PBS News Hour

GEOFF BENNETT: The United Auto Workers strike is now in its fifth day, and while it's limited to a few plants now, the UAW president threatened to expand it starting Friday.

The battle largely centers on a dispute over wages, job protections and benefits.

But, as William Brangham reports, the larger shift toward electric vehicles is also a major factor looming in all of this.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: This strike has brought some simmering long-held disputes about electric cars into the spotlight.

As automakers invest billions in the next generation of electric vehicles and as the federal government provides big financial incentives for doing so, autoworkers fear that electric vehicles, which require fewer parts and less servicing than gas-powered ones, will render some jobs obsolete.

So how will this impact America's push toward electric cars and trucks?

For that, we are joined by David Ferris.

He covers this closely for Politico and E&E News.

David, so good to have you on the program.

Before we get into the labor dispute itself, can you just tell us how the Big Three are doing in this shift towards electric cars?

DAVID FERRIS, E&E News: Well, William, it's an interesting moment, because I would say we're moving from the excited early adopter phase of customers to people who just want to have a car, want to have a new car, and are interested in maybe saving gas, because they'd be plugging their car in instead of pumping it at the gas station.

And so it is a -- that is a pivot that is very expensive for the automakers.

And, right now, especially GM and Ford are engaged in -- they are poised to start pumping out sort of brands everyone knows, like the GM Blazer, the GM Equinox, the Silverado pickup truck, in the next year.

And they're doing that at the same time as this strike is occurring.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And, as I mentioned, some of the incentives are coming from the government.

But you're also saying consumer demand is a big driver here.

Is that what automakers just believe, that this is the future and they have to be delivering electric vehicles?

DAVID FERRIS: I think that before the generous legislation passed that really supercharged manufacturing of E.V.s in the U.S., I think mostly the Big Three automakers have been responding to demand not in the U.S., in China and in Europe, where they could see that those requirements were coming.

And they were also making them here because it's their home soil.

And now that there are billions of dollars of tax incentives available, now there's even more reasons to build them at home.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: So, the UAW, from their perspective, they look at all of their employers, the Big Three, shifting to more and more electric vehicle production.

What does that do to them?

Why are they so sort of seemingly perturbed by this?

DAVID FERRIS: Well, as you mentioned in your intro, E.V.

is a simpler vehicle that is easier to -- that is easier to make, requires less parts.

You don't need carburetors.

You don't need fuel injectors.

You don't need mufflers.

And that's going to require -- eventually probably require less hands to build those cars.

But, right now, those people are still employed.

There's still a lot of internal combustion engine vehicles being made.

And in a tight labor market, the workers are in a good position to wring concessions from the automakers.

I think they realize that this is a good moment for them, because, if E.V.s start to eliminate jobs, they will be in a weaker bargaining position.

So this is the time for them to get the -- to set a new floor for how they expect to be treated in the E.V.

age.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: I mean, the Big Three argue that a lot of other electric car manufacturers operate in non-union plants or right-to-work states, and that that creates an unfair cost advantage for those other manufacturers.

And don't they have a point in that regard?

DAVID FERRIS: They really do.

I mean, there's an analysis that, if the UAW got everything that it wanted out of the Big Three, that the labor costs of making a Ford or a GM or a Stellantis Dodge or Jeep vehicle might be twice what it is at Tesla.

And reminder that Tesla sells, what, 60 percent of all E.V.s that are sold in the U.S. today.

And so it is -- it puts them at a cost disadvantage to Tesla at a time when customers have communicated very clearly that they want cheaper E.V.s.

And it's not only Tesla.

All of those automakers in the south, your BMWs, your Hyundais, your Toyotas, are building their factory -- their future E.V.

factories in Southeastern states, where there's not much of a union presence.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: We are only a few days into the strike, but let's say that it goes on.

Do you have any sense of what a prolonged strike would do to this overall shift towards E.V.s?

DAVID FERRIS: Well, as we discussed, one impact is that it is going -- it raises the possibility that E.V.s from the Big Three are going to cost more.

Another is that, as the strike goes on, their - - the trucks and SUVs, the traditional ones that the Big Three roll out in big numbers are also big -- are also the profit engines of the companies.

And those are what the automakers are using to bankroll their E.V.

investments.

And a long strike could sap the automakers' profitability and limit their ability -- limit their ability -- excuse me -- to fund their E.V.

efforts.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: All right, David Ferris of E&E News and Politico, thank you so much for being here.

DAVID FERRIS: Thanks for having me.