toledo, Ohio; and Ford’s Wayne, Michigan plant.

The union is doing what’s called a “stand-up” strike, where not all union members strike at once.

Shortly after the strike was announced, Fain sent a message to UAW’s email list.

“A few minutes ago, thousands of UAW members at Ford, GM, and Stellantis walked out, marking the beginning of the Stand Up Strike,” his note read.

“This fight is our generation’s defining moment. Not just at the Big Three, but across the entire working class,” he continued, adding, “We will stand up for ourselves. We will stand up for our families. We will stand up for our communities.”

As the strike began, a Stellantis spokesperson released a statement expressing the company’s disappointment in not reaching an agreement.

“We are extremely disappointed by the UAW leadership’s refusal to engage in a responsible manner to reach a fair agreement in the best interest of our employees, their families and our customers. We immediately put the Company in contingency mode and will take all the appropriate structural decisions to protect our North American operations and the Company.

Earlier in the day on Thursday, the UAW and the companies remained far apart on key demands, such as wage increases and the length of the workweek.

The union demanded a 46% pay increase combined over the four-year duration of a new contract, as well as a 32-hour workweek at 40-hour pay.

General Motors and Ford put forward proposals on Thursday that offer workers a 20% pay over the life of the agreement; the latest offer from Stellantis includes a total 17.5% pay increase. The offers from all three of the companies preserved a 40-hour workweek.

In a statement Thursday night as the strike loomed, the Ford Motor Company said that the UAW’s counterproposal, which they received Thursday evening, “showed little movement from the union’s initial demands submitted Aug. 3.”

“The union made clear that unless we agreed to its unsustainable terms, it plans a work stoppage at 11:59 p.m. eastern,” the company said in the statement. “Ford has bargained in good faith in an effort to avoid a strike, which could have wide-ranging consequences for our business and the economy.”

The automaker said it “remains absolutely committed to reaching an agreement that rewards” employees “and protects Ford’s ability to invest in the future” during a time of transformation.

 

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(DETROIT) — A potential strike at the Big 3 U.S. automakers — General Motors, Ford and Stellantis – would threaten the livelihood of up to 143,000 workers and the bottom line at some of the nation’s top companies.

The economic fallout, however, could extend far beyond the immediate players involved. Businesses may lose out on spending from striking autoworkers. Car component suppliers could grind to a halt. Consumers may decide to balk at higher prices.

A six-week strike would cost the U.S. two-tenths of a percentage point of economic growth over a period of three months ending in December, Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Analytics, told ABC News.

“This is a small impact, but meaningful,” Zandi added, noting that a potential strike would weaken the U.S. economy as it faces other threats, such as high oil prices, a federal government shutdown and the end of a moratorium on student loan payments.

As the weeks pass and automakers sell through inventory already diminished by a pandemic-era supply bottleneck, car prices could spike, threatening the Federal Reserve’s effort to bring down inflation, Zandi said.

A shorter strike against all three automakers, lasting 10 days, would still cost the U.S. economy $5.6 billion in losses, according to a report released last month by the Anderson Economic Group.

The losses include about $860 million in direct wages foregone by autoworkers as well as nearly $1 billion in missed production – both of which would be exacerbated by the resulting lost economic activity, the report said. Consumers and dealers, the report added, will suffer another $2 billion in losses as car owners delay repairs and sellers lose inventory.

The most significant economic impact would result from the lost wages that potentially tens of thousands of members of the United Autoworkers, or UAW, are set to endure, economists told ABC News.

“Lost wages directly and immediately affect every household of a UAW worker on strike and their spending power in the economy,” Tyler Theile, vice president and director of public policy for Anderson Economic Group, told ABC News.

“Whatever their spending power is today, it would be significantly different tomorrow,” Theile added. “That’s where the economic impact starts to hit and ripple through the economy.”

Employees participating in the work stoppage are set to receive strike pay of $500 per week, which for many workers would amount to less than half of their previous income. Such workers would be less likely to eat out at a restaurant or go to a movie theater, cutting revenue for those businesses, Gabriel Ehrlich, an economic forecaster at the University of Michigan, told ABC News.

