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UAW Chief Shawn Fain disrupts Detroit's labor tradition

He's known to quote the Bible and Nation of Islam civil rights leader Malcolm X. He's a social media fanatic who keeps the pay stubs of his union member grandfather in his wallet. And now, Shawn Fain is representing nearly 150,000 auto workers in one of the biggest labor strikes in decades. In taking action against all three Detroit carmakers, Fain, the head of the United Auto Workers, has remade the strategy of the union he leads, choosing a bolder, much riskier path than his predecessors after he won office by a narrow margin in a first-ever direct election earlier this year. The strike started as the clock hit midnight on Friday, and followed Fain's decision to open negotiations with Ford Motor, General Motors and Stellantis simultaneously and eschew public niceties involving choreographed handshakes that famously kicked off previous negotiating efforts. The strategy is not without risk. A weeks-long strike would hit workers who live paycheck to paycheck, while the Detroit Three automakers have billions in cash to withstand the walkout. Fain, 54, has made creative use of social media, appearances on network and cable news programs and alliances with high-profile progressive politicians such as U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, to reframe the UAW's contract bargaining as a battle to re-set the balance of power between workers and global corporations. He has rebutted automakers' concerns about labor costs by pointing out that they have poured billions into share buybacks to benefit investors. "If they’ve got money for Wall Street they sure as hell have money for the workers making the product," he said. “We fight for the good of the entire working class and the poor." In lengthy social media talks to UAW members, Fain alternates quoting Bible verses with the use of charts and graphs to dissect wage and benefit offers from the automakers - details his predecessors kept behind closed doors during bargaining crunch time. Fain, in his unorthodox approach, ran what amounted to a public auction among the companies to push each one to top the other to avoid a costly walkout. Prior UAW presidents picked just one automaker to set a pattern for the other two. Over and over, Fain has told UAW members at the Detroit Three that they can reverse 20 years of wage and retiree benefit concessions, stop further plant closures and end a seniority-based, tiered compensation system that pays new hires as much as 44% less than veteran workers.

Ford doubling 1.0L EcoBoost engine production

Ford's 1.0-liter EcoBoost three-cylinder engine hasn't been around that long, but it sounds like the engine is getting to be fairly popular in the automaker's global car lineup. The Detroit News is reporting that Ford has add a second shift that will allow its German engine plant to double daily output from 500 engines to 1,000.
The increased capacity is part of a plan to sell more than 300,000 vehicles a year with this engine in Europe by 2015. Europe is currently the only market where the smallest of the EcoBoost engines is offered (including in the Focus pictured above), but US-spec Fiesta models will be getting this mill for 2014.
Three-cylinder engines are expected to continue to grow in popularity in coming years with the report indicating that global production of these engines will double by 2018 to 9.8 million units. General Motors, BMW and Mitsubishi are all expected to introduce three-cylinder engines in the near term, as well.

2015 Ford Edge holds line on pricing, starts at $28,100*

The Ford Edge gets an updated platform, bolder styling and a standard 2.0-liter turbocharged EcoBoost engine pumping out 245 horsepower and 270 pound-feet of torque for the 2015 model year. You might expect that all those new features would result in a big price bump, but you'd be wrong. Ford is keeping costs identical to the 2014 model with a starting MSRP of $28,100 (*plus an $895 destination charge), according to Edmunds. Ford spokesperson William Mattiace confirmed the numbers to Autoblog.
That's a pretty good deal, but the real ticket here might be the model's Sport trim. Buyers get a 2.7-liter, twin-turbocharged V6 EcoBoost engine with over 300 horsepower and standard adaptive steering for $28,600 plus destination. That's just $500 more than the base model.
Pricing for the Titanium trim has not yet been announced, but it'll be a short wait to find out. Mattiace tells Autoblog that full pricing and the configuration for the model will launch on November 5. He has also confirmed that the 2015 Edge will begin hitting dealers in the first quarter of 2015.