Supply Chain

Democrats Spent $2 Trillion to Save the Economy. They Don’t Want to Talk About It.

“We in Georgia found ourselves trying to claw back from a historic pandemic, the likes of which we haven’t seen in our lifetime, which created an economic shutdown,” he said. “And now, seeing the economy open up, we’ve experienced major supply chain issues, which have contributed to rising costs.”

Direct pandemic payments were begun under Mr. Trump and continued under Mr. Biden, with no serious talk of another round after the ones delivered in the rescue plan. Most Democrats had hoped the one-year, $100 billion child credit in the rescue plan would be made permanent in a new piece of legislation.

But the credit expired, largely because Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia and a key swing vote, opposed its inclusion in what would become the Inflation Reduction Act, citing concerns the additional money would exacerbate inflation.

Senator Michael Bennet, Democrat of Colorado, was one of the Senate’s most vocal cheerleaders for that credit and an architect of the version included in the rescue plan. His campaign has aired Spanish-language radio ads on the credit in his re-election campaign, targeting a group his team says is particularly favorable toward it, but no television ads. In an interview last week outside a Denver coffee shop, Mr. Bennet conceded the expiration of the credit has sapped some of its political punch.

“It certainly came up when it was here, and it certainly came up when it went away,” he said. “But it’s been some months since that was true. I think, obviously, we’d love to have that right now. Families were getting an average of 450 bucks a month. That would have defrayed a lot of inflation that they’re having to deal with.”

Mr. Biden’s advisers say the rescue plan and its components aren’t being deployed on the trail because other issues have overwhelmed them — from Mr. Biden’s long list of economic bills signed into law as well as the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade that has galvanized the Democratic base. They acknowledge the political and economic challenge posed by rapid inflation, but say Democratic candidates are doing well to focus on direct responses to it, like the efforts to reduce costs of insulin and other prescription drugs.

Ms. Lake, the Democratic pollster, said talking more about the child credit could help re-energize Democratic voters for the midterms. Mr. Warnock’s speech in Dunwoody — an admittedly small sample — suggested otherwise.

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Core & Main Completes Acquisition of Distributors, Inc.

ST. LOUIS–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Core & Main, Inc. (NYSE: CNM), a leading specialized distributor of water, wastewater, storm drainage and fire protection products, and related services, has closed its previously announced acquisition of substantially all of the assets of Distributors, Inc., a full-service distributor of fire protection products based in Hawaii.

“We are excited to be expanding our fire protection footprint in Hawaii with the acquisition of Distributors, Inc.,” said Steve LeClair, chief executive officer of Core & Main. “This team brings a depth of experience and enthusiasm that sets them apart from the competition, and we are happy to welcome them into the Core & Main family.”

“Distributors, Inc. has built its strong reputation in the fire protection industry based on trust and unbeatable performance,” said Brad Cowles, president of Core & Main. “Their talented team and local expertise will enhance our ability to deliver exceptional service throughout Hawaii, while providing safe and reliable products to all of our customers.”

Distributors, Inc. operates out of its facility in Honolulu, Hawaii. The company provides fire protection contractors throughout Hawaii with quality products and fabrication services for new fire protection systems and the maintenance and repair of existing systems.

About Core & Main

Based in St. Louis, Core & Main is a leading specialized distributor of water, wastewater, storm drainage and fire protection products, and related services, to municipalities, private water companies and professional contractors across municipal, non-residential and residential end markets nationwide. With approximately 300 locations, the company provides its customers with local expertise backed by a national supply chain. Core & Main’s 4,100 associates are committed to helping their communities thrive with safe and sustainable infrastructure. Visit coreandmain.com to learn more.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements contained in this press release include “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Examples of forward-looking statements include information concerning Core & Main’s financial and operating outlook, as well as any other statement that does not directly relate to any historical or current fact. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terminology such as “may,” “will,” “could,” “should,” “forecasts,” “expects,” “intends,” “plans,” “anticipates,” “projects,” “outlook,” “believes,” “estimates,” “predicts,” “potential,” “continue,” “preliminary,” or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, we can give you no assurance these expectations will prove to have been correct. These forward-looking statements relate to future events or our future financial performance and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual results, levels of activity, performance, or achievements to differ materially from any future results, levels of activity, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements.

