#STELLANTIS

[carsthatnevermadeitetc]

Chrysler CCV Concept, 1997. The China Concept Vehicle took inspiration from the Citroen 2CV and had a similar raison d'etat, to mobilise rural communities in emerging markets. The name was later changed to Composite Concept Vehicle to reflect the car’s construction from polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, the plastic that drinks bottles are made from which is fully-recyclable. It was powered by an air-cooled flat two-cylinder engine, like the 2CV, sourced from lawnmower manufacturer Briggs & Stratton. The project was shelved after the ill-fated merger with Daimler-Benz in 1998. Now both Chrysler and Citroën are part of the Stellantis multinational automotive manufacturing company.

[winterthebeau]

american auto industry be like

[reasonsforhope]

Seven thousand more UAW members just walked off the job, expanding the strike to two more plants. Twenty-five thousand autoworkers are now on strike, and the walkout could continue to escalate if the Big Three don’t budge in negotiations.

[UAW president Shawn] Fain announced that Stellantis would be spared this time. The union had been expected to strike all three companies, but, said Region 1 director LaShawn English, three minutes before Fain was scheduled to go on Facebook Live, the UAW received frantic emails from company representatives.

[Note: Love that for the UAW. Also laughing so hard. Three minutes before the next round of strikes were annouced!!]

According to Fain, Stellantis made “significant progress” on cost-of-living allowances, the right not to cross a picket line, and the right to strike over product commitments and plant closures. “We are excited about this momentum at Stellantis and hope it continues,” Fain said...

“See You Next Week — Maybe?”

“These guys wanted to go out a long time ago,” said Cody Zaremba, a Local 602 member at the Lansing GM plant after the news broke that his plant would be joining the strike. “We’re ready. Everybody, truly, I believe, in the entire membership. They’re one with what’s going on.”

Five thousand workers at thirty-eight parts distribution centers across twenty-one states have been on strike since last Friday [September 22, 2023], along with thirteen thousand at three assembly plants in Michigan, Ohio, and Missouri who walked out on September 15. (See a map of all struck facilities here.) ...

The UAW is now calling on community supporters to organize small teams to canvass dealerships that sell and repair Big Three cars and trucks. On Tuesday, the union issued a canvassing tool kit with instructions, flyers, press releases, and talking points.

In negotiations with Ford and GM, autoworkers have clinched some important gains. Among them is an agreement by both companies to end at least one of the many tiers in current contracts, putting workers at certain parts plants back on the same wage scale as assembly workers. The top rate for Big Three assembly workers is currently around $32...

Ford was spared in last week’s escalation, because bargainers there had made further progress on gains for workers.

But today, the UAW once again called out workers at Ford and GM, putting some muscle behind its bold demands — a big wage boost, a shorter workweek, elimination of tiers, cost-of-living adjustments tied to inflation, protection from plant closures, conversion of temps to permanent employees, and the restoration of retiree health care and benefit-defined pensions to all workers.

-via Jacobin, September 29, 2023. Article continues below.

Keep Them Guessing

This year, for the first time in recent history, the union has played the three auto companies against each other with its strike strategy, departing from the union’s tradition of choosing one target company and patterning an agreement at the other two.

The stand-up strike strategy draws inspiration from an approach known as CHAOS (Create Havoc Around Our System), first deployed in 1993 by Alaska Airlines flight attendants, who announced they would be striking random flights. Although they struck only seven flights in a two-month period, Alaska had to send scabs on every plane, just in case. The unpredictability drew enormous media attention and drove management up the wall. Meanwhile the union was able to conserve its strength and minimize risk.

The companies miscalculated where the UAW was going to strike first, stockpiling engines and shipping them cross-country to the wrong facilities. Autoworkers relished the self-inflicted supply chain chaos on UAW Facebook groups and other social media platforms.

Nonstrikers’ morale on the factory floor has gotten a boost from rank and filers organizing to refuse voluntary overtime. With support both from Fain and the reform caucus Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD), workers have been encouraging each other to “Eight and Skate,” meaning to turn down extra work and decline to do management any favors.

