Why the United Auto Workers union is poised to strike major US car makers this week
About 146,000 U.S. auto workers are set to go on strike this week if General Motors, Ford and Stellantis fail to meet their demands for big pay raises and the restoration of concessions the workers made years ago when the companies were in financial trouble.
Shawn Fain, the combative president of the United Auto Workers union, has threatened to strike any of the three companies that hasn’t reached an agreement by the time its contract with the union expires at 11:59 p.m. Eastern time Thursday.
Both sides began exchanging wage and benefit proposals last week. Though some incremental progress appears to have been made, a final agreement could come too late to avoid walkouts by UAW workers at factories in multiple states. Any strike would likely cause significant disruptions for auto production in the United States.
I heard in a podcast, one of NPRs I think, that if the union wants to deplete their strike fund they could give each member $500 every week and last for about 3 months. And that in just 10 work days there would be 5 billion dollars lost in the economy. So 345=60 billion dollars. Let's see what happens and who blinks first.
345 what? If 10 days is 5 billion lost, then 120 days would be $60 billion lost.
I think he meant 3*4*5=60 billion dollars. 3 months times 4 weeks times 5 billion a week.
Edit, same thing happened to me. The asterisk is a markdown character for italics. You'll notice that his 4 is italicized.
I thought he was just using fancy math.
Yeah I didn't proofread it. I meant to have an asterisk there.