“Those things add up,” Ehrlich said.

If the strike stretches for several weeks, workers at companies down the supply chain could suffer from the same dynamic, since lost production would lead to furloughs and diminished income, Erik Gordon, a business professor at the University of Michigan, told ABC News.

Initially, suppliers of car components like dashboards and sound systems may retain workers in the hope that a quick resolution of the strike would require a surge of activity as the automakers build up lost inventory, Gordon said. Over time, a backup in the supply of such components would trigger a slowdown in production.

“Those suppliers are going to first shut down shifts and then maybe shut down manufacturing all together,” Gordon said.

A four-week strike against all three automakers would result in 161,000 lost jobs in Michigan alone, according to a report authored by Ehrlich. A long-term strike would cause more than 300,000 job losses in the state, Ehrlich found.

In addition to workers and related businesses, consumers could suffer as dwindling inventory at the automakers leads to higher prices.

Due to the lingering effects of pandemic-era supply chain disruption, the Big 3 automakers hold one-fifth of the inventory that they did in 2019, when a 40-day strike against General Motors rendered little impact, said Theile.

Gordon said supply shortages caused by the strike could lead to a higher sticker prices.

“For consumers, it’s a terrible time to go out and buy a car,” he said. “If you have to buy a car, one thing is for sure: you’re not going to get any big bargains.”

On Thursday evening, the White House confirmed President Joe Biden had spoken with Shawn Fain, President of UAW, and leaders of the major auto companies to discuss the status of ongoing negotiations.

Biden made the calls as the clock continues to tick down to a possible strike.

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(NEW YORK) — Five days after a cyberattack crippled operations of MGM Resorts International, including its signature Las Vegas properties the Bellagio and the MGM Grand, the company said Thursday morning it is still working to resolve issues as another major resort operation, Caesars Entertainment, acknowledged it was also the target of a cyberattack.

Hackers struck MGM Resorts on Sunday morning, rendering doors to the chain’s casinos and hotels unusable. Slot machines and ATM machines were also inoperable, elevators were out of order and customers had to wait hours to check into rooms. Even the company’s website remains down.

“We continue to work diligently to resolve our cybersecurity issues while addressing individual guest needs promptly,” MGM Resorts said a statement Thursday. “We couldn’t do this without the thousands of incredible employees who are committed to guest service and support from our loyal customers. Thank you for your continued patience.”

But for MGM Resorts Las Vegas visitors like Walter Haywood, patience is running out.

“It was kind of chaotic,” Haywood told ABC Las Vegas affiliate station KTNV. “The machines wouldn’t take our ticket. Lines everywhere. Just chaos.”

MGM Resorts has acknowledged the attack but has released no details on how it occurred or who might be responsible.

The company said it “took prompt action to protect our system and data, including shutting down certain systems.”

The FBI said it is investigating the attack and has been in contact with the chain since Sunday.

VX-Underground — a research group boasting the largest collection of malware source code, samples and papers on the internet — posted to X that the ransomware group “ALPHV,” also known as Black Cat, is allegedly is behind the MGM cyberattack. Authorities have not confirmed the report.

“All ALPHV ransomware group did to compromise MGM Resorts was hop on LinkedIn, find an employee, then call the Help Desk. A company valued at $33,900,000,000 was defeated by a 10-minute conversation,” VX-Underground said.

Bloomberg News reported Wednesday that the same ransomware group is responsible for a cyberattack this month on Caesars Entertainment Inc. and that the company paid “millions” to get its data back.

Caesars Entertainment — which runs more than 50 resorts including, Caesars Palace and Harrah’s in Las Vegas — acknowledged the attack occurred on Sept. 7 in a filing Thursday with the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission.

“Caesars Entertainment Inc. recently identified suspicious activity in its information technology network resulting from a social engineering attack on an outsourced IT support vendor used by the Company,” Caesars said in its SEC Form 8-K filing.