Majority Public Support

A majority of Americans support the UAW strikers, and the Big Three have taken a PR hit since the strike began, according to a new survey conducted by the business intelligence firm Caliber.

“Eighty-seven percent of respondents told us they were aware of the strike,” Caliber CEO Shahar Silbershatz told the Intercept. “It’s clear the strike is not just causing commercial repercussions, but reputational repercussions as well.”

These reputational repercussions will only worsen...

"We Can Unmake It"

Fain didn't pull any punches in his speech... “That’s what’s different about working-class people. Whether we’re building cars or trucks or running parts distribution centers; whether we’re writing movies or performing TV shows... we do the heavy lifting. We do the real work. Not the CEOs, not the executives.

"And though we don’t know it, that’s what power is. We have the power. The world is of our making. The economy is of our making. This industry is of our making.

“And as we’ve shown, when we withhold our labor, we can unmake it.”

-via Jacobin, September 29, 2023

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Stellantis wants to make scabbing woke

I'm coming to Minneapolis! Oct 15: Presenting The Internet Con at Moon Palace Books. Oct 16: Keynoting the 26th ACM Conference On Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing.

I know, I know, it's weird when the worst people you know are right, even when they're right for the wrong reasons: like, the "Intelligence Community" is genuinely terrible, pharma companies are murderous crooks, and Big Tech really does have a dangerous grip on public debate. The swivel-eyed loons have a point, is what I'm saying:

https://locusmag.com/2023/05/commentary-cory-doctorow-the-swivel-eyed-loons-have-a-point/

When conspiratorialists and reactionaries holler about how the FBI are dirty-tricking creeps who are framing Trump, it's tempting to say, "well, if Trumpists hate the FBI, then I will love the FBI. Who cares about COINTELPRO and what they did to Martin Luther King?"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93King_suicide_letter

It's a process called "schizmogenesis": forming new group identity beliefs based on saying the opposite of what your enemies say, and as tempting as that is, it's extraordinarily foolish and dangerous:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/12/18/schizmogenesis/

It means that canny reactionaries like Steve Bannon can trick you into taking any position merely by taking the opposite one. Bannon's followers are even more easily led, so it's easy for him to convince them that we have always been at war with Oceania. The right has created an entire mirror world of "I know you are but what am I?" politics.

Anti-vax co-opts "bodily autonomy." Climate denial becomes environmentalism ("wind turbines kill birds"). Transphobia becomes feminism ("keep women-only spaces for real women"). Support for strongmen becomes anti-imperialism ("don't feed the war machine in Ukraine"). These are the doppelgangers Naomi Klein warns us against:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/05/not-that-naomi/#if-the-naomi-be-klein-youre-doing-just-fine

The far right has even managed to co-opt anti-corporate rhetoric. Culture warriors rail against "woke capitalism," insisting that when big businesses take socially progressive positions, it's just empty "virtue signalling." And you know what? They've got a point. Partially.

As with all mirror-world politics, the anti-woke-capitalism shuck is designed to convince low-information right-wing pismires into buying "anti-woke pillows" and demanding the right to pay junk fees to "own the libs":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/04/owning-the-libs/#swiper-no-swiping

But woke capitalism is bullshit. Corporations – profit-maximizing immortal transhuman colony organisms that view workers and customers as inconvenient gut-flora – do not care about social justice. They don't care about anything, except for minimizing compensation for workers while maximizing the risk those workers bear; and locking in and gouging customers for products that are as low-quality as can be profitably sold.

Take DEI, a favored target of the right. It's undoubtably true that diversity, inclusion and equity initiatives have made some inroads on correcting bias in hiring decisions, with the result that companies get better employees who would have been excluded without this explicit corrective.

However, corporations don't value DEI because they abhor their history of hiring bias. Instead, DEI is how corporate management demonstrates to workers that their grievances are best addressed by trusting corporate leadership to correct their error of their ways – and not by forming a union.

