145 , the bottom 90 , only 16 . Thats a great recipe for inequality for a country. And finally, us strikes, these strikes are of not just about the auto workers, uh, there are sectors like hospitality, dining and healthcare that are also experiencing strikes, which puts into question the health of the us economy. The us is facing multiple strikes and industrial actions against the backdrop of an uncertain economic time, thousands of workers have gone a strike in different industies in recent months to demand higher pay and improved benefits and working conditions. The autoworkers are taking aim at ceos at ford, General Motors and what received the 40 wage increase. Workers also believe they have more Bargaining Power due to a tight labor market. When it comes to the hollywood strike, the tentative deal was reached with studio bosses to end the strike that lasted nearly five months. Riders began the strike on may 2nd asking for increased royalties, mandatory staffing of tv riding rooms and safecards to the jobs from the use of Artificial Intelligence. No matter how advanced ai is, they cannot replicate human emotions, theyll never be able to replicate human connection, and thats the reason why we have the passion for telling stories and why we make movies, so i am hoping that everyone will come on board with us and stand against this, because theres nothing that can replace, technology can never replace true artistry. Approval of labor unions is also its. Place point since the year 1965, majority of the public, 71 of americans see unions as key in improving pay and working conditions, the number of workers involved in major work stoppages has hit the highest levels in decades. The number of workers went a strike grew by 50 in 2022. Furthermore, between 1979 and 2022, the inflation adjusted annual wages of the top 1 of workers rose by 145 , while the average annual way. Is of the bottom 90 rose by only 16 . Time to take a look at some of the online posts on this. First up uh what was posted on x as its called now it said the deal was uaw members take some shortterm cuts for the longterm survival of ford gm and chrysler. Thats the promise we made and thats the promise that was broken. All right, that shows obviously uh how they were. Of shipped uh out of uh what was supposed to be coming to them . Next up a website uh we refer to where it said more big strikes loom with thousands of healthcare and casino workers set to walk off the job. Well guess what, when we had this entry that already has happened. This entry said there is a feeling that the system is fundamentally unfair to the workforce that is doing all the hard work, went out to say, what is driving the protest . The clining real wages, a tight lamur market, and robust corporate profits only bolsters the. Case for for workers uh next the website where it talked about the largest Healthcare Strike in us history, the coalition of Kaiser Permanenta unions to have accused kaiser of negotiating in bad faith and committing unfair labor practices uh then a tweet on this on x solidarity forever with the 7500 workers at kaiisa permanente, when you win this fight, the entire working class will win as well. Yeah, again, the kasa permanenta took us by surprise because thats the thats the largest uh uh of his kind in uh us uh hopefully we can uh maybe do a program on that well uh lets let me introduce our guests for our first q we have Daryl Mitchell joining us, now Daryl Mitchell, is a retired auto worker, he worked at christler motors, hes a former union representative, and hes an activist in the socialist movements for 50 years, rather long resume, former editor at southern advocate, hes a Founding Member at the league of revolutionary black workers of detroit, and also former executive board member at detroits coalition of black trade unionist. Darel mitchell, welcome to the program. All right, so uh, lets start off by asking you. About this uh strike, so in one respects, its about the pay, we know that, but there are things that have really angered these uh strikers, for example, the ceo compensation uh that these the big three automakers and their ceos are making, which has grown by the way 40 over the last four years and theyre using that to press for their wage increases, are the workers justified to use that channel in order to get a pay increase for themselves . I think you posing incorrectly, the union has made it clear that one of his key demands is to in the two tier system, they made this clear at every junction, yes pay is important, yes it is important to contrast compensation of auto workers with compensations with ceo, theres nothing rational about paying ceos billions of dollars for a company being successful. But suppressing the wages of workers, thats my first point. The second point is that to all the workers are fighting a battle for their existence. For instance, currently stalantis has roughly 58,000 employees in the us, thats christler. When i was hired in, it was 120,00 union members, over the next 10 years we are looking at the elimination of roughly 50 to 70 . The auto workforce by Digital Process and advanced robotics, in my view, this is last ditch fight of the autoworkers union. Well, thats