While the company said it did not pay a ransom, it noted that “we have incurred, and may continue to incur, certain expenses related to this attack, including expenses to respond to, remediate and investigate this matter. The full scope of the costs and related impacts of this incident, including the extent to which these costs will be offset by our cybersecurity insurance or potential indemnification claims against third parties, has not been determined.”

Caesars Entertainment, according to the filing, said its investigation determined that hackers acquired a copy of its loyalty program database, which includes driver’s license numbers and Social Security numbers “for a significant number of members in the database.”

Caesars added, “We have taken steps to ensure that the stolen data is deleted by the unauthorized actor, although we cannot guarantee this result.”

 

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(DETROIT) — As the strike deadline set by the United Auto Workers union approaches, the union’s president said that, for the first time in history, they are prepared to strike all three automakers at once.

“We’re going to be doing things differently this time around,” the union’s president, Shawn Fain, said during an update on social media Wednesday evening. “First of all, for the first time in our history, we may strike all three of the Big Three at once.”

“Our message to the companies was clear, if we don’t have a fair contract by midnight on Thursday night, we will strike,” he continued.

Fain said that he will announce at 10 p.m. ET Thursday on Facebook Live which local unions are being asked to go on strike, calling it a “stand up strike.”

That plan, if it happens, will be unprecedented in union history. According to Professor Erik Gordon at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, “Surgical attacks to cripple all three auto companies at lower cost to the UAW is a new, probably powerful tactic.”

Fain said in his latest update that they are “making progress” in the ongoing contract negotiations with each automaker — but are “still very far apart on our key priorities.”

“From job security to ending tiers, from cost of living allowance to wage increases, we do not yet have offers on the table that reflect the sacrifice and contributions our members have made to these companies,” Fain said. “To win, we’re likely going to have to take action.”

The union president told ABC News’ Good Morning America earlier Wednesday that negotiations with the Big Three automakers are making “slow” progress, with at least one meeting planned for Wednesday.

“Can we get there? Yes, we can, but they need to buckle down and get busy. We’ve got 48 hours. That’s not a lot of time,” Fain said on Good Morning America.

Members in several states have threatened to walk off their jobs in the coming days unless auto companies meet their demands over higher wages and more robust benefits.

The deadline the union has set for negotiations with three automakers — General Motors, Ford and Stellantis — is midnight ET on Thursday. About 150,000 members work at the three companies.

Such a strike would be “devastating” for the U.S. auto industry and overall economy, Jim Farley, CEO of Ford Motor Company, told ABC News on Tuesday evening with just 48 hours to go in negotiations.

“We are putting forth an offer today that’s the most lucrative offer in 80 years working with the UAW,” he said.

 

In a statement Wednesday evening, Farley said that Ford has put four offers on the table since Aug. 29 but has not received “any genuine counteroffer.”

“If there is a strike, it’s not because Ford didn’t make a great offer. We have and that’s what we can control,” he said, adding that Ford is “here and ready to reach a deal.”

General Motors execs said in a statement Wednesday night, “We are making progress in key areas that we believe are most important to you. This includes historic guaranteed annual wage increases, investments in our U.S. manufacturing plants to provide opportunities for all and shortening the time for in-progression employees to reach maximum wages.”

Continuing, “Our goal remains to reach an agreement before the expiration of the current contract.”

Stellantis said in a statement Wednesday that the company is waiting to receive UAW’s response to an offer it presented on Tuesday.

“Our focus remains on bargaining in good faith to have a tentative agreement on the table before the collective bargaining agreement expires,” Stellantis said.

Fain told GMA on Wednesday a strike would be more likely to wreck the “billionaire economy,” rather than the overall economy.

“It’s interesting to me all of a sudden the fear mongers get out there and start talking about how this is going to wreck the economy. It’s not going to wreck the economy. It’s going to wreck the billionaire economy,” he said.

He added, “That’s the big issue here. Especially in this country. The working class is living paycheck to paycheck and feeding off the scraps.”

 

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(DETROIT) — As the strike deadline set by the United Auto Workers union approaches, the union’s president said that, for the first time in history, they are prepared to strike all three automakers at once.