Before the passage of the National Labor Relations Act in 1935, corporations would create fake "Company Unions" whose leadership were beholden to the company executives. These were decoy unions: they looked and sounded like unions, but when they negotiated with management, they were actually working for the bosses, not the workers.

This is more mirror-world tactics. They're the labor equivalent of the "crisis pregnancy centers" that masquerade as abortion clinics in order to fool pregnant people and trap them with endless delays until it's too late to terminate their pregnancies. Company unions get workers to trust in negotiators who are secretly working for the bosses, who emerge from the bargaining table with one-sided, abusive contracts and insist that this is the best deal workers can hope for.

Company unions were outlawed 90 years ago, and for decades, labor had a seat at the table, with wages tracking productivity gains and workers getting protection for discrimination, unsafe labor conditions, and wage-theft. Then came the neoliberal turn, and 40 years of wage stagnation, increased inequality, and corporate rule.

Anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop. Finally, finally, we have reached a turning point in labor, with public approval for unions at levels not seen since the Carter administration and thousands of strikes and protests breaking out across the country:

https://striketracker.ilr.cornell.edu/

It's not just the Writers Guild and SAG-AFTRA, either. For the first time in history, the UAW is striking against all the major automakers, and they are winning:

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/10/striking-uaw-workers-win-key-battery-plant-concession-from-general-motors/

The automakers are getting desperate. Stellantis – Chrysler's latest alias, reflecting the company's absorbtion into corporate-human-centipede of global carmakers – has mobilized its DEI programs, trying to get marginalized people to believe that scabbing is a liberatory activity:

https://theintercept.com/2023/10/10/uaw-auto-strike-stellantis/

Stellantis calls each of its DEI silos a "Business Resource Group" (BRG): there's a "Working Parents Network," an "African Ancestry Network," "Asians Connected Together," a "DiverseAbilities Network," a "Gay & Lesbian Alliance" and more:

https://blog.stellantisnorthamerica.com/2021/07/20/business-resource-groups-drive-inclusion-and-diversity/

The corporate managers who lead these BRGs have established a scab rotation for each subgroup, calling on members to cross a UAW picket-line at a Michigan Parts Distribution Center run by Stellantis subsidiary Mopar:

Each BRG will pick a specific day of the week/weekend to volunteer as a team. Help continue to be the RESOURCE the BUSINESS can count on! Stellantis needs your help in running the Parts Distribution Centers (PDC) to ensure a steady supply of parts to our customers while negotiations continue. Working Parents Network has identified Friday, October 13 as WPN’s BRG Day at the PDCs!"

Now, these BRGs weren't invented by marginalized workers facing discrimination in the workplace. They come from literal union-busting playbooks produced by giant "union avoidance" firms that charge bosses millions for advice on skirting – or breaking – the law to keep workplace democracy at bay. All the biggest anti-union consultancies love BRGs, from Littler Mendelson to Jackson Lewis. IRI Strategies touts BRGs as a way to "union-proof" a business by absorbing workers' grievances in a decoy committee that will let them feel listened to.

BRGs, in other words, are the Crisis Pregnancy Centers of workplace discrimination. They're a Big Store Con, a company union dressed up as corporate social responsibility.

Now, let's not pretend that unions have a sterling record on race and gender issues. Giant labor organizations like the AFL had to be dragged into racial integration, and trade unions have sometimes been on the wrong side of anti-immigration panics:

https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1997/summer/american-labor-movement.html

But unions have also been the most reliable way for people of color and women to win better workplace treatment. The struggle for racial and gender justice was fought through labor organizing. Remember that MLK's "I've Been To the Mountaintop" speech was given in support of striking sanitation workers in Memphis:

https://www.afscme.org/about/history/mlk/mountaintop

Black organizers have always been militant labor organizers. Labor Day commemorates the victory of the long, hard-fought Pullman strike, where Black workers brought one of the most powerful companies in America to its knees:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pullman_Strike

And women have always fought for gender justice through the labor movement: the New York shirtwaist strike is the Ur-example, when women-led unions fought thugs and scabs on icy New York streets:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_shirtwaist_strike_of_1909

It's no surprise that labor activism, anti-racism and feminism go together. Since the earliest days, the labor justice struggle was also a social justice struggle. To learn more check out Kim Kelly's Fight Like Hell: The Untold History of American Labor:

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Fight-Like-Hell/Kim-Kelly/9781982171063

The most exploited, underpaid, and abused workers in America are also the most marginalized (duh).

