UAW Strike, NY Climate Week, Drew Barrymore Show Pause

We take you to the picket line.

Tens of thousands of climate protesters fill the streets of New York City.

What's the climate agenda at the U.N. General Assembly?

after being called a scab.

I deeply apologize to unions.

I deeply apologize.

Stay with us.

We'll give you the news you need to start your day.

Today is day four of a historic union strike.

Autoworkers Union and the Detroit Three Automakers.

Now, those manufacturers are Ford, GM, and Solantis, the parent company of Jeep and Chrysler.

It's the first ever strike against all three at the same time.

line at Ford's assembly plant in Wayne, Michigan.

It's one of the three plants where workers have walked out and are now picketing.

Good morning, Tracy.

What are people saying?

They're at the end of the shift.

They signed up for picketing, and they get excited, of course, when they have somebody

drive by, and you will probably hear that as I'm talking to you, beaving their horn

in support of the union.

And I think you're going to find the same thing here as, you know, other striking plants.

They're resolute.

They're fairly defiant at this point.

Break down what the key points of contention here, what these autoworkers want.

The union has asked for a 40 percent increase in wages over the four years of the next contract.

And they've come down somewhat to the mid-30s, but they're still pretty far from the top

counteroffer from Ford and General Motors, which is 20 percent.

They also want the end of tiers to wages, so that you just start right away with the

same wage as anyone else who's been at the plant for a longer period of time.

And they want the thousands of temp workers that these companies are using to be offered

full-time work.

Those temp workers are making $20 an hour tops in some of the plants.

And it's really hard to make it these days on that.

Is there any progress on closing the gap between the union and the companies?

So we got a couple of really, really terse statements from the union.

On Saturday, we heard a quote, we had reasonably productive conversations with Ford today.

And on Sunday, even more terse, we met with GM today.

So there's not a whole lot that we can read into that.

We met with GM today, so really, we don't know much about what's going on there.

So there have been layoffs, though, right?

How do those relate to the strike?

Assembly Plant in Wayne, Michigan, because the union called off the paint shop workers

and the final assembly workers.

And Ford said, well, that means we can't do the rest of the work here at the plant.

So those folks have been laid off.

And General Motors says they are going to need to lay off folks at their Fairfax plant

because the Wentzville plant, which is on strike, produces parts for Fairfax.

So we're expecting that to happen, too.

Ford's Assembly Plant in Wayne, Michigan.

Thank you, Tracy.

General Assembly.

U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres has invited countries to a special climate summit.

Then there are talks and events scheduled throughout the week and, of course, protests.

Tens of thousands of people marched in Manhattan yesterday.

And one of the biggest climate protests we've seen since before the pandemic.

desk.

Good morning, Rachel.

What were protesters demanding?

fuels.

I should know that this protest was very much directed at President Joe Biden.

So, protesters were demanding the president act more quickly to move the U.S. away from

burning fossil fuels like coal and oil and gas, which are the biggest drivers of climate

change.

You know, and actually, Biden has taken some really significant steps on climate change.

So the Inflation Reduction Act, for instance, which passed last year, directed hundreds

of billions of dollars to technologies like wind and solar and electric vehicles, all

to cut U.S. emissions.

But the organizers of yesterday's protests say that that is not enough, and they want

Biden to stop approving new fossil fuel projects, basically to use his executive powers as aggressively

as possible to curb the production and use of oil and gas in the U.S.

of extreme weather, heat waves, deadly wildfire in Maui, absolute devastation after flooding

in Libya.

Would phasing out fossil fuels more quickly help prevent summers like the one we just

saw?

So now it's about preventing things from getting much worse.

So our current level of warming already makes many types of extreme weather more likely.

Heat and drought can make wildfires more intense.

A warmer atmosphere makes heavy rain more common.

That contributes to flooding.

But scientists say if we want to avoid even more common extreme weather and other more

catastrophic consequences of climate change, like really high sea level rise, we need to

cut global emissions roughly in half by the end of this decade and reach basically zero

emissions by 2050.

So that means burning a lot less fossil fuels in the very short term.

And right now we are not currently on track to meet those targets.

