Greg Ip says the UAW strike may be misguided when you look at the big picture:
Since 2009, manufacturing output per hour in the U.S. has grown just 0.2% a year....In motor-vehicle manufacturing, the picture is especially bad: From 2012 through last year, productivity plummeted 32%, though some of this was no doubt due to pandemic disruptions.
Um, yeah. Pandemic disruptions. So let's skip the pandemic years since no one knows if they represent a long-term trend. And instead of cherry picking the peak year of 2012 for a starting point, let's just use Ip's original year of 2009. Here's what you get:
This produces a somewhat different picture. Labor productivity in the auto sector was up 15.8% before the pandemic compared to 2009. That's about 1.5% growth per year, which is fine if not spectacular.¹
As a side note, centrists and conservatives who write about the UAW strike all express concern about the UAW's outsized demands. And it's true that they're asking for a lot. But I assume this is just like any other labor negotiation: workers start high and bosses start low, and then eventually they meet somewhere in the middle. Auto workers are asking for 40% raises and a 32-hour workweek, but they're unlikely to get them. Likewise, management is offering 20% raises and no change to the workweek, and they're unlikely to get that. So maybe we end up at 27.8% raises and a 38-hour workweek. Or something. But let's not worry too much about aggressive demands until we find out what everyone is actually willing to settle for.
¹Productivity subsequently dropped 16 percentage points in 2021 and 2022, but that doesn't tell us anything because the reason production was down had nothing to do with workers. It had to do with supply chain issues (largely chips) and reduced demand during the pandemic. It will be a couple more years before we know what the real trend is.
A productivity chart without long tails or unemployment marked against it is... ugh.
Productivity goes up when you'e making what you made last year, but goes down when you add a new product. It also goes down if your workers can get better jobs elsewhere.
Also, what about corporate profits vs wages?
So 1.48% (1.4778) per year (CAGR per https://cagrcalculator.net/result/)
Maybe the demands wouldn't be at hyperbole level if CEO pay hadn't increased to create ridiculous gaps between workers and management. Just saying, if CEOs and upper management gets rewarded for performance increases, so too should workers.
Two things:
(1) "Centrists" (they are not moderates) like to focus on 40% because non-union workers will feel jealous, not thinking about the context. It is classic "Let's you and him fight."
Don't fall for it.
(2) 40% is more or less the right number.
It is roughly the trendline for where they would be without the concessions they gave to management about 15 years ago.
The UAW conceded a lot to help the companies on the understanding that they'd get theirs.
It is time for management to make good on their promise.
Jeez, even well-meaning people fall for this bullshit. We really need some better public education on union matters.
This is another area where the mainstream media fails its "liberal" reputation. The corporations take on the negotiations is always the default and the workers demands are always unreasonable. Same with federal budget negotiations.
What outsized demands are these? Can you list some of them? If you're going to claim the demands are outsized, seems like you ought to be able to provide examples.
There were updates to the CAFE program referred to as the "National Program"...phase one was from 2012 to 2016 to raise fleet MPG. Phase two was from 2017 to 2025 and targets "light duty vehicles" (so, pickups).
see:
https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/brief-history-us-fuel-efficiency
Since we mainly make light duty vehicles, better profit margins, rules affecting those can affect costs per vehicle, there for the "value add" and productivity measurements.
2 comments on the "demands" from the union:
1. First of Negotiations - those who ask for more, get more. (this has been empirically proven)
2. 40% also anchors the public and the negotiation. Suddenly, 20% looks way too small, and 30% +/- feels about right. Anyone not in a union expecting a 30% raise over the next few years?
A 32 day work week seems a bit extreme.
Sometimes they feel like that, don't they?
Why? It gives more space to work overtime when needed. Running your employees physically ragged only burns and churns.
Standardizing the 40 hr workweek was probably more extreme.
Capturing some of the increased productivity in higher pay and some in more leisure time is a pretty reasonable approach in a negotiation.....and really the best way to improve the lives of the workers that the union represents.
The problem with shift work is that you can't really ask for a 35 hour week because there's no good way to split the time and run the plant for 24 hours. With a 40 hour work week you have 3, 8 hour shifts, 5 days a week. With a 32 hour week you have 3, 8 hour shifts 4 days a week, But if you went with 35 hours you'd have 3, 7 hour shifts 5 days a week and a gap of 3 hours every day. You could try to go with 4, 6 hour shifts for 5 days but that's only a 30 hour week.
I've wondered for a long time about coverage of labor negotiations. Usually I hear about labor demands and how outrageously huge they are. Almost never do I hear coverage of corporate demands at all. Just, "Well, they're not going to do *that*."
And what really gets me are that the reporters are often people who are used, in other contexts, to deal with the "Bid/Ask spread" In other words, they know about how bargaining actually gets done. But when it comes to labor--not a chance. It apparently doesn't apply. The ask is too big. In fact, they shouldn't be asking at all. In fact, they should be grovelling and thanking business for being so generous! Like I say, any other context and they would see the game and how it is played. But for a long time, there has been the belief that labor is unworthy of even a negotiation. (Sadly, one of these people with that belief was my HS Civics teacher.)