“We’re going to be doing things differently this time around,” the union’s president, Shawn Fain, said during an update on social media Wednesday evening. “First of all, for the first time in our history, we may strike all three of the Big Three at once.”

“Our message to the companies was clear, if we don’t have a fair contract by midnight on Thursday night, we will strike,” he continued.

Fain said that he will announce at 10 p.m. ET Thursday on Facebook Live which local unions are being asked to go on strike, calling it a “stand up strike.”

That plan, if it happens, will be unprecedented in union history. According to Professor Erik Gordon at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, “Surgical attacks to cripple all three auto companies at lower cost to the UAW is a new, probably powerful tactic.”

Fain said in his latest update that they are “making progress” in the ongoing contract negotiations with each automaker — but are “still very far apart on our key priorities.”

“From job security to ending tiers, from cost of living allowance to wage increases, we do not yet have offers on the table that reflect the sacrifice and contributions our members have made to these companies,” Fain said. “To win, we’re likely going to have to take action.”

The union president told “Good Morning America” earlier Wednesday that negotiations with the Big Three automakers are making “slow” progress, with at least one meeting planned for Wednesday.

“Can we get there? Yes, we can, but they need to buckle down and get busy. We’ve got 48 hours. That’s not a lot of time,” Fain said on “Good Morning America.”

Members in several states have threatened to walk off their jobs in the coming days unless auto companies meet their demands over higher wages and more robust benefits.

The deadline the union has set for negotiations with three automakers — General Motors, Ford and Stellantis — is midnight ET on Thursday. About 150,000 members work at the three companies.

Such a strike would be “devastating” for the U.S. auto industry and overall economy, Jim Farley, CEO of Ford Motor Company, told ABC News on Tuesday evening with just 48 hours to go in negotiations.

“We are putting forth an offer today that’s the most lucrative offer in 80 years working with the UAW,” he said.

Some union members have been struggling as executives “make out like bandits,” Fain said in an earlier statement. “The Big Three have been breaking the bank while we have been breaking our backs.”

Fain on Wednesday said a strike would be more likely to wreck the “billionaire economy,” rather than the overall economy.

“It’s interesting to me all of a sudden the fear mongers get out there and start talking about how this is going to wreck the economy. It’s not going to wreck the economy. It’s going to wreck the billionaire economy,” he said.

He added, “That’s the big issue here. Especially in this country. The working class is living paycheck to paycheck and feeding off the scraps.”

ABC News’ Zunaira Zaki, Meredith Deliso, Imtiyaz Delawala, Anna Katharine Ping, Linsey Davis and Rahma Ahmed contributed to this story.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(DETROIT) — As the strike deadline set by the United Auto Workers union approaches amid negotiations with the Big Three automakers, the union’s president said Wednesday they “may strike all three” at once.

During an update on social media, the union’s president, Shawn Fain, said that he will announce at 10 p.m. ET Thursday on Facebook Live which local unions are being asked to go on strike, calling it a “stand up strike.”

That plan, if it happens, will be unprecedented in union history. According to Professor Erik Gordon at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, “Surgical attacks to cripple all three auto companies at lower cost to the UAW is a new, probably powerful tactic.”

Fain told “Good Morning America” earlier Wednesday that negotiations with the Big Three automakers are making “slow” progress, with at least one meeting planned for Wednesday.

“Can we get there? Yes, we can, but they need to buckle down and get busy. We’ve got 48 hours. That’s not a lot of time,” Fain said on “Good Morning America.”

Members in several states have threatened to walk off their jobs in the coming days unless auto companies meet their demands over higher wages and more robust benefits.

The deadline the union has set for negotiations with three automakers — General Motors, Ford and Stellantis — is midnight ET on Thursday. About 150,000 members work at the three companies.

Such a strike would be “devastating” for the U.S. auto industry and overall economy, Jim Farley, CEO of Ford Motor Company, told ABC News on Tuesday evening with just 48 hours to go in negotiations.

“We are putting forth an offer today that’s the most lucrative offer in 80 years working with the UAW,” he said.