Additional information concerning these and other factors can be found in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. All forward-looking statements attributable to us or persons acting on our behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by the foregoing cautionary statements. All such statements speak only as of the date made and, except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to update or revise publicly any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

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Strong Dollar Is Good for the US but Bad for the World

The Federal Reserve’s determination to crush inflation at home by raising interest rates is inflicting profound pain in other countries — pushing up prices, ballooning the size of debt payments and increasing the risk of a deep recession.

Those interest rate increases are pumping up the value of the dollar — the go-to currency for much of the world’s trade and transactions — and causing economic turmoil in both rich and poor nations. In Britain and across much of the European continent, the dollar’s acceleration is helping feed stinging inflation.

On Monday, the British pound touched a record low against the dollar as investors balked at a government tax cut and spending plan. And China, which tightly controls its currency, fixed the renminbi at its lowest level in two years while taking steps to manage its decline.

Somalia, where the risk of starvation already lurks, the strong dollar is pushing up the price of imported food, fuel and medicine. The strong dollar is nudging debt-ridden Argentina, Egypt and Kenya closer to default and threatening to discourage foreign investment in emerging markets like India and South Korea.

the International Monetary Fund.

Japanese yen has reached a decades-long high. The euro, used by 19 nations across Europe, reached 1-to-1 parity with the dollar in June for the first time since 2002. The dollar is clobbering other currencies as well, including the Brazilian real, the South Korean won and the Tunisian dinar.

the economic outlook in the United States, however cloudy, is still better than in most other regions.

loss of purchasing power over time, meaning your dollar will not go as far tomorrow as it did today. It is typically expressed as the annual change in prices for everyday goods and services such as food, furniture, apparel, transportation and toys.

A fragile currency can sometimes work as “a buffering mechanism,” causing nations to import less and export more, Mr. Prasad said. But today, many “are not seeing the benefits of stronger growth.”

Still, they must pay more for essential imports like oil, wheat or pharmaceuticals as well as for loan bills due from billion-dollar debts.

debt crisis in Latin America in the 1980s.

The situation is particularly fraught because so many countries ran up above-average debts to deal with the fallout from the pandemic. And now they are facing renewed pressure to offer public support as food and energy prices soar.

Indonesia this month, thousands of protesters, angry over a 30 percent price increase on subsidized fuel, clashed with the police. In Tunisia, a shortage of subsidized food items like sugar, coffee, flour and eggs has shuttered cafes and emptied market shelves.

New research on the impact of a strong dollar on emerging nations found that it drags down economic progress across the board.

“You can see these very pronounced negative effects of a stronger dollar,” said Maurice Obstfeld, an economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and an author of the study.

central banks feel pressure to raise interest rates to bolster their currencies and prevent import prices from skyrocketing. Last week, Argentina, the Philippines, Brazil, Indonesia, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates, Sweden, Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, Britain and Norway raised interest rates.

World Bank warned this month that simultaneous interest rate increases are pushing the world toward a recession and developing nations toward a string of financial crises that would inflict “lasting harm.”

Clearly, the Fed’s mandate is to look after the American economy, but some economists and foreign policymakers argue it should pay more attention to the fallout its decisions have on the rest of the world.

In 1998, Alan Greenspan, a five-term Fed chair, argued that “it is just not credible that the United States can remain an oasis of prosperity unaffected by a world that is experiencing greatly increased stress.”

The United States is now facing a slowing economy, but the essential dilemma is the same.

“Central banks have purely domestic mandates,” said Mr. Obstfeld, the U.C. Berkeley economist, but financial and trade globalization have made economies more interdependent than they have ever been and so closer cooperation is needed. “I don’t think central banks can have the luxury of not thinking about what’s happening abroad.”

