The "black swan" is approaching! Workers of the three major US automakers may go on strike, threatening a soft landing?

Recently, the United Automobile Workers (UAW) and the three major U.S. automakers - General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis Group - are in contract negotiations, demanding large pay raises and other rights for workers. UAW union employees' contracts with the three major North American automakers are re-signed every four years. The current labor contract expires at 11:59 p.m. on September 14. If the two sides cannot reach a new labor agreement before the expiration date, workers may engage in large-scalestrike。

The deadline is now less than a week away. As many as 97% of workers have agreed to authorizestrikeThisstrikeThe threat is attracting growing attention as it is seen as a potential threat to the North American auto industry and even the U.S. economy and capital markets"Black Swan"。

On Thursday, General Motors introduced a bill to the UAW that would give a total of 16 per cent pay rises to high-paid workers at its plants and 56 per cent for new, lower-paid workers. It was already GM's biggest pay rise in decades, but UAW chairperson Sean Fine was quick to call the proposal "insulting".

General Motors proposed a pay rise slightly higher than Ford Motor Co. proposed to the union, but still far below the UAW's request for a pay rise. In the first half of the year, Ford, GM, and Stellantis Group earned $3.70 billion, $5 billion, and $119, respectively. The lucrative profit performance is the main reason for UAW workers to ask for a pay rise.

The UAW is asking automakers to increase the pay of their hourly workers by 46 percent over the course of a new four-year agreement. Currently, full-time UAW workers start at $18 an hour, with a maximum pay of about $32 an hour. The union wants to increase the starting pay to near the maximum pay level. After a sharp rise in inflation in 2022, the union wants to reinstate the inflation-linked living allowance (COLA), a benefit that was eliminated in 2007. The union also wants companies to reduce the use of temporary workers and offer those employees a faster full-pay and benefits package.

But all three automakers believe that the union's demands are unrealistic. If its conditions are met,The labor costs of the "Big Three" will increase by 45 billion to 80 billion dollars per yearAnd threaten their future viability, especially given that the U.S. auto industry is currently in the throes of an electric vehicle transition, facing increasing market competition and high costs. Combining wages and benefits, labor costs for Detroit's "Big Three" are about $64 an hour. By comparison, non-union assembly plants for international automakers like Toyota cost $55 an hour, according to Ford sources. Tesla's labor costs are even lower, at $45 to $50 an hour, according to people familiar with the matter.

"For the past six weeks, GM has refused to negotiate in good faith, and only after the UAW brought charges against them did they come up with an insulting offer that was far removed from a fair deal for American auto workers," Fein said in a statement. "GM either didn't care or didn't hear our need for economic justice. Time is running out, don't waste our members' time."

The UAW is one of the largest workers associations in the United States. Its membership in GM, Ford, and Stellantis groups is as high as 146,000, accounting for about 56% of all workers in the U.S. auto manufacturing industry. According to a Morgan Stanley survey, 96% of workers expectstrikeIt will last more than a week, and 34% of workers expect itstrikeIt will last for more than a month.

According to a study by Anderson Economics Group, a Michigan consulting firm, 150,000 hourly workers at GM, Ford and StellantisstrikeJust 10 days can cause economic losses of more than $5 billion. The automotive industry (including foreign companies doing business in the US) accounts for about 3% of US GDP,strikeIt will also affect the economic performance of the United States for some time to come. This is very bad for US stocks that are looking forward to a soft landing of the US economy.

In addition to causing huge economic losses,strikeIt will also cause a significant blow to the development of the US automotive industry, and even affect global automobiles. Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis Group have a high market position in the global automotive market. If the entire vehicle factory lasts for a long timestrikeIf production is suspended, relevant parts companies will also face the risk of suspension due to lack of demand. According to a report by Mizuho USA, Standard & Poor Global Mobility expects that,strike10 weeks will result in production losses of 1.50 million cars。

Due to inflation and economic factors, the United States experienced a large-scalestrikeThe number of times has increased.Industrial foreign exchangeThe data shows that between September 2022 and August 2023, there were more than 100 people with a duration of more than one weekstrikeA total of 70 occurrences were recorded, an increase of 40% from the previous year.