From nurses:

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/kaiser-healthcare-union-says-week-long-strike-possible-early-next-month-2023-10-09/

To teachers:

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-04-18/l-a-teachers-win-21-wage-increase-in-new-lausd-contract

To Amazon warehouse workers:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Labor_Union

To publishing assistants:

https://apnews.com/article/harpercollins-union-strike-ends-0a94238718879066d9b21af6266be526

To baristas:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/29/business/starbucks-union-wages/index.html

To fast-food workers:

https://www.ufcw.org/about/

The vanguard of today's labor surge is Black, brown, female and queer. Without a union, workers who face discrimination are on their own, hoping that their bosses will voluntarily do something about it. Black workers in Tesla's rabidly anti-union shops face vicious racism, from slurs to threats to violence. Without a union, they have to rely on the shifting whims of an Apartheid emerald mine space-Karen for relief, or hope for help from the NLRB or a class-action lawyer:

https://apnews.com/article/tesla-racism-black-lawsuit-class-action-21c88bddf60eca702560be58429495de

The far right isn't wrong when they holler that woke capitalism is bullshit. As with so many of their mirror-world causes, they've got a point, but only a limited one. The problem with woke capitalism is that it's no substitute for a union. The problem with relying on Business Resource Groups to fight racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia is that these struggles are all class struggles, and a BRG is never going to fight against the company that created it.

To understand how bankrupt woke capitalism is, conside this: Stellantis is calling on its "Working Parents Network" to scab this Friday. Stellantis is also being sanctioned by the Department Of Labor for discriminating against nursing mothers – the same "working parents" that the BRG is meant to protect:

https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/local/2023/02/08/investigation-finds-stellantis-violated-rights-of-nursing-mothers-at-sterling-heights-plant/

Woke capitalism is just another kind of "predatory inclusion," like Intuit's campaign defending its "Free File" tax-prep scam, where they're claiming that ending this ripoff is racist because it denies Black families the right to be tricked into paying for something they are entitled to get for free:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/27/predatory-inclusion/#equal-opportunity-scammers

When I learned about Intuit's wokewashing, I thought I'd found woke capitalism's rock bottom, but I was wrong. Stellantis's call for woke scabbing is a new low.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/11/equal-opportunity-class-war/#inclusive-scabbing

My next novel is The Lost Cause, a hopeful novel of the climate emergency. Amazon won't sell the audiobook, so I made my own and I'm pre-selling it on Kickstarter!

[yz]

The stunning Dodge Coronet R/T featuring a 390HP, 440 cubic inch (7.2L) Six Pack V8 with three two-barrel carburetors. Legit.

Ashland Car Show, September 2024.

Fujifilm X-T50 with XF 23mm F/2.0 lens.

[anchesetuttinoino]

(...)

Stellantis, Repubblica e il Pd… il segreto di Pulcinella

Il segreto di Pulcinella lo svela la spina nel fianco degli Elkann, protagonista anche della convocazione in Parlamento del supermanager superpagato Carlos Tavares, Carlo Calenda, leader di Azione. “La realtà dei fatti è che Elkann si è comprato Repubblica, cioè il principale quotidiano della sinistra, e in questo modo da Landini al Pd la parola Elkann non viene pronunciata. E’ lì il problema. Noi abbiamo dato garanzie agli Elkann che sono costate agli italiani…C’è un tema che riguarda l’assetto proprietario di Stellantis cioè John Elkann”., ha detto Carlo Calenda a Rai news.