Some union members have been struggling as executives “make out like bandits,” Fain said in an earlier statement. “The Big Three have been breaking the bank while we have been breaking our backs.”

Fain on Wednesday said a strike would be more likely to wreck the “billionaire economy,” rather than the overall economy.

“It’s interesting to me all of a sudden the fear mongers get out there and start talking about how this is going to wreck the economy. It’s not going to wreck the economy. It’s going to wreck the billionaire economy,” he said.

He added, “That’s the big issue here. Especially in this country. The working class is being living paycheck to pay check and feeding off the scraps.”

ABC News’ Zunaira Zaki, Meredith Deliso, Imtiyaz Delawala, Anna Katharine Ping, Linsey Davis and Rahma Ahmed contributed to this story.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — About 146,000 auto workers are prepared to strike this week if their demands are not met by their employers – Big Three automakers General Motors, Ford and Stellantis.

Members of the United Auto Workers union are threatening to walk off their jobs in multiple states if the auto companies do not meet their demands over higher wages and benefits. The deadline the union has set for an agreement with the automakers is midnight Eastern time on Thursday.

At least one meeting is planned between the union and automakers for Wednesday, Shawn Fain, president of the union, said on “Good Morning America.”

“Can we get there? Yes, we can, but they need to buckle down and get busy. We’ve got 48 hours. That’s not a lot of time,” Fain said.

If the strike shuts down production, it could cause a spike in vehicle prices and a shortage of American-made cars in as soon as two months.

Ford CEO Jim Farley told ABC News Live on Tuesday night that such a strike would be “devastating” for the U.S. auto industry. He spoke about details of the latest offer to the union he says includes large pay increases for employees.

LINSEY DAVIS: Thank you so much, Mr. Farley, for joining us. We’ll get to the talks in a moment. But first, Ford will be unveiling the 2024 Ford F-150 tonight ahead of the Detroit Auto Show. Tell us a bit about that and what it means for your company.

JIM FARLEY: Well, the F-150 is the most popular vehicle in America for 41 years, and the most popular truck for 46 years. On revenue alone, it’s larger than the entire size of Starbucks or Netflix. So it’s a huge business for not just Ford, but our economy. I think we’re going to end the tailgate wars with the very creative solution. Our hybrid F-150 can power a house for seven days and get better fuel economy, too. So we have a lot of new technology.

DAVIS: Sounds impressive and very exciting, but I would have to imagine that a lot of your attention at this particular moment is on this potential strike. Just break down for us where things stand at this hour on the negotiations between the UAW and Ford. Are you any closer to reaching a deal?

FARLEY: We’re really in the heart of the negotiations now. We’re less than about 48 hours until our contract expires, just about two days [as of Tuesday night]. This is really negotiations for the future of automotive manufacturing in the US.

We are putting forth an offer today that’s the most lucrative offer in 80 years working with the UAW. Large pay increases, top 1% health care. We have profit sharing. We’re going to be adding inflation protection. We’re going to be getting rid of all the tiered labor.

Our team gets five weeks of vacation. They get another 17 days off. A lot in the offer. But this will be the most lucrative offer and will require a lot of belt tightening at the company. And there’s a limit how far we can go, because we have to keep investing for the transition of the industry.

We’re very optimistic that we can reach an agreement with the UAW in the next two days, and it’s very important for the country.

DAVIS: You mentioned that 48-hour deadline. Bottom line, how confident are you that you can avoid a strike between the UAW and Ford before the end of the week?

FARLEY: Well, rhetoric aside, it’s time for us to come together. We’ve put in our first offer a couple of weeks ago, and we still haven’t found the right deal for both sides. But we’re still confident that we can reach a deal, because it is so important for the U.S. economy and for our country and for, of course, those 57,000 workers.

We’re the most committed, the UAW. So it’s critical that we find a deal. But there is a limit, as I said. We’re not going to mortgage our future.

DAVIS: And what about the union demand on reinstatement of pensions for new workers or their calls for a four-day, 32-hour workweek? Or either of those still on the table?

