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- Fox News anchor John Roberts just absolutely wrecking Ron DeSantis to his face
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Baby, we’ve got ourselves another strike, and it’s a big one.
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Thursday night at 11:59pm marked the contract deadline between the Detroit Three automakers—Ford, General Motors, and Stellanis (which owns Chrysler and Jeep)—and the United Auto Workers. With a staggering 97 percent approval to authorize a work stoppage from the rank-and-file, the UAW began its strike. Within hours, picket lines formed outside of a Ford plant in Wayne, MI, a GM plant in Wentzville, MO, and a Stellanis plant in Toledo, OH.
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About 12,700 members of the UAW’s 150,000 auto workers are striking. The auto industry is one of America’s largest, so the possible consequences of the strike are enormous (which is, you know, the point). On Friday, President Biden announced that he will send acting labor secretary Julie Su and senior adviser Gene Sperling to Detroit to “offer their full support” to help the two parties continue negotiations.
- Biden expressed his support for a “win-win agreement” and the the usual “no one wants a strike,” politician song-and-dance, but unlike any of his predecessors in living memory, he voiced his clear support for the workers, saying, “The companies have made some significant offers but I believe they should go further to ensure record corporate profits mean record contracts for the UAW,” a paraphrasing of the UAW’s own talking points. This unabashed pro-labor sentiment coming from the White House bully pulpit is…extremely good, and smart politics for Biden going into 2024. It’s also notable because his administration’s relationship with UAW president Shawn Fain has not been particularly warm.
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This is the first time the UAW has launched a strike of any size against the Detroit Three simultaneously.
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The UAW is asking for 36 percent raises (down from 40 percent in their initial demands) and the Big Three have only countered with offers between 17.5 percent and 20 percent over four and a half years. Fain called these offers inadequate after years of sharp inflation, record profits, and corporate executives giving themselves big raises. Despite the latter two points, the companies argue that meeting the UAW’s demands would “put them out of business,” a favorite stock line of corporations that do not want to share profits with the workers who created them.
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Consumer prices have jumped 20 percent since 2019, while wages for entry-level auto workers are lower now than they were in 2007, and pay bumps take years longer to achieve. The Detroit Three have made some concessions to UAW demands, particularly the ones that relate from converting temporary workers to full-time workers, and accelerating the timeline of eligibility for pay increases, but they won’t budge on wages. The UAW said it plans to resume bargaining on Saturday.
2023 will go down in history as an inflection point in the American labor movement. Multiple major American unions are on strike in disparate industries, but workers in each of those unions are seeking similar demands. Average Americans are tired of seeing their pay stagnate or decrease with inflation while the cost of living increases and their industries report record profits. CEO pay has exploded, and companies have bought back billions of dollars in stock, while the workers who make those profits possible are living paycheck to paycheck. A system in which CEOs make, on average, 400 times more money than their company’s average worker is not sustainable. It has to change, and the labor movement is trying to make that happen.
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By now you’ve all heard about Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher letters of support in the Danny Masterson case. On this week’s episode of Hysteria, hosts Erin Ryan and Alyssa Mastromonaco dig into the story from the social backlash to the star's subsequent apology video. Listen to this episode, and more every Wednesday, only on Hysteria.
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Iranian security forces dispersed in the hometown of Mahsa Amini Friday, a year after they arrested and killed the 22-year-old Kurdish girl for allegedly violating the Islamic Republic’s mandatory dress code for women. Months of anti-government protests erupted as a result of Amini’s murder, the most significant coordinated opposition to Iranian authorities in years. Over the past year, led by women and young people, many Iranians have called for the end of more than 40 years of Shi’ite clerical rule. Over 500 people, including 71 minors, were killed in the protests, hundreds more were injured, and thousands were arrested before the uprising was ultimately crushed by security forces. The Norwegian human rights group Hengaw said that several Kurdish cities in western Iran, including Amini’s hometown, “have experienced an atmosphere of intimidation and declaration of a state of war in recent days.” In a statement on Friday, President Biden reaffirmed U.S. “commitment to the courageous people of Iran,” and added, “Mahsa's story did not end with her brutal death. She inspired a historic movement — Woman, Life, Freedom — that has impacted Iran and influenced people across the globe."
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Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith asked a judge to issue a gag order against disgraced former president Donald Trump, because the man simply will not stop attacking anyone and everyone involved in his myriad criminal indictments. Trump would be prohibited from attacking prosecutors, the judge, or potential witnesses who might testify in his federal criminal trial related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. On Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan unsealed filings revealing the government’s request, arguing that Trump is undermining fairness in the proceedings through “disparaging and inflammatory attacks,” on prosecutors, witnesses, and the judge herself. Of course, Trump immediately took to Truth Social to lash out, posting: “So, I’m campaigning for President against an incompetent person who has WEAPONIZED the DOJ & FBI to go after his Political Opponent, & I am not allowed to COMMENT? They Leak, Lie, & Sue, & they won’t allow me to SPEAK?” You gotta hand it to the guy, he always delivers exactly the derangement we have come to expect, in ways that prove his critics right.
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