Liam Denning, Columnist

Striking UAW Can’t Bring Back the 1950s or Wish EVs Away

A rapid uptake of electrified vehicles demands cheap cars and, eventually, a less labor-intensive industry.

September 15, 2023 at 11:33 AM UTC

Liam Denning is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering energy. A former banker, he edited the Wall Street Journal’s Heard on the Street column and wrote the Financial Times’s Lex column.

The UAW's 150,000 members have been preparing to strike work amid negotiations for a new labor contract with General Motors, Ford and Stellantis.
Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg

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Overnight, Detroit’s strike clock transitioned from countdown to stopwatch. The United Auto Workers’ strike will ultimately end, as all do. Larger forces behind it, however, will grind on through this decade, presenting an existential challenge to the union.

There’s a short-term element to the UAW’s dispute with Ford Motor Co., General Motors Co. and Stellantis NV that is both justified and relatively easy to resolve. The last contract was sideswiped by the post-pandemic burst of inflation, which also happened to boost the automakers’ North American profits, and workers want higher wages to compensate (see this).