a great point that he makes there, um, which is something thats uh, probably at the forefront of the auto sector, overall, when it become, when it became automated. Diane, feeley, let me introduce her, uh, shes a retired autoworker and member of the uaw local 22, who joins us diane. Feelly welcome to economic divide. Um, the general trend in the us uh based on wages is that uh were looking a inflation adjusted annual uh increase, the top 1 , 145 . Uh, the bottom 90 , only 16 , which is about a tenth as fast. Uh, why is that happening . Why, why is such unfairness and uh, basically inequality, as a result of this that uh these un uneven wage wages. Uh create, yes, i would say so, and its a combination of the corporations and the government laws that allow them uh to uh restructure uh on the backs of workers, right now, for example, the companies are building new battery plants and the government has given them millions of dollars, probably about 100 million, 104 million dollars, but there are no guarantees in what is being given or loaned by the government to these factories and to the corporations of these factories to insist that there be adequate working conditions for the workforce there, so the restructuring that occurred in the 197981 period was sort the beginning of the restructure. But since then there have been probably three waves of restructuring and workers are always expected to give back when in fact we had nothing to do with the corporate decisions that were made uh not only paying the corporate ceos huge salaries and benefits but also uh buying buying back stock uh so that that would elevate what their their their uh company was worth, from the environment to business and economy to civil and human rights, to treaties and agreements, to war and conflicts, we bring you the. Overlooked aspects of world events and news from the farflunged corners of the globe. 10 minutes only on press tv. Inthut section of the program. The us autoworker strike, which is still ongoing as of now, at least up to now, is reflective of not just payback time, but also of wall street greed. Thats right, the manufacturers were bailed out by us taxpayers money are not willing to give those very same tax payers the wages that they deserve, well the ceos were raking in tens of millions of dollars in their salaries. All right, were going to get into that, but this first section is all about what were going to cover in this section, because theres a lot of them, the first uh thing were going to cover is about the strikes themselves, uh, what uh it has entailed, then were going to talk about the progress that they have made or maybe lack of it based on uh what youre going to hear in a matter of minutes, then the number of workers that are involved, were going to put that in a comparative uh study for you. Next up the the big three profits, big three being the auto manufacturers. Okay, we have to find out how much money they are making. Then we move to uh profits and uh losses. Profits and losses based on uh, when the strikes happened, how much the manufacturers have made or lost. The wage growth, thats very important because of uh the comparison were going to make to for example the ceos and were going to take a look at the salaries that some of the ceos these manufacturers are making, and finally car sales in the scope of how much the gross uh amount of sales these manufacturers have uh in their market, which is very important, so lets get going. All right, the first category that we have for you are the strikes themselves, so lets see whats going on here, with the strike uh and tails walkouts so far, gm and stalantis, those two manufacturers, you have five Assembly Plants that have gone a strike. The not operational and you have 38 parts depots also um accumulatively speaking that are not functional uh this shows that this strike has a potential for it to actually expand okay next uh taking a look at the progress thats happening well its Pretty Simple the union demand is 40 thats the increase they want for their pay but the carmakers are only willing to go up to 20 . The latest has indicated that this figure has gone down to 36 but sure because its not confirmed, in canada, they gave up a whole lot more than that. Lets move to the next category in terms of uh what we have here, the number of workers. This is important, in the year 2021, you had 36,600 that went a strike. Look at the year 2023, 362,000 have gone onto strike. Now, if youre going to add the number of auto workers which combined, theres 15000 auto workers all together for potential strikers. You could see that figure top there, the 362. Is going to jump by quite a bit. Next up, what do we have here . Big three profits. Need i say more, for gm salantis, 92 . The profits have increased. We took a range of 20, the years 2013 to 2022, 250 billion dollars. Okay, so that shows the amount of money that they are making. Thats quite a lot. All right, lets take a look now at the us wage growth. That is very important in terms of what we have for you, the top 1 . You can see over here, look how much increase theyve had on their wages, 145 . Thats a lot when you compare it to the bottom 90 90 , which is at 16 only for the wage growth, the years uh that we looked at 1979 through the year 2022. What do we have coming up next uh ceo salaries . All right, thats the big one, thats one of the things that uh is up for discussion in a major way, the big three ceo salaries, you have forard Ceo Jim Farley 21 million per year, salanta ceo carlos stavarez 25 million and one that comes in a number one mary bara 29 million, the gm a ceo. All right, now this is what hurts for the workers. The ceo profits were made 1. 