FARLEY: I think they are from the UAW standpoint, but we can’t have a sustainable industry working four days a week. Look, we’ve been very profitable as a company. We’re returning from profitability. We didn’t go bankrupt.

Many of our competitors did. And now we built this very competitive, profitable company. We have more work to do on that, by the way, on cost and quality, and we want everyone to benefit from that.

But we also have to invest in this huge transition to electric, partial electric future, $50 billion in Ford’s case. And we need the profitability to invest.

DAVIS: According to SEC filings, you receive nearly $21 million in total compensation in 2022. In comparison, the median total compensation for Ford employees was about $75,000. That’s a 281 to 1 ratio. Do you think that that gap should change?

FARLEY: Well, I think, first of all, my job is to add value to the company and to make sure all of our workforce is handsomely awarded, that we all benefit in growth.

And yes, that’s, you know, at all levels of the company, you know, we have to be competitive. But my goal is just totally focused on making sure we have a vibrant future for everyone, especially our factory workers. My grandfather was an hourly worker for Ford, and we want to make sure everyone has a future. But we have to be competitive.

DAVIS: Talk about the potential cost to your company and to the American consumers if a strike does go forward. What kind of impact could that have?

FARLEY: It would be devastating. Our supply base still hasn’t recovered from COVID. We have a lot of vulnerable suppliers still. We have so many communities that depend on Ford in Michigan and Ohio and all over the upper Midwest. So this is, has a huge impact.

You know, any kind of significant outage would. Ford has not been on strike since the mid-70s. We’ve always worked through this, and that’s why we committed to the UAW. The impacts of a strike, especially a long ongoing strike, multi-week, multi-month strike would be devastating for the U.S. economy.

DAVIS: Ford President and CEO Jim Farley, we thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate you coming on the show tonight.

FARLEY: Thank you, Linsey.

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(NEW YORK) — A surge of work stoppages this year involving hundreds of thousands of employees has drawn attention to bold demands over wage increases and benefits as unions pursue raises that outpace rapid price hikes.

However, at a moment when a tight job market affords unions considerable leverage, many workers out on strike have also advocated terms for the adoption of technology that could shape their workplaces for years or even decades, according to ABC News’ interviews with academics who study technology and the workplace..

Hollywood writers and actors on the picket lines have called for fair treatment as studios shift to streaming and incorporate artificial intelligence. Autoworkers have demanded a transition to electric vehicles that ensure employees keep their jobs. And hotel workers out on strike are asking for automatic digital tipping and the income gains it promises.

Corporate Amazon employees walked off the job in June in part over the company’s mandatory return-to-office policy, advocating for remote work enabled by the wide use of videoconference software. While workers at a train manufacturer Wabtec in Erie, Pennsylvania ended a two-month strike this week that included calls for greater investment in green technology for sustainable locomotives.

At a Starbucks near Trenton, New Jersey, the company’s mobile app adds stress to every shift, De Rivera, a barista, told ABC News.

Rivera dreads the moment when a flood of orders through the app leads to stickers that she must print, place on cups and fulfill.

“I can’t really describe the stress and chaos and frenzy that happens when we’re just getting stickers on stickers on stickers,” Rivera, who says she receives $15 an hour, told ABC News. “It’s devastating.”

Rivera and colleagues at her store have carried out single-day strikes on three separate occasions this year in an effort to pressure the company, which she says has yet to bargain over contract proposals more than a year after the store voted to unionize.

When the workers do reach the bargaining table, Rivera said, she thinks proposals limiting use of the mobile app should receive the same amount of attention as issues like pay raises and health benefits.

“Technology brings a whole other layer into how difficult my job is to do every day,” Rivera said. “I’d love to work that out and have a seat at the table to talk about it.”

Starbucks Workers United, the union that represents employees at more than 350 stores nationwide, has put forward an online set of “core demands.” The list calls for a “safe and respectful working environment” but does not mention the Starbucks app, which was launched nationwide in 2015.

