Automakers Face a Labor Showdown as the E.V. Era Looms

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Detroit may be headed for a tumultuous labor showdown.The United Auto Workers union has made a bold opening bid in negotiations for new four-year collective bargaining agreements with General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis. Its new president, Shawn Fain, has declared that the 150,000 hourly workers employed by the companies are prepared to strike to achieve the union’s goals.The U.A.W. presented the automakers with a list of demands, including a 40 percent wage increase — premised on the compensation gains that the union says the companies’ chief executives have made over the four years since the last contract talks.And with the pivot to electric vehicles, the union wants guarantees that workers hired at the automakers’ new E.V. battery plants will be covered by the U.A.W. national contracts, or at least given contracts with comparable wage and safety terms.“I know these demands so …

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