“E questa cosa non si riesce a dire – prosegue il leader di Azione – perché Elkann in modo molto brillante ha capito che basta comprarsi un giornale che gli è costato pure poco, e lo distruggerà alla fine, per coprirti a sinistra. Io credo – conclude – che questa battaglia va fatta al centro e a sinistra perché é una battaglia di tutela di 100mila famiglie”.

Ma sul “Fatto” di oggi, Calenda andava giù ancora più duro. “Su Stellantis non si è mai sbilanciato. Infatti credo che ci sia nella sinistra italiana un problema con gli Elkann e con i loro giornali, a partire da Repubblica. Elkann ha fatto una cosa geniale comprandola con quattro soldi, e distruggendola, così da coprirsi a sinistra. Questa però dovrebbe riconquistare il voto degli operai piuttosto che ingraziarsi Repubblica”. Nulla accade per caso, nella finanza ma anche nella sinistra.

[cyarskaren52]

the wga, culinary workers, the united auto workers union, and now sag-aftra. The unions just keep winning this year

unions work

GIF by choicesraccoon

[cyarsk5230]

the wga, culinary workers, the united auto workers union, and now sag-aftra. The unions just keep winning this year

unions work

[iww-gnv]

(CN) — When Jeremy Kimbrell landed a job 24 years ago at the Mercedes Benz plant in Vance, Alabama, he thought his life had taken a turn for the better.  Just 22-years-old at the time, his experience included working in a clothing warehouse and for a roofing company. The pay was low, the benefits were meager, and Kimbrell wasn’t exactly fond of the hot and dangerous work.  Through an acquaintance, Kimbrell heard the newly minted Mercedes plant was hiring temporary workers with the possibility to be retained as employees. The jobs offered pay of up to $20 per hour, health insurance, vacation and sick days and a retirement plan. The incentives fell short of what union workers were earning at the so-called “Big Three” automakers of General Motors, Stellantis and Ford. Still, it was “pretty good for Alabama,” Kimbrell recalled thinking at the time. But as the years passed and the economy evolved, Kimbrell and other Mercedes workers began to feel increasingly neglected. Pay raises became smaller and less frequent, while promotions slowed to a trickle. Management constantly increased production goals and whittled away at employee liberties.  Temporary workers became less likely to be offered full-time employment — and even when they were, their wages were capped at lower levels than more senior employees. Turnover increased.  “Around the time of the Great Recession is when the workers began to feel like we were being treated like a dime a dozen,” Kimbrell said in a phone interview Feb. 13. “That has led to where we are now, where people are finally fed up.” Since January, at least 30% of workers at both the Mercedes and Hyundai plants in Alabama — plus more than half of workers at the Volkswagen plant in Tennessee — have signed union authorization cards seeking recognition from their employers to unionize. That’s according to the United Auto Workers, a major union focused on the automobile industry with more than 400,000 current members.

[britsyankswheels24]

🇺🇸 As we approach Chrysler's 100th anniversary, Frank B. Rhodes Jr., great-grandson of company founder Walter P. Chrysler, is raising concerns about the brand’s future and wants to take action to rescue it. In a recent open letter to “investors and workers,” Rhodes announced his plan to revitalize Chrysler and its related brands—Dodge, Ram, and Jeep—under new “American” ownership.

🚗 Stellantis, the current parent company of Chrysler, has come under criticism from Rhodes for its management of the brand, which he claims has been severely neglected. The Chrysler brand currently offers only one vehicle, the Pacifica minivan, while several promising concept cars, such as the Chrysler Airflow, were shelved before reaching production. Rhodes highlighted Stellantis’ focus on European brands like Citroën and Peugeot, arguing that Chrysler has been left behind.

💼 Rhodes, who has been a Chrysler ambassador for over 40 years, points to his family’s legacy and his own ownership of the final Chrysler 300C as reasons for his dedication to the brand. He submitted a 17-page proposal to Stellantis executives, inviting them to a confidential discussion on reviving Chrysler. His plan includes giving equity stakes to employees, echoing the worker-centered vision of his great-grandfather, who founded the company on principles of American ingenuity and innovation.

