The massive United Auto Workers strike against the big three automakers is, first and foremost, an awesome demonstration of labor power – the act of a powerful, longstanding industrial union, with newly radical leadership, determined to wage one big fight to reset a playing field that has been slowly tilting in the wrong direction for years. It is also, like a disturbing number of things in America today, a case in which the grotesque specter of Elon Musk looms like a silent villain over the entire proceedings.
Here is what I mean. The big three – Ford, GM and Stellantis – have long had workforces that are unionized with the UAW. The robust contracts that the union has been negotiating with the thriving industry since the middle of the 20th century played a large part in the creation of the unprecedented shared prosperity of the post-second world war middle class.
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