66 1966 Ford F100 4x4 4wd No Reserve Nr on 2040-cars

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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 evaluating new Fiesta RS?

Word coming in from across the pond has it that Ford is working on developing the business case to create a new Fiesta RS. The development is encouraged by the extremely positive reception the existing Fiesta ST has garnered to date, and the emergence of the above-pictured Fiesta RS WRC rally car, but it'll take more than goodwill to make a more extreme version a reality.
According to Auto Express, a new roadgoing Fiesta RS would almost certainly be based closely on the ST version, albeit with some vital differences. Its 1.6-liter turbo four would be increased from 180 horsepower to somewhere around 230 hp, and that powertrain would be accompanied by lightweight alloys inside blistered wheel arches, a stripped-out interior and possibly lightweight bodywork.
The vehicle's approval would reportedly require a strong business case in Europe, and not just in the UK where Ford hot hatches traditionally enjoy a strong following. It's unclear whether the Fiesta RS would potentially make the transatlantic voyage to American showrooms, but between it and the larger Focus RS, hopefully the Blue Oval wouldn't leave its home market out of the action altogether.

American automakers fall in latest Fortune 500 rankings

Not that it means anything beyond bragging rights, but if you're fixated on the positions of domestic automakers on the annual Fortune 500 list, both General Motors and Ford are still on it but they've slipped a couple of notches. The list ranks American companies and they're ordered solely by revenue. GM, fifth last year, came in seventh, while Ford fell from ninth to tenth even though both companies saw small gains in annual revenue.
GM's $152.3 billion in revenue was less than a third of that of the first company on the list: Wal-Mart, which regained the title from Exxon Mobil. Berkshire Hathaway and Apple are the firms that moved GM down. Ford, displaced by energy company Valero, had $134.3 billion in revenue.
On a side note, profitability isn't a factor, but both GM and Ford were down in this year's list compared to last year's: GM declined from $9.2 billion to $6.2 billion, Ford fell from $20.2 billion to $5.6 billion. If profits were included, Exxon Mobil would probably still be king: although the energy company made almost $20 billion less in revenue than Wal-Mart's $469.2 billion, it posted $44.9 billion in profit compared to Wal-Mart's $17 billion.