in the end are UAW workers really going to win?

Why wouldn't they win?

 

They are near an agreement

 

Just announced

 

Collective bargaining gets the goods

 

No, in the end they will not win. They have overplayed their hand. Soon, the auto companies will give them enough of what they want to end the strike. Soon thereafter, they will put more automation initiatives in and a significant number of union jobs will go away. We have seen this show many times over the years.

From a corporate standpoint, the last three years have proven labor to be a very unreliable resource. Automation has historically been implemented on a strict cost/benefit basis. The last three years have made automation a matter of survival for many companies.

It pains me to say this, as many very good people have been sold out by the sort term thinking of their union leadership.

 

Call me crazy but a 40% raise is just nuts. Cars are already too expensive. They can’t pass that cost along.

 

That 90K F150 is now 125k

They should just drop car prices and boom, no more excess profits to fight over.

 

I've driven a pickup since I was 16. I use my pickup for pickup things. Aka it gets dented, and scraped and beat up. I couldn't imagine spending 90-120k on a truck. Those are country club pickups.

 

Automation is an inevitability in the auto industry regardless of what unions do or don’t do. Capitalism, baby. Might as well get paid while humans can still serve any sort of economically worthwhile purpose on an assembly line. Those days are very numbered.

 

That is an oversimplification. Automation is incremental. Always has been. Certain processes are automated as the volume and implementation costs line up. Labor behavior over the last three years, plus outrageous demands now will be a step function for automation.

Like I said earlier, automation has been implemented over the years on a cost/benefit basis. If the pure costs made sense, it was implemented. Most factories have some level of automation. Now companies are considering survival into their equations. Now significantly more factories will have significantly more automation in each one.

 

Incorrect. Automation has been around for centuries, but its use has increased significantly in recent years across many industries, including manufacturing, transportation, healthcare, and retail. Recent happenings might have accelerated that but auto workers will be out of jobs sooner rather than later even without the last 3 years. So I agree with you they will not win in the end but they were never going to.

 

I disagree. There are many manufacturing processes, particularly at lower volume component factories that do not lend themselves well to automation. There are many reasons for this that vary by process. There. Will always be labor involved in the auto and many other industries

 

The problem with the concern that people will just be replaced by machines in mass is that it hasn't happened despite the constant threat that it would happen. I mean, you could go back to the Early 19th centuries and the Luddites, who argued that automation was going to destroy skilled workers in the textile industry, an industry which currently employs a ton of people around the world more than 200 years later.

Taking less compensation for labor than you could get because somebody threatens that they will eventually buy a machine to replace you seems like the type of economic decision that only makes sense if you already want those people to take less money.

 

Hell, even businesses that pay their workers shit wages have embraced automation.

 

A strong labor movement is a bulwark against mass automation really. A more democratic workplace is one where everyone controls technology, not just capital. The places I see the most automation are places without a big union presence, like McDonalds and Walgreens.

 

40%?

https://www.npr.org/2023/10/25/1200787425/uaw-strike-deal-big-three-shawn-fain
Not the first deal negotiated by the UAW and other companies are doing just fine.

From 2021
John Deere UAW Members Ratify a 6-Year Agreement With Substantial Gains | UAW

Deere's most recent quarterly report
https://www.deere.com/en/news/all-news/fy23-third-quarter-earnings/

Deere Reports Third Quarter Net Income of $2.978 Billion

• Sound execution contributes to 10% increase in net sales and higher earnings.
• Strong order books, positive industry fundamentals driving strong results.
• Full-year net income forecast increased to $9.75 billion to $10.00 billion.

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At some point in the immediate future we will either automate manufacturing here... or some other country will do it for us and we will have zero manufacturing in the U.S.A..