Flávia Milhorance contributed reporting from Rio de Janeiro.

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Beyond Meat eliminates supply-chain chief role after executive steps down

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Sept 23 (Reuters) – Beyond Meat Inc (BYND.O) said on Friday it would eliminate the role of chief supply chain officer after Bernie Adcock notified he would step down from the role, effective Sept. 30.

The plant-based meat producer said interim chief operating officer and senior vice president of manufacturing operations, Jonathan Nelson, will oversee the company’s supply chain responsibilities once Adcock leaves.

Beyond Meat added Adcock was leaving to take another opportunity.

Earlier this week, Nelson was tasked with overseeing operations on an interim basis after operating chief Doug Ramsey was arrested for allegedly biting a man’s nose. read more

Surging inflation has dampened the company’s efforts to make its pricier plant-based meat more affordable to consumers forcing it to lower its revenue forecast for 2022 and cut 4% of its global workforce in August. read more

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Reporting by Ananya Mariam Rajesh in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Canada, South Korea seek deeper cooperation on critical minerals

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OTTAWA, Sept 23 (Reuters) – Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol on Friday agreed to deepen cooperation on critical minerals used in electric vehicles (EVs) batteries as both countries seek to cut emissions to fight climate change.

Yoon visited London for the funeral of Queen Elizabeth, and then New York in his first U.S. trip to attend the U.N. General Assembly, before arriving in Canada on Thursday. On Friday, Yoon met Trudeau in Ottawa, and then they both spoke to reporters.

“Yoon and I discussed ways to collaborate in a variety of areas, including essential minerals, batteries for electric vehicles, and emerging technologies, including AI (artificial intelligence),” Trudeau told reporters.

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Canada has many of the critical minerals – like lithium, cobalt and nickel – that are now used to make batteries for EVs, and the government is in the process of seeking to help producers and processors scale up production.

“Canada, as a global leader in the production of minerals, and Korea, a major semiconductor and battery maker – each play crucial roles in global supply chains,” Yoon said through an interpreter.

“The governments and businesses of our two nations will work together for the mineral resources sector to build a cooperative architecture… to respond to the shocks resulting from the changing world order,” Yoon added.

China is currently by far the dominant global supplier of critical minerals used in EVs. Yoon said it was strategically important for both countries to find an alternative supplier.

Canada and South Korea are already cooperating in the sector, Trudeau pointed out.

In March, Stellantis (STLA.MI), the parent of Jeep and Chrysler, said it would build an EV battery plant in a joint venture with South Korea’s LG Energy Solution (373220.KS) in Windsor, across the border from Detroit. read more

In a joint statement, the two countries said they agreed to deepen their “strategic partnership on supply chain resiliency” and would seek to position themselves as “competitive players in the critical minerals supply chain and battery and EV value chains”.

To that end, both countries agreed to develop a memorandum of understanding in the coming months to “support clean energy transition and energy security, including with respect to critical minerals”.

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Reporting by Steve Scherer; Editing by Sandra Maler

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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How the Car Market Is Shedding Light on a Key Inflation Question

In a recent speech pointedly titled “Bringing Inflation Down,” Lael Brainard, the Federal Reserve’s vice chair, zoomed in on the automobile market as a real-world example of a major uncertainty looming over the outlook for price increases: What will happen next with corporate profits.

Many companies have been able to raise prices beyond their own increasing costs over the past two years, swelling their profitability but also exacerbating inflation. That is especially true in the car market. While dealerships are paying manufacturers more for inventory, they have been charging customers even higher prices, sending their profits toward record highs.

Dealers could pull that off because demand has been strong and, amid disruptions in the supply of parts, there are too few trucks and sedans to go around. But — in line with its desire for the economy as a whole — the Fed is hoping both sides of that equation could be on the cusp of changing.

data, and several industry experts said they didn’t see a return to normal levels of output for years as supply problems continue. Prices are still increasing swiftly, and dealer profits remain sharply elevated with little sign of cracking.