A Starbucks spokesperson told ABC News that negotiators met with union representatives in November 2022, but could not begin discussing proposals because the union sought conditions for bargaining with which the company disagreed, such as a virtual broadcast of the discussions.

The Starbucks app affords customers a convenient way to order before they arrive at the store, the spokesperson added, noting that the technology is designed to stagger orders in a fashion that offer workers sufficient time to handle a busy period.

As of last month, roughly 323,000 workers had gone out on strike this year, amounting to the largest year of strikes since 2000, leaving out a high-water mark in 2018 and 2019 when public school teachers and government workers walked off the job in droves, according to a Washington Post analysis of Bloomberg Law data.

“Strikes are most saliently motivated by wage issues and working conditions, and you can’t fault workers for that,” Daron Acemoglu, an economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and co-author of “Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity,” told ABC News.

“I see technology as an even more central issue because it will have much greater consequences for the future,” Acemoglu added.

In a previous statement to ABC News, Amazon spokesperson Brad Glasser said the company stands by its decision to bring corporate employees back to the office.

“We understand that it’s going to take time to adjust back to being in the office more and there are a lot of teams at the company working hard to make this transition as smooth as possible for employees,” Glasser said.

Wabtec told ABC News in a statement: “The company is glad the [union] shares its passion for a sustainable future and is actively developing green technologies for the industries we serve. Wabtec is an industry leader in developing and building sustainable solutions such as low- and zero-emission locomotives.”

The wave of work stoppages, which follows an uptick in strikes last year, has coincided with a tight job market that arose during the pandemic, forcing companies to compete for a relatively small pool of available workers and in turn boosting employee leverage, Harry Katz, a professor of collective bargaining at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations, told ABC News.

“The labor market is strong and the unemployment rate is low,” Katz said. “That has shifted bargaining power to labor.”

While the pandemic-induced labor shortage amplified worker power, however, it also accelerated the adoption of technology that threatens to replace or sideline workers, Acemoglu said.

“When workers were in short supply and couldn’t get to work, there was a greater need for automation,” Acemoglu added.

Another trend that took hold during the pandemic: an explosion in the popularity of streaming TV and movies.

The ongoing actors’ strike centers on a dispute over compensation, especially in light of that industry-wide shift toward streaming that has changed the way performers receive residuals, or royalty payments.

Previously, a popular show meant sizable and consistent residual payments over the ensuing years. In streaming, however, those checks are far smaller, according to the actors’ union Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, or SAG-AFTRA.

In addition, actors have expressed significant concerns with the potential use of artificial intelligence as a substitute for use of a performer’s authentic appearance.

On a union podcast last month, SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher called AI a “deadly cocktail” that resulted from “Wall Street, greed, technology, and whizz kids that I am not seeing exemplify a great deal of empathy.”

In response to ABC News’ request for comment, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers pointed to a previous statement: “The AMPTP has been clear from the outset that its goal is to arrive at a contract that is fair and equitable for SAG-AFTRA members.”

“The offer that SAG-AFTRA walked away from on July 12 is worth more than $1 billion in wage increases, pension & health contributions and residual increases and includes first-of-their-kind protections over its three-year term, including expressly with respect to AI,” the statement added.

The offer made by the AMPTP in July featured a “groundbreaking AI proposal” that “protects performers’ digital likenesses, including a requirement for performer’s consent for the creation and use of digital replicas or for digital alterations of a performance,” the group said that month.

On an earnings call in May, before the actors strike, Disney CEO Bob Iger said, “It’s pretty clear that AI developments represent some pretty interesting opportunities for us and some substantial benefits.”

Two months later, Iger told CNBC that the overall contract demands made by the actors and writers were “not realistic.” Disney is the parent company of ABC News.

The Hollywood strikes underscore the role of technology as a force that not only affects an employee’s immediate workplace but establishes the fundamental industry landscape in which worker advocacy unfolds, Katz said.

“The fact that there’s so much technological change, including AI and streaming, makes it so unpredictable and uncertain as to exactly how it will affect power relations,” he said.

“It’s that incredible uncertainty that makes it hard for the parties to reach an agreement,” Katz added.

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