A recent U.N. report found that countries need to cut emissions much faster.

And a lot depends on what happens in this decade.

And right now, global, powerful people all in New York.

Climate is on the agenda this week.

What should we expect from the Climate Ambition Summit the U.N. chief is hosting?

And it's basically the secretary general is trying to spotlight exactly this issue.

So he's asking countries and also companies to come to the summit with new plans to get

on track, to slash emissions more quickly.

In fact, he made it clear that countries are only welcome to participate in the summit

if they come with credible new commitments to phase out fossil fuels or for wealthy countries,

new funding commitments to help developing countries cut emissions or adapt.

When he announced the summit, he was really clear on this.

He actually said, quote, there will be no room for backsliders, greenwashers, blameshifters

or repackaging of announcements from previous years, unquote.

And apparently that bar leaves a lot of countries out because so far it's not entirely clear

who is going to show up.

Neither Biden nor Xi Jinping of China plan to be there.

That's the world's two largest emitters, though Biden is sending his climate envoy, John Kerry.

But ultimately, this is an effort by the U.N. to highlight countries that are taking more

action and create some peer pressure for other countries to build some momentum in the lead

up to big annual climate negotiations that are coming this winter in Dubai.

Thanks so much, Rachel.

the Hollywood strikes.

Barrymore in particular got into some hot water.

Hi, Mandelit.

Hello.

So this is a reversal from what Drew Barrymore and other talk shows announced last week in

the midst of this strike.

Was it backlash from strikers that led to the change?

drama, that's what we're all talking about now.

When the writer's strike first started, she publicly said she was in support and she even

turned down hosting the MTV Awards.

Then last week she announced the fourth season of her show was coming back.

There were protests on social media, even by her own writers, and the National Book

Awards rescinded its invitation for her to host its annual ceremony.

A few days later on Friday, Barrymore seemed to double down on the decision to resume.

She posted a tearful video message on Instagram.

I deeply apologize to unions.

I deeply apologize.

But there was so much backlash to that video, people online calling her a scab, that Barrymore

quickly deleted it.

And yesterday she posted again saying she had listened to everyone and is no longer

premiering her next season until the strike ends.

We mentioned this kind of domino effect.

Others were going to come back.

Why was there so much attention to Drew Barrymore?

And second, she's been famous almost her whole life.

People still remember her as the little girl who was friends with E.T. in the 1982 film

where she came from Hollywood royalty.

Journalist Michael Schulman told me he was reminded of something he learned while writing

his book The Oscar Wars.

He says Drew's great aunt, Ethel Barrymore, had been a theater actress and vice president

of the union Actors' Equity.

Schulman said in 1929 when the union was trying to include movie stars, Ethel Barrymore single-handedly

undermined that effort.

One of the actors said, if Ms. Barrymore could not say anything beneficial for us, the least

you could have done would have been to keep still.

It also came out that Ethel Barrymore had met with producers Irving Thalberg and Jeff

Warner in her dressing room and that she had taken a role in a Warner Brothers film.

So there was just all this outcry that Ethel had basically parachuted in, derailed this

whole effort.

And later that year, 45 of them banded together to create the Screen Actors Guild.

That's the union that Drew Barrymore is a member of today and the one that is on strike

right now.

The Writers Guild and major studios will resume negotiations this week.

Any sign that anything will change?

My sources tell me the strike might go on until January.

But meanwhile, Bill Maher is set to resume his talk show later this week and another

talk show, The View, has been on the air all throughout.

Thanks, Mandelit.

I'm Laila Faldon.

Today's episode of Up First was edited by Pallavi Gogoi, Andrea Kisak, Sierra Crawford,

and Olivia Hampton.

It was produced by Shelby Hawkins, Ziad Butch, and Julie Deppenbrock.

We get engineering support from Carly Strange, and our technical director is Zach Koldman.

As always, start your day here with us tomorrow.

You can find more in-depth coverage of the stories we talked about today and so much

more on NPR's Morning Edition.

That's the radio show that A&I hosts along with Michelle Martin and Steve Inskeep.

Find Morning Edition and your NPR station at stations.npr.org.