#Jobs

Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares’ pay increase has annoyed a subset of shareholders as the automaker positions itself for more layoffs and attempts to shift the production of electric vehicles to countries where labor is cheaper. Meanwhile, the automaker's unwillingness to renegotiate contracts with suppliers had created additional tension with its business partners.

Bentley's former CEO Adrian Hallmark has broken with the company after making remarks that sales were down due to wealthy people buying fewer luxury products over concerns that it might upset poorer people living in those markets. That’s paraphrasing and his words were chosen much more carefully. However subsequent clarification from Bentley suggested that some markets were “experiencing continued economic and political difficulty” that would dissuade “showing displays of wealth.” It didn’t play well in the media and Hallmark has reportedly left the brand and since taken up with Aston Martin.

Aston Martin is reportedly reaching out to candidates to replace Amedeo Felisa as the company’s chief executive officer, potentially setting the business up to have its fourth CEO in four years. Felisa has headed the UK-based automaker since May of 2022 and inherited a situation where the business was already taking on sizable amounts of debt annually.

With Honda having followed Toyota in offering employee raises in the wake of the United Auto Workers (UAW) appearing to have settled contract negotiations in Detroit, the rest of the industry appears to have set off a Domino Rally of wage increases. Hyundai is now offering manufacturing workers more than they were making last year and has promised to bump pay by 25 percent through 2028.

While the United Automobile Workers (UAW) are preparing to vote on contract proposals offered by Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis, non-union Toyota is increasing hourly wages. Hourly compensation has increased for the automaker’s U.S. manufacturing, distribution center, and logistics employees. It’s also offering more paid time off than before and reducing the time it takes for workers to reach top-tier compensation.

Considering Toyota had already issued two pay bumps for 2023, seeing a third is a bit of a surprise and likely has everything to do with the results of the UAW strike.

There has been loads of speculation about what the United Automobile Workers would be asking for during this year’s contract negotiations, with the assumption being that demands would be fairly lofty. Much of this was fueled by statements made by UAW leadership, especially those coming from President Shawn Fain.

Following its massive corruption scandal, union members sought a change in management and Fain is eager to prove himself as on the side of workers. He’s taken a more-adversarial approach to the industry than his predecessors and has promised to make up for ground lost over the last few decades. While demands were initially left vague, the UAW has since shared a series of specific proposals to be brought forward during contract negotiations with Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis. Compared to the standards we’ve become accustomed to, they are indeed lofty.

We reported yesterday about the resistance Ford is facing toward building a new plant. So naturally, I wanted to hear what you think.

President and CEO of Porsche Cars North America, Kjell Gruner, has left the company. The former Porsche AG chief marketing officer took the wheel to oversee our region less than three years ago and has reportedly made an abrupt exodus. 

Ford has been restructuring for years and is reportedly planning additional layoffs. Staff from multiple business units, including its combustion-focused Ford Blue division and the Model e electric vehicle unit, are supposed to be getting bad news in the coming weeks. But the number of people getting laid off isn’t supposed to match what we’ve seen before. 

The strike at the Clarios battery plant in Holland, Ohio, is reportedly ongoing after workers rejected a deal struck between the company and negotiators from the United Auto Workers union. Roughly 550 employees represented by UAW Local 12 walked out on May 8th over changes to overtime eligibility and production incentives, with a select few picketing outside the factory entrance.

On Tuesday, General Motors confirmed Apple’s Mike Abbott as the executive vice president of its Software division — an important role considering that the automaker is betting large on shifting revenue toward connectivity. The company has been stressing the importance of integrated mobile services for years and recently announced it would be dumping Apple CarPlay so that drivers would be required to interface with its proprietary operating system.

Over the weekend, Shawn Fain was declared the winner over incumbent Ray Curry in the United Auto Workers’ presidential runoff election. While the race was tight, and the results had to be delayed so a federally appointed monitor to examine some 1,600 challenged ballots, members effectively voted out the Reuther Administrative Caucus which has controlled the union for decades.

General Motors is planning to spend an estimated $1.5 billion to buy out a meaningful portion of its salaried workforce in the hopes that the decision will help save the company $2 billion over the next couple of years. While it seems like a very expensive way to save money, CEO Mary Barra clearly feels as though now is the time to strike.

Ford Motor Co. reportedly has plans to cut 3,800 administrative and product development positions in Europe over the next three years – representing a little more than 10 percent of its regional workforce. Germany and the United Kingdom are presumed to be the zones taking the biggest hits, with the automaker suggesting that it needs to streamline the workforce as part of its transition toward all-electric vehicles.

Alphabet subsidiary Waymo has reportedly leaned into layoffs and everyone is wondering whether this is an offshoot of the 12,000 job cuts being made at Google or indicative that self-driving tech has run itself into a brick wall. While there’s certainly a wealth of evidence that autonomous vehicles have progressed more slowly than the industry would have had us believe a decade earlier, Waymo has arguably made some of the biggest strides in the industry.