7 millions off each worker, which came into the picture in terms of the way that these uh um ceos made their profits, not in their salary, but in the time sharing that they did had with the profits. Thats what it amount to. Next up, what do we have . Uh, car sales as a whole. How big a market is it . Vehicles and parts . 1. 53 trillion dollars for the year 2022. Okay, tell me theres not a lot of money in car manufacturing. Um, if there was to be an impact on that, the amount that it contributes to the us gdp is 3 . So thats why this uh car strike is such a big deal. Still waiting sea game uh to see if theyre going to come up with any type of uh, guess agreements on this. All right, uh, guess its time to get some analysis into the picture, dont you . Think, well maybe not, we have one more to go here, too many numbers for you, maybe gm profits quarterly, this is as of the latest, the latest quarter, 3. 2 billion dollars they made, okay, and they still. Want uh wont uh negotiate, the auto losses, however uh 3. 95 billion, youre looking at over uh a month, a month and maybe a couple weeks now, thats how much money has been lost because of the strike, but that figure over there, thats a big figure there, i know enough numbers, lets go to our guests and see what they think about all of this, uh, lets bring back Daryl Mitchell, hes a retired autoworker, uh, he uh worked at krysler motors and also a former union. Representative who rejoins us. Darel milchel, welcome back economic divide. Uh, id like to find out from you why it is that its not just auto workers that are striking. Were looking at other sectors that have uh joined now these strikes. It seems like the auto workers kind of set it off. I think its because of the large numbers that are involved and how major um piece of the economy the us in the us it plays. Um, and this all points to stagnant wages and pay, basically. Why has it spread to other sectors, you think . My view is that we going through a fundamental changing economy that is on the scale of the Industrial Revolution the 18th century, we are going through findamental change in our society thats probably equivalent to the discovery of fire. I dont say that joking me, right now im residing in a. Uh san Jose California, san Jose California is like the home of the new technology, and the last century, detroit and the Auto Industry was the home of technological innovation. My point is that were going through a revolution and a technological complex a scale that ushered in industrial capitalism, so we talking about the destruction of the workforce as it. Had existed for the last 150, 200 years, we going through a profound change in our society and nothing can stop it or halt it. Yeah, you know, hes got a point there, and i think he pointed out in the last time that we brought him on, uh, where the automation that took place in the car industry, which is one of the first to have gone that route, pointing to the um, Artificial Intelligence that is going to be incorporated and were seeing obviously that uh to be. In many industies uh lets bring in our guest freely, retired autoworker and member of uaw, local 22, see what she thinks. Diane, feeley, id like to ask you the question i asked our previous guest, and thats about how were seeing these strikes basically spread to other industies uh that we didnt expect, one of the most recent ones being khaisa permanente, which uh involves uh quite a number of employees, i think if you put it all together about 80,000, but hospitality, Tech Industries and curier services, why is that happening . I mean, uh, you talk about only 3 inflation in the us, as its reported, but yet people uh, dont dont make enough money to pay their bills and to buy, and basically to consume. Whats happening . Well, its pretty wide spread, and the minimum wage is very, very low, both the federal minimum wage, and in michigan, its slightly higher. Uh, the federal minimum wage is about 7. 50, the uh wage. In in uh michigan is a little higher at 10 an hour, but even 15 an hour is not an adequate wage, so one factor is the low wages of uh of many of the workers, uh, the fact that inequality means that the profits are going uh much more towards the uh points that i raised before of ceos uh of of uh outsourcing of um uh combining uh um so you have uh corporations that uh not only um are active as um in one Industrial Area but uh are conglomerates. According to polls, more than 40 of us voters who backed joe biden in the 2020 president ial election say they think that the economy is worse off than it was then. Rising gas prices and high Interest Rates have contributed to greater Economic Uncertainty and has dampened Consumer Confidence. The conference boards Consumer Confidence index fell for second consecutive month, dropping to 103 in september from an upwardly revised 108. 