Ford Motor said on Monday that it would spend $1 billion more on parts than it was planning to in the third quarter because some components had become more expensive and harder to find.

By contrast, the supply of used cars has rebounded after plunging in the pandemic, and prices have begun to depreciate at a wholesale level, where dealers buy their stock. But, so far, those dealers aren’t really passing those savings along to consumers. The price of a typical used car has stabilized around $28,000, up 9 percent from a year ago, based on Cox Automotive data. Official used-car inflation data is easing, but only slightly.

Why consumer used-car prices — and dealer profits — are taking time to moderate is something of a mystery. Jonathan Smoke, chief economist at Cox Automotive, said dealers might be basing their prices on what they paid earlier in the year, when costs were higher, for the cars sitting on their lots.

“Dealers are feeling it,” Mr. Smoke said of the price moderation. “But because they price their vehicles based on what they pay for them, the consumer isn’t seeing the price discounts yet.”

Some early instances of discounting are showing up. At the Buick and GMC dealership that Beth Weaver runs in Erie, Pa., demand for used cars has begun to slow down, and the business has sold a few vehicles at a loss.

rolling lockdowns in China.

The Fed could raise rates so much that it snuffs out demand, but given how much pent-up car-buying appetite exists, Mr. Murphy thinks it would take a lot.

“You probably would have to go farther on rates than they have so far, or even than they are expected to go,” he said. “There may be a point at which you have enough pain that you see a pause on demand.”

If demand continues to outstrip new-car supply and dealers continue to reap big profits, that could limit how quickly inflation will ease. If the mismatch is large enough for sellers to keep pushing up prices without losing customers, it could even continue to fuel inflation.

While the car market is just one industry, the uncertainty of its return to normal holds a few lessons for the Fed. For one thing, new-car production makes it clear that supply chain disruptions are improving but not gone.

More hopefully, the car industry could offer evidence that the laws of economics are likely to reassert themselves eventually. Used-car prices have at least stopped their ascent as inventory has grown, and experts say discounting is likely around the corner. If that happens, it could be evidence that companies won’t be able to keep prices and profits high indefinitely once supply catches up with demand.

But cars reinforce the prospect that the readjustment period could last a while.

Automakers are flirting with the idea of keeping production lower so there are fewer cars in the market and price cuts are less common. Mr. Smoke is skeptical that they will hold that line once it means ceding market share to competitors — but the process could take months or years.

“I’m hesitant to say that we won’t have discounting again,” Mr. Smoke said. “But it’s going to take a while to get back to that world.”

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U.S. Stocks Fall Broadly Ahead Of Key Fed Decision On Rates

By Associated Press
September 20, 2022

More than 90% of stocks and every sector in the benchmark index lost ground as traders wait to see how far the Fed will raise interest rates.

Stocks fell broadly in midday trading on Wall Street Tuesday ahead of a key decision on interest rates by the Federal Reserve.

The S&P 500 index fell 1% as of 11:46 a.m. Eastern. More than 90% of stocks and every sector in the benchmark index lost ground as traders wait to see how far the Fed will raise interest rates at its meeting that ends Wednesday.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 312 points, or 1%, to 30,706 and the Nasdaq fell 0.5%.

U.S. crude oil prices fell 2.1% and weighed down energy stocks. Hess fell 1.7%.

Bond yields edged higher. The yield on the 2-year Treasury, which tends to follow expectations for Fed action, rose to 3.97% from 3.95% late Monday and is hovering around its highest levels since 2007.

The 10-year yield, which influences mortgage rates, rose to 3.57% from 3.52% and is trading at its highest levels since 2011.

