Stop the EV jobs bloodbath!

[Omaha Steve]

A DUer asked me to post this. What do you think of it?

OS

International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees
30 August 2023

As the contracts expire for 170,000 autoworkers in the US and Canada, an urgent warning must be made: What is being prepared is not a contract, it is a death warrant for hundreds of thousands of auto jobs in North America and millions around the world. To oppose this, workers must have all the facts so they can develop a strategy to defend jobs and living standards.

Most workers have heard of the transition to electric vehicles, but very few understand its implications. The UAW bureaucracy speaks vaguely about a “just transition” but is hiding the sobering reality from the membership: This once-in-a-century industry transition threatens to eliminate half or more than half of all auto jobs in the US in the next five to 10 years, according to industry reports and research by experts.

The companies have already drawn up lists of plants that will be shuttered, and many workers already have targets on their backs without even knowing it.

In an interview at Louisville Assembly Plant in Kentucky on August 28, UAW President Shawn Fain admitted that there are many plants where “we don’t know down the line what’s lined up for them.” Many plants “have an unsecure, unstable future,” he said, though he did not answer a question about plans to secure future work beyond claiming “we will secure that in bargaining.”

FULL story here: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/08/30/dlmm-a30.html

[Abnredleg]

1. EVs are simpler to make

So they require less workers, and I’m not sure there is an easy solution. EVs also require far less maintenance, nor do they require oil, so garages and quick-stop oil stores are also going to suffer.

[Ocelot II]

3. Why would EVs not need oil? They still have moving parts

that presumably would need lubrication, even if the engine itself doesn't need it in the same way as an internal combustion engine.

[Abnredleg]

6. Modern cars have permanently lubed joints

I haven’t had a car lubed in years.

[Terry_M]

7. Some maintenance - but less

I googled my way around, it looks like they suggest replacing break fluid every 2 years and a full oil change every 100k miles. That seems to add up to going to the service center half as often and when you visit do less.

[quaint]

2. The transition to EVs is happening. Agreed solutions are needed for workers.

The offered solution of global, socialist worker control will not happen in the U.S.
Bashing the unions is not going to help, IMO.
I would like to see ideas for viable solutions.

[Terry_M]

4. Interesting

To sum up the key point - in 15 years time, the average new electric vehicle will take 10-20% the manual labor as the average gas vehicle does today due to the architecture of an electric vehicle being drastically simpler (fewer individual components) helped along by ongoing improvements in automation.

The article does have some absolute nonsense in it (let's nationalize car production to pay people more to work fewer and fewer hours...? What universe is that practical in?), but putting the nonsense solutions aside it does expose a valid challenge - in 15 years there will be 500k fewer car manufacturing jobs in the US. What should be done about that and who needs to do it?

[MichMan]

5. So, the solution in the link doesn't seem very reasonable

If only half or less number of workers are needed to manufacture EV, a solution mentioned is to continue to employ the same number of people and not close any plants or lay off any workers.

They would therefore only work a dozen or so hours per week, yet would still receive a full weeks pay, or essentially more than a 300% wage increase.

Don't see the auto manufactures ever agreeing to something like that under any circumstances.

[Silent Type]

8. I could get mad if we were going from EVs to Petrol. But in moving to EV, we should go as fast

as possible. Do what is necessary to help workers transition, but don't try to slow it down.

We've been through these transformations before. Featherbedding, slow-tracking, etc., should not be used to slow it down.

[jmbar2]

9. Create very good retirement plans, and let attrition occur over 15 years.

The government may be needed to help with the retirement plans but it would be cheaper than waiting til the last minute and dealing with mass layoffs.

[Zipgun]

10. Transitioning to a 4 day/32 hour work would would help in a small way. Increased customization

options at the point of manufacture may also be a partial solution. Especially if it would help boost profits for the manufacturers. A big issue with that would be preventing dealers from selling the automobile out from under the customer. Keeping the dealers in line would be a win for everyone except the dealers. But I think that EV and some other tech advancements may provide some new options for customization that would be of interest to consumers.

In general it is likely going to be a number of small things that will have to combine to solve the issue.

[MichMan]

12. Its not profitable to have large manufacturing plants sit idle

and lose 20% of capacity and production. They need to run 5 days a week with 3 shifts if possible

[GreenWave]

11. This is another step toward our future robot overlords.

I used to be a translator. Good luck finding gainful employment in that field as apps have overrun like cockroaches.

[msongs]

13. no need for alternators, carbuerators, radiators, oil changes, tune ups, etc etc etc. bye bye jobs n

[Wonder Why]

15. Remember the iceman? Now we have refrigerators. Remember they guy that

delivered coal? Now we have piped in gas, solar, wind. Remember all the corner service stations? Replaced by cars that run for years and years with little maintenance. Remember all the jobs replaced by technology? There is no going back.

You can't stop "progress". You can only live with it and manage it.

[usonian]

14. Well, I guess it's like other shifts in the job market.

If the government cares (so GOTV!) then it will help create new jobs in growth areas.

An example is the jobs program to transition coal industry workers to solar and other jobs.

With the increase in electrical usage, solar, wind and other power, plus the growing EV numbers, there certainly is a demand for electrical technicians and engineers, and being real "build stuff" jobs, are unlikely to be impacted by AI and so on.

Build stuff?

“Guess what? The great real estate builder, the last guy, he didn’t build a damn thing. Under my predecessor, infrastructure week became a punchline. On my watch, infrastructure has been a decade, and it’s a headline.”

In a famous diatribe, Jeff Hammerbacher, an engineer at Facebook studied behavior patterns in a big data-mining task.

Something else gnawed at him. Hammerbacher looked around Silicon Valley at companies like his own, Google (GOOG), and Twitter, and saw his peers wasting their talents. "The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads," he says. "That sucks."

https://archive.ph/IVFeY
https://www.smh.com.au/business/why-this-tech-bubble-is-different-20110415-1dhbm.html

His work created no value for users. It surveilled them, and increased ad sales. Nothing was built, except giant datacenters (jobs for computer engineers, electrical and electronic technicians and engineers) to surveil more and sell more ads.

These data centers consume incredible amounts of power. Don't forget, the site that did no customer surveillance, Craig's list, started out with a couple of servers in a closet, and is minuscule in comparison with the FB, Twitter, Google and other spy agencies.

Let's go even more blue, so that the economy grows jobs, roads, power lines and homes and not just stock buybacks.

Whether technology empowers people or subjugates them is a choice.

[The Mouth]

16. Jobs. First, second, and third

Jobs and inflation matter more than every other issue put together in my opinion and to my voting.

Nothing, not climate, not Equality, NOTHING matters if there aren't good paying jobs that keep pace with inflation for me and my friends and relatives.

Without a secure economy that prioritizes the middle class, nothing else matters in the slightest, at least to me.

It's the economy; any and everything else is a distant second in my book. Seen too much economic uncertainty, too much unemployment, and WAY too much inflation; anyone who doesn't support doing ANYTHING necessary to keep those in line so that workers can have the food, healthcare, and education they need, is someone I will oppose, no matter how much I like their views on anything else.

My friends, family, and co-workers who need cheap gas, good roads, low inflation, inexpensive food and readily available healthcare are what matter to me more than the entire population of any other continent.