📉 Rhodes also expresses concern about the future of Dodge, which has focused heavily on electric vehicles (EVs) despite its core customer base being more interested in American muscle and performance cars. He argues that Stellantis’ push toward an all-electric lineup by 2028 for Chrysler is out of step with market trends, where hybrids are gaining popularity. The all-electric path, Rhodes warns, could be disastrous for the brand’s future.

🔧 Despite these challenges, Rhodes remains optimistic about the potential to rebuild Chrysler as a symbol of blue-collar luxury and innovation. He is calling for a return to American-designed and built products, and greater autonomy for Chrysler and Dodge within Stellantis. Rhodes’ ultimate goal is to rescue the brand from what he sees as poor management and ensure that Chrysler survives to celebrate its next century.

🚨 As Chrysler fans prepare for the 100th anniversary celebrations next summer, including a large event in Pennsylvania, Rhodes is urging action to prevent the brand from fading into obscurity. Without intervention, he warns, Chrysler’s future looks bleak.

[carsthatnevermadeitetc]

What a difference 58 years make juxtaposition of Dodge Charger, 1966 & Dodge Charger, 2024. Stellantis has revealed the new generation Charger based on their new STLA platform which will be available in fully electric or combustion engines. There's no V8, instead it will use 2 versions of the Stellantis Hurricane inline 6 with 420 or 550hp. At launch there are also 2 electric versions with 496 or 670hp.

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

A strike by 150,000 workers at automakers Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis (formerly Chrysler) looks imminent.  United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain has aptly declared contract talks as war between billionaires and workers.  

If the Auto Workers walk out when their contract expires on Sept. 14, it would be the second-largest strike in over 25 years, second only to the current actors’ strike by 160,000 members of SAG-AFTRA. 

[juangb3]

This one is based on the 86' Dodge Omni GLH-S (Goes Like Hell, the S for Shelby) but instead of a hatchback an SUV, a compact SUV

Would be nice a bare bones small and sporty SUV 👌🏽

Maybe Plymouth as a sub-brand under Chrysler for cheaper alternatives - "Plymouth Omni by Chrysler"

#JGBDesign #DodgeOmni #PlymouthHorizon #Mopar #ChryslerCorporation #Pentastar

[mensfactory]

Stellantis ‘Ram 1500 Revolution’ BEV

[awesome-casuallyfamouscollector]

Why Jeep And Dodge’s Parent Company Stellantis Is Struggling

Merging some of America’s legacy car brands with big European ones made Stellantis the world’s fifth largest automaker in 2021. But just a few years after the merger closed, Stellantis is struggling, and its troubles lie specifically with is North American business – home to Jeep, RAM, Dodge and Chrysler. Critics—including its own dealers—say the company raised prices too high and too fast, and didn’t focus enough on making good products. Its stock has plummeted. Watch the video to learn more.

P.S. Oops! My advice to Stellantis - get rid of too heavy, too expensive, too inefficient, very mediocre quality car brands intended only for Americans as soon as possible. These are not sellable products anywhere outside America and even there you will have trouble selling them!!! American car manufacturers haven't realized that America is no longer the centre of the world and your car fashion passion for uneconomical and badly overpriced cars is completely irrelevant to the rest of the global car market, and buyers are NOT INTERESTED...! We don't want American made ICE vehicles...!!!

I don''t like modern American car designs and technologies behind them absolutely: ugly boxes on whells...overweight, badly overpriced, low fuel efficiency, and extremely expensive to repair...If someone offers you to buy a modern American made ICE car in Europe, especially a used one, run away as far as you can....if you value your well-being and family budget...!!! Ford quality is also very mediocre at best...; GM is already out from car business in Europe, and actually it is a good thing!!! Modern American cars have a bad design and manufacturing quality and and unsuitable for European cities and motorways...huge fuel consumption due to excess weight, premature transmission problems, electrical failures and rust...are the daily life of American car owners in Europe...! There are not many such owners left! So, actually in fact, almost no one buys classic American car brands in Europe anymore....!!!!