Stocks have been slumping and Treasury yields rising as the Fed raises the cost of borrowing money in hopes of slowing down the hottest inflation in four decades. The central bank’s aggressive rate hikes have been making markets jittery, especially as Fed officials assert their determination to keep raising rates until they are sure inflation is coming under control.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell bluntly warned in a speech last month that the rate hikes would “bring some pain.”

“He has done everything he possibly can to signal that it’s going to be another aggressive move,” said Liz Young, head of investment strategy at SoFi. “He’s been clear as a bell about what they’ve been focused on.”

The Fed is expected to raise its key short-term rate by a substantial three-quarters of a point for the third time at its meeting on Wednesday. That would lift its benchmark rate, which affects many consumer and business loans, to a range of 3% to 3.25%, the highest level in 14 years, and up from zero at the start of the year.

Wall Street is worried that the rate hikes could go too far in slowing economic growth and push the economy into a recession. Those concerns have been heightened by data showing that the U.S. economy is already slowing and by companies warning about the impact of inflation and supply chain problems to their operations.

Ford fell 9.6% after slashing its third-quarter earnings forecast because a parts shortage will leave it with as many as 45,000 vehicles unfinished on its lots when the quarter ends Sept. 30. Last week, FedEx and General Electric warned investors about damage to their operations from inflation.

The U.S. isn’t alone in suffering from hot inflation or dealing with the impact of efforts to fight high prices.

Sweden’s central bank on Tuesday raised its key interest rate by a full percentage point to 1.75%, catching almost everyone off guard as it scrambles to bring down inflation that was measured at 9% in August.

Consumer inflation in Japan jumped in August to 3%, its highest level since November 1991 but well below the 8% plus readings in the U.S. and Europe. The Bank of Japan is set to have a two-day monetary policy meeting later this week, although analysts expect the central bank to stick to its easy monetary policy.

Min Joo Kang, senior economist, South Korea and Japan, at ING Economics noted inflation remained relatively low in Japan. Energy prices were rising, but not as much as in the U.S. or some parts of Europe. Housing prices haven’t risen and household income have remained stagnant.

Rate decisions from Norway, Switzerland and the Bank of England are next.

Markets in Europe were mostly lower, while markets in Asia gained ground

Additional reporting by the Associated Press.

Source: newsy.com

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How a Quebec Lithium Mine May Help Make Electric Cars Affordable

About 350 miles northwest of Montreal, amid a vast pine forest, is a deep mining pit with walls of mottled rock. The pit has changed hands repeatedly and been mired in bankruptcy, but now it could help determine the future of electric vehicles.

The mine contains lithium, an indispensable ingredient in electric car batteries that is in short supply. If it opens on schedule early next year, it will be the second North American source of that metal, offering hope that badly needed raw materials can be extracted and refined close to Canadian, U.S. and Mexican auto factories, in line with Biden administration policies that aim to break China’s dominance of the battery supply chain.

Having more mines will also help contain the price of lithium, which has soared fivefold since mid-2021, pushing the cost of electric vehicles so high that they are out of reach for many drivers. The average new electric car in the United States costs about $66,000, just a few thousand dollars short of the median household income last year.

lithium mines are in various stages of development in Canada and the United States. Canada has made it a mission to become a major source of raw materials and components for electric vehicles. But most of these projects are years away from production. Even if they are able to raise the billions of dollars needed to get going, there is no guarantee they will yield enough lithium to meet the continent’s needs.

eliminate this cap and extend the tax credit until 2032; used cars will also qualify for a credit of up to $4,000.

For many people in government and the auto industry, the main concern is whether there will be enough lithium to meet soaring demand for electric vehicles.

The Inflation Reduction Act, which President Biden signed in August, has raised the stakes for the auto industry. To qualify for several incentives and subsidies in the law, which go to car buyers and automakers and are worth a total of $10,000 or more per electric vehicle, battery makers must use raw materials from North America or a country with which the United States has a trade agreement.

rising fast.

California and other states move to ban internal combustion engines. “It’s going to take everything we can do and our competitors can do over the next five years to keep up,” Mr. Norris said.