7 the month before. The decline in Consumer Confidence was ever. Across all age groups and notably among consumers with Household Incomes of 50,000 or more. The share of consumers surveyed who believe a recession is somebo likely, or very likely, rose in september after dropping in august. Consumer spending serves as a critical driver for us economic growth. The us census bureaus most recent Household Pulse survey for the two weeks ending september 4 showed that 80 of respondents were still somewhat or very concerned about future inflation. Annual consumer inflation dropped to 4 . In may and 3 in june of this year, but came in at 3. 2 in july and climbed to 3. 7 in august. I still worry very much uh that that we could have a hard landing, whether you probably not until next year, the hiking uh cycle that the feds been going through, it takes 12 months to 18 months for it to really have an impact on the economy, and same thing with the yield curve, the yield curve did invert to year ago and it usually takes about year for it really to have that kind of impact. Hello and welcome to the quick take section. Im mattiapolisan. When it comes to the us strikes, auto workers are not the only ones that are going a strike. There are workers from other sectors like dining and hospitality, technology and health services. Besides auto workers, hundreds of thousands of us workers have walked off their jobs this. Here in industries of all types. This includes hollywood screenwriters, starbucks, amazon workers and frontline workers like nurses, hotel staff and pilots. This state is very expensive. I love round from, i love my community, i love to be a part of this community. However, the going rate of a one bear room is 2,200. The us President Joe Biden, however has a stated that the us economy is doing well more or less under the banner of. Dynomics that americans are just beginning to reap the rewards and have more confidence in the us economy. In one survey, its indicated that 44 of voters said theyre worse off financially under biden, the most for any president since Ronald Reagan in 1986. Lets look at some economic factors that go against joe bidens claims, for Many Americans, job security is a big deal, and it should be since u. S. Businesses are not doing that well. Us business bankrupties have reached a 13year high. More than 450 corporations have claimed bankrupty protection surpassing annual totals for the past two years. The federal reserves Interest Rate hikes and Economic Uncertainty are cited as the reasons. Meanwhile, poverty in the us has also seen a rise especially in metropolitan cities like los angeles and new york city, which goes against us announcements of economy that is doing well. In 2022, there was 12. 4 , increase of 4. 6 Percentage Points from 2021. More alarmingly, the Child Poverty rate more than doubled from 5. 2 in 2021 to 12. 4 in 2022. Since we are looking at us poverty, lets look at food poverty and uss a snap program, short for supplemental nutrition assistance program. This is Government Program that helps people who need assistance with food, and here is where the depth of americas weak Economic Conditions shows itself. 41. 2 million people, thats 12. 5 of the total Us Population have received monthly snap benefits in the 2022 fiscal year. And finally, on the note of government assistance, what things the Us Government spends its money on has been overlooked, which ironically should be the focus. First we need to look at the Us Government income. The us makes around 6. 3 trillion dollars in income and believe it or not, spends half of that amount on entitlement programs like Food Assistance and benefits. Thats the end of this episodes quick take. Thank you for watching, dont forget to send us your comments and questions. Im mattiapolisan and ill see you next week. Greed has no bounds or limits, that is what has driven the ceos of these Car Manufacturers on the back of their workers and the money that theyve made. The us President Joe Biden taughted biteenomics thats so successful and that the economy is doing well for so many months in a row now. Then why are there so Many Americans that are going a strike . Im sure they have Better Things to do with their time than to go a strike, but of course uh thats up to the us president to realize that. That these people dont have enough money to get by with their everyday expenses. That does it for this edition of economic divide. Thank you so much for being with us, we uh do enjoy making the program for you, but its uh more successful for us to know how we are doing, if you give us feedback, Contact Information is uh behind me, from the team, its good to bye until the next economic divide. Dettle from israels onslot on the besieg gazo strip sours passed 1900, mostly women and children. The palestinian Prime Minister condemns israels ethnic cleansing in gaza saying the hospitals may turn into collective cemeteries unless theyre supplied with much needed fuel. Irans foreign minister has warned israel to end its war crimes against palestinians in gaza before its too late