United Auto Workers (UAW) wants EPA to soften vehicle emissions plan | Hacker News Reader

United Auto Workers (UAW) wants EPA to soften vehicle emissions plan

reuters.com

25 pointscs70224 comments

Their gripe appears to be that UAW workers largely make trucks and SUVs, which are famously inefficient and in many cases exempt from fleet standards, as well as having pretty dubious safety records.

I don't have a lot of sympathy for this argument. Just because your union happens to make a product with extreme externalities, doesn't mean you should get a hand in slowing down legislation that attempts to internalize some of that.

This is pure rent-seeking. We shouldn't keep the toxic sludge factory open just because it is an excellent employer that refuses to make less toxic sludge.

“It Is Difficult to Get a Man to Understand Something When His Salary Depends Upon His Not Understanding It”

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/11/30/salary/?amp=1

The union is supposed to represent the interest of the workers, and should not forget that those workers breathe air and live on planet earth.

They should support rules that force auto manufacturers to help everyone stay alive.

They unfortunately have to balance this with keeping their members employed, and their members salaries high

That's a false dichotomy. As the employer pivots they should be retraining their workers (if needed), encouraging them to help the company succeed.

Many of the workers jobs are the same with either technology: autoworkers making auto bodies, running the paint shop etc should succeed equally with either technology so you could just as well argue that the union is letting them down. Those working on the drivetrain or powerplant are the ones who could use the new skills. Focusing on helping the latter is supporting the infrastructure that would help the paint shop folks should that part of the business change in future.

Why is advancing technology, and higher emissions standards in conflict with that?

To the extent that it shifts purchases away from trucks and SUVs to Teslas and Japanese hybrids, it takes food off the table of UAW members.

https://uaw.org/solidarity_magazine/2023-uaw-union-built-veh...

They retool these factories pretty frequently when old models get redesigned, they can start making electric cars in these factories. Any number of electric car makers have already done this. Tesla and Ford, among others, are producing electric cars in former ICE car plants

Making an inferior product that is bad for society shouldn’t be an argument for government favoritism.

It's not about the plants being able to retool. It's about which manufacturers are specifically UAW unionized.

If a UAW plant making <whatever> shuts down and is bought by Tesla or Toyota and starts making Teslas or Toyotas, they're not being made by UAW workers (nor any union autoworker).

Even if the plant is making gas F-150s and retools to make a Ford BEV, there's no assurance that Ford will sell the same number or same profitability of that BEV than they did of the F-150. If they sell way fewer BEVs than they used to sell F150s, that also hurts UAW workers (though not as much as the UAW plant closing entirely).

https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/news/2023...

(I'm not taking the UAW's side here; I am merely explaining why the union is making the argument they're being paid to make.)

I get where they are coming from. I just think it’s a stupid take (UAWs take not yours).

They should be lobbying for tax breaks at unionized EV plants. It seems pretty clear that the ICE is on its way out, no reason to cling to it when they should be trying to get in on what is clearly the next thing.

The technology is not advancing quickly enough to meet the higher standards at the same price point as the current technology.

The net result is that everyone is poorer (as defined by purchasing power) and lower demand means lost jobs and decreased negotiating ability for the union.

If you want to take a macro view of it: the losses taken by failing to control climate change by allowing unions to dictate emissions standards far outweigh any gains the union workers and their customers get.

Or put another way, internalizing the costs of driving and making SUVs and trucks doesn’t make everyone poorer, it means that the public is t paying the costs for the private benefit of a few

We don't have a mechanism for retraining professions into other fields (or even adjacent skills) while keeping them employed. The company won't pay for it, the state doesn't care, net result is millions of people losing their jobs and having no path forward. Yes, eventually a new generation of workers with appropriate skills will replace them (somewhat), but that's no consolation for the families who no longer have a livelihood.

It would be a shitty union if they just sat back and watched as all their members became impoverished.

Ford is using the same plant and workers to assemble the Mach-e that they have used for ICE cars since the 1960s. My guess is that there really isn't a huge difference in what the factory workers are doing. Bolting a door onto a Rav4 can't be that different than bolting a door onto a Rav4 with an electric motor.

We actually do have a retraining mechanism in this case. The UAW has a program called the "National Vocational Retraining Assistance Plan" available to laid off members.

It would be a shitty union if they lobbied for the entire country to use outdated, and less efficient technology in order to benefit a few thousand people temporarily.

Thanks, this is good to know! Do you have any more details you might be able to share? I'd love to learn more.

Because these people only know how to make ICE vehicles?

Agreed. They are not looking at the long term, which is disappointing

Right, we're all in this together so some group I don't really care about is just going to have to make sacrifices.

Anyone curious like me that wants to see emissions of electric vehicles vs gasoline vehicles, check out:

https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=bt2

Seems like a reasonable comparison. They're comparing a user-selected electric vehicle to "Average New Gasoline Vehicle". Clicking on "About this Calculation" they're assuming 27 mpg for the gasoline comparison vehicle with a factor of 1.25 added for production and transportation of gasoline.

Myths about electric vehicles addressed here:

https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/electric-vehicle-myths

Slightly more detailed info is available here:

https://www.carboncounter.com/#!/explore

(note you have to go into the settings to change various assumptions, like what state, number of miles driven per year and much more)

Union supporters vs elite environmentalists. I'm going to get a ton of popcorn for this one.

No.

No what?

No, EPA shouldn’t soften the environmental protection rules.

dghlsakjg put it more eloquently than I could.

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