One of the first things that Sayona had to do when it took over the La Corne mine was pump out water that had filled the pit, exposing terraced walls of dark and pale stone from previous excavations. Lighter rock contains lithium.

After being blasted loose and crushed, the rock is processed in several stages to remove waste material. A short drive from the mine, inside a large building with walls of corrugated blue metal, a laser scanner uses jets of compressed air to separate light-colored lithium ore. The ore is then refined in vats filled with detergent and water, where the lithium floats to the surface and is skimmed away.

The end product looks like fine white sand but it is still only about 6 percent lithium. The rest includes aluminum, silicon and other substances. The material is sent to refineries, most of them in China, to be further purified.

Yves Desrosiers, an engineer and a senior adviser at Sayona, began working at the La Corne mine in 2012. During a tour, he expressed satisfaction at what he said were improvements made by Sayona and Piedmont. Those include better control of dust, and a plan to restore the site once the lithium runs out in a few decades.

“The productivity will be a lot better because we are correcting everything,” Mr. Desrosiers said. In a few years, the company plans to upgrade the facility to produce lithium carbonate, which contains a much higher concentration of lithium than the raw metal extracted from the ground.

The operation will get its electricity from Quebec’s abundant hydropower plants, and will use only recycled water in the separation process, Mr. Desrosiers said. Still, environmental activists are watching the project warily.

Mining is a pillar of the Quebec economy, and the area around La Corne is populated with people whose livelihoods depend on extraction of iron, nickel, copper, zinc and other metals. There is an active gold mine near the largest city in the area, Val-d’Or, or Valley of Gold.

Mining “is our life,” said Sébastien D’Astous, a metallurgist turned politician who is the mayor of Amos, a small city north of La Corne. “Everybody knows, or has in the near family, people who work in mining or for contractors.”

Most people support the lithium mine, but a significant minority oppose it, Mr. D’Astous said. Opponents fear that another lithium mine being developed by Sayona in nearby La Motte, Quebec, could contaminate an underground river.

Rodrigue Turgeon, a local lawyer and program co-leader for MiningWatch Canada, a watchdog group, has pushed to make sure the Sayona mines undergo rigorous environmental reviews. Long Point First Nation, an Indigenous group that says the mines are on its ancestral territory, wants to conduct its own environmental impact study.

Sébastien Lemire, who represents the region around La Corne in the Canadian Parliament, said he wanted to make sure that the wealth created by lithium mining flowed to the people of Quebec rather than to outside investors.

Mr. Lemire praised activists for being “vigilant” about environmental standards, but he favors the mine and drives an electric car, a Chevrolet Bolt.

“If we don’t do it,” he said at a cafe in La Corne, “we’re missing the opportunity of the electrification of transport.”

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Why Is The Trucking Industry Changing?

During the pandemic the trucking industry struggled due to loss of drivers. Now the industry is picking back up as driver enrollment increases.

Manny Guzman’s life on the road is a far cry from his long days four years ago when the father of one was taking orders for wedding cakes and pastries at a bakery in Chicago.

“I worked 16 hours a day, seven days a week — there was no day off,” said Guzman. “I got my license and I was lucky enough to get a job with this company that does flatbed haul steel.”

Manny is part of a new breed of truckers that’s critical to the rapidly-changing backbone of American commerce.

The American Trucking Association said it was already short about 61,000 drivers before the pandemic decimated the industry.

Even back in 2017 Leah Shaver, COO of the National Transportation Institute, said “students are not coming in at fast enough rates, and they’re not sticking with the industry the way we need.”

So when 2020 came around, trucking was nowhere near prepared for what happened. Just as demand for shipping skyrocketed, more drivers decided to hang up the keys.

“Most of the drivers are aging out, we’re in our 50s, 60s and 70s and we raised our families — its time to come off the road,” said Mary Okeefe, a Pinellas Technical College lead instructor.

Fewer drivers on the roads and more cargo ships sitting on ports made for a supply chain mess. But more than two years later a new breed of truckers could drive what trucking schools hope will be a rebound in late 2022.

“We normally have 55 to 60 students. We have 82 right now. All of the companies are experiencing shortages. They call us constantly and they call constantly for drivers,” said Larry Scott, an instructor at ATDS Driving School.

And trucking’s rebirth, if you will, is also an opportunity to change how it looks. Right now, the average truck driver is a white 48-year-old man. But the American Trucking Association says the rate of Black and Latino drivers over the last two decades has jumped 45%.

It’s still just shy of 8% of all drivers today that are women, but that’s an all-time high.

“I love to travel. I don’t have any kids yet so whats wrong with seeing the world and making some money,” said Tanzania Kellum, an ATDS student.

And if we didn’t understand the value of truckers before COVID, our increased demand for them has given drivers more leverage to get more out of their work.

The average driver made more than $69,000 last year.

That’s 18% higher than the year prior.

Trucking companies hope higher wages attract younger drivers and tee up long-term careers, to give the industry some stability.

But federal regulations can make that tricky. While most states let anyone over 18 get a commercial driver’s license, federal law says no one under 21 can drive a big rig across state lines.

The federal Safe Driver Apprenticeship Pilot Program aims to change that by allowing drivers under 21 to cross state lines while accompanied by an experienced trucker. It’s a move that could help fill driver gaps.

So could autonomous semi-trucks. They’re currently undergoing tests in Arizona, with commercial shipments expected to start next year.

“We believe autonomous trucking is coming to the industry, we believe its gonna be on our roads in the very near future,” said Lee White, the VP of strategy for TuSimple.

Until then, industry leaders hope more truckers like Manny Guzman see driving as a life-changing career, to cushion their bank accounts and stabilize the American economy.

“It is the best decision because I’ve made more money doing this than I ever made in my life doing the bakery thing, owning my own business. Even when I started driving for somebody else, I was making more money than I was making working 16 hours a day seven days a week for myself. It was like a no-brainer,” said Guzman.

Source: newsy.com

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Biden: Rail Strike Averted Is ‘Big Win For America’

A strike might have begun as early as Friday that could halt shipments of food and fuel at a cost of $2 billion a day.

President Joe Biden announced Thursday that a tentative railway labor agreement has been reached, averting a nationwide strike that could have been devastating to the economy before the pivotal midterm elections.

Railroads and union representatives had been in negotiations for 20 hours at the Labor Department well past midnight to hammer out a deal, as there was a risk of a strike starting on Friday that could have shut down rail lines across the country.

The president brought business and union leaders to the Oval Office on Thursday morning, then hailed the deal in remarks in the White House Rose Garden.

“This agreement is validation of what I’ve always believed, unions and management can work together — can work together — for the benefit of everyone,” President Biden declared.

President Biden made a key phone call to Labor Secretary Marty Walsh at 9 p.m. Wednesday as the talks were ongoing after Italian dinner had been brought in, according to White House officials who insisted on anonymity to discuss the conversations. On speakerphone, the president told the negotiators to get a deal done and to consider the harm to families, farmers and businesses if a shutdown occurred, the officials said.

What resulted from the back and forth was a tentative agreement that will go to union members for a vote after a post-ratification cooling off period of several weeks. One union had to wake up its board to move forward on the agreement, which involved 50 calls from White House officials to organized labor officials.

In the Oval Office, a beaming President Biden joked that he was surprised everyone was “still standing” after the late night and that they should be “home in bed.”

The strike would also have disrupted passenger traffic as well as freight rail lines, because Amtrak and many commuter railroads operate on tracks owned by the freight railroads. Amtrak had already canceled a number of its long-distance trains this week, and said the rest of its long-distance trains would stop Thursday ahead of the strike deadline.

Following the tentative agreement, Amtrak said it was “working to quickly restore canceled trains and reaching out to impacted customers to accommodate on first available departures.”

The five-year deal, retroactive to 2020, includes the 24% raises and $5,000 in bonuses that a Presidential Emergency Board recommended this summer. But railroads also agreed to ease their strict attendance policies to address some of the unions’ concerns about working conditions.

Railroad workers will now be able to take unpaid days off for doctor’s appointments without being penalized under railroad attendance rules. Previously, workers would lose points under the attendance systems that the BNSF and Union Pacific railways had adopted, and they could be disciplined if they lost all their points.

The unions that represent the conductors and engineers who drive the trains had pressed hard for changes in the attendance rules, and they said this deal sets a precedent that they will be able to negotiate over those kinds of rules in the future. But workers will still have to vote whether those changes are enough to approve the deal.

The threat of a shutdown had put President Biden in a delicate spot politically. The Democratic president believes unions built the middle class, but he also knew a rail worker strike could damage the economy ahead of the midterms, when majorities in both chambers of Congress, key governorships and scores of important state offices will be up for grabs.

That left him in the awkward position on Wednesday. He flew to Detroit, a stalwart of the labor movement, to espouse the virtues of unionization, while members of his administration went all-out to keep talks going in Washington between the railroads and unionized workers.

As the administration was trying to forge peace, United Auto Workers Local 598 member Ryan Buchalski introduced President Biden at the Detroit auto show as “the most union- and labor-friendly president in American history” and someone who was “kickin’ ass for the working class.” Buchalski harked back to the pivotal sit-down strikes by autoworkers in the 1930s.

In the speech that followed, President Biden recognized that he wouldn’t be in the White House without the support of unions such as the UAW and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, saying autoworkers “brung me to the dance.”

But without a deal among the 12 unions in talks back in Washington, President Biden also knew that a stoppage could halt shipments of food and fuel at a cost of $2 billion a day.

Far more was at stake than sick leave and salary bumps for 115,000 unionized railroad workers. The ramifications could have extended to control of Congress and to the shipping network that keeps factories rolling, stocks the shelves of stores and stitches the U.S. together as an economic power.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, speaking aboard Air Force One as it jetted to Detroit, said a rail worker strike was “an unacceptable outcome for our economy and the American people.”

President Biden faced the same kind of predicament faced by Theodore Roosevelt in 1902 with coal and Harry Truman in 1952 with steel — how do you balance the needs of labor and business in doing what’s best for the nation? Railways were so important during World War I that Woodrow Wilson temporarily nationalized the industry to keep goods flowing and prevent strikes.

Union activism has surged under President Biden, as seen in a 56% increase in petitions for union representation with the National Labor Relations Board so far this fiscal year.

With the economy still recovering from the supply chain disruptions of the coronavirus pandemic, the president’s goal was to keep all parties so a deal could be reached. President Biden also knew a stoppage could worsen the dynamics that have contributed to soaring inflation and created a political headache for the party in power.

Eddie Vale, a Democratic political consultant and former AFL-CIO communications aide, said the White House pursued the correct approach at a perilous moment.

“No one wants a railroad strike, not the companies, not the workers, not the White House,” he said. “No one wants it this close to the election.”

Sensing political opportunity, Senate Republicans moved Wednesday to pass a law to impose contract terms on the unions and railroad companies to avoid a shutdown. Democrats, who control both chambers in Congress, blocked it.

The economic impact of a potential strike was not lost on members of the Business Roundtable, a Washington-based group that represents CEOs. It issued its quarterly outlook for the economy Wednesday.

“We’ve been experiencing a lot of headwinds from supply chain problems since the pandemic started and those problems would be geometrically magnified,” Josh Bolten, the group’s CEO, told reporters. “There are manufacturing plants around the country that likely have to shut down. … There are critical products to keep our water clean.”

By 5:05 a.m. Thursday, it was clear that the hard work across the government, unions and railway companied had paid off as President Biden announced the deal, calling it “an important win for our economy and the American people.”

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

Source: newsy.com

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