UAW Strikes, Florida Vaccine Guidance, Libya Flooding Recovery

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Members of the United Auto Workers strike at exactly three car factories.

This strategy will keep the companies guessing.

The union walked out of plants at four General Motors and Stellantis. Will that get a deal done?

I'm Steve Inskeep with a Martinez, and this is up first from NPR News.

Even though there is a lot of information on social media, we need to make our decisions based on the scientific facts.

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Some of the United Auto workers are on a historic strike this morning.

The Auto Workers Union is striking at three assembly plants one Ford, one General Motors and one Stellantis, which is the parent of Chrysler and Jeep. One plant in Michigan, one plant in Missouri, one in Ohio. Other plants operate for now. Although the union says it can expand the strike depending on the progress of talks with the automakers. We've been reporting all week on the auto workers bid for higher pay and a shorter workweek.

NPR's Kamila Domanoski is at the picket line at the Four Plant in Wayne, Michigan. Kamila, what are you seeing there?

Yeah, and what am I hearing? You might be able to hear some cars going by honking in support here. This is a big plant, there are a lot of gates and you just drive down, walk down the street. Every gate has picketers out in front with UAW on strike signs.

All right, so what are union members then telling you about why they felt they had to do this?

Yeah, and they say the offer from the automakers simply isn't good enough. Here's Ali Alamara.

We want to see everything that we lost 15 years ago and we had to give back to the company.

And, you know, big picture, there's just so much history playing into these particular strikes. The style of strike they're doing is a throwback to the 1930s. The demands they're making, they hearken back to the 1970s. And really, the heyday of the union's strength, the resistance. The company's really firm resistance on some of these demands also dates back to the bad years after, where the obligations to the union were really a financial challenge for the American automakers. And then you just heard there from Alamara workers gave up so much in 2007 2009..

So what exactly are the specific demands of the United Auto workers?

Well, there are a lot of them, you know? They were pushing for a significant pay raise of 40 percent. The automakers offered raises of 20 percent, which is more than they had before. The union has also pushed for cost of living pay adjustments that are tied to inflation. The automakers have moved on that, but not enough, the union says.

Yeah, and Steve mentioned earlier, striking at three different plants in three different states. What's behind that strategy?

Yeah, it's unusual, it's unusual to strike all three of the companies at once, and it's unusual to only strike some plants versus all of them at a given company. Sean Fain, the president of the United Auto Workers, He's, told reporters he doesn't want to say too much about the strategy. Because part of the point is to keep companies guessing that they don't know what plants could close next. I have spoken to labor experts who say, you know, part of this is about conserving resources.

You know, I know actors and screenwriters are still on strike. ups, workers almost went on strike. What do you think the effect of this auto worker strike will be beyond this industry?

So the economic impacts really depend on how long the strike lasts, how big these strikes get. This industry is not the same as UPS, where that threatened strike would have had a really immediate and tremendous economic impact. If it stays small and short, the impact will probably be pretty constrained. A longer, bigger strike really would have ripple effects. But the other thing here is the deal that the union manages to get.

That's NPR's Camilla Domenoski in Wayne, Michigan. Camilla, Thanks.

Thanks, eh.

The Centers for Disease Control gave one recommendation for the new COVID-19 booster shot. The state of Florida is giving another.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is running for president, partly on his record opposing Covid regulations, and his state government is making an issue. Of the booster shot, the federal advice is that anyone over six months old could use this booster. Florida's surgeon General says far fewer people should get the shot and that healthy people under age 65 should avoid it.

John Davis joins us now from our member station WGCU in Fort Myers, Florida. John, So how did Florida officials justify their own recommendations over those from the CDC?

Well, they claim there isn't enough data to show the vaccine is safe and effective, but of course, there's overwhelming evidence that it is safe and effective. Governor DeSantis and State Surgeon General Joseph Latipo have criticized both the CDC vaccine booster recommendation and the FDA's approval of it. On a Zoom call at another recent press event, Latipo mentioned studies that he didn't cite, claiming they show apparent evidence that vaccines actually increase a person's chances of contracting Covid. Of course, health experts say these kinds of unproven claims just add to the misinformation that's already out there.

So what do health providers say?

Well, I contacted Lee Health, which is the biggest health system in this area, they were clear that they're going to continue. Following CDC guidance on vaccines, which recommend most people six months of age or older get the shot. But especially those 65 and older, as they're at higher risk of severe symptoms should they contract the virus, here's what infectious disease expert Dr. Mary Beth Saunders had to say.

People do need to get vaccinated. If they're unsure, talk to their health care provider so they can be guided as to what's best for them. And even though there is a lot of information on social media, that may not be the best guidance, right? We need to make our decisions based on the scientific facts and what is best for our own health.

And then John. All this comes as a Covid hospitalizations in Florida, the rates are not very good. Is that something to worry about?

Certainly, according to CDC data, we have some of the highest rates in the country of Covid-related hospital admissions. Even Dr. Saunders says they experienced an increase in hospitalizations a few weeks ago. Fortunately, that has since declined somewhat.

All right, that's John Davis with WGCU in Fort Myers. John, thanks a lot for your reporting.

Thank you.

How do people in eastern Libya resume life in their devastated cities?

Flooding in the city of Derna collapsed high-rise buildings in seconds a few days ago. Libya's Red Crescent says more than 11,000 people were killed in the city, and that is not a final number.

NPR's Ayah Batrawi is covering the story, joins us now from Dubai. What do we know about the situation in this city today?

We actually still don't know the full number of dead. But what we can see clearly from satellite images of Derna before and after Sunday night's storm is the scale of this devastation. Before this storm. The city of about 100,000 people in the eastern part of Libya had this gorgeous Mediterranean coastline. And now residents say the city is wrecked, buried under mud and completely unrecognizable. And in those before and after satellite images, you can see soccer pitches where kids once played mosques that served the community entire buildings.

Wow, all that just sounds awful. What are people there saying?

Well, there's a collective trauma. I mean, you have people who've lost their children, their spouses, their parents, they just vanished. Within seconds, these bodies were swept out into the sea. There may never be closure for them.

The city is no longer livable. These people now need jobs, they need taken care of, psychological support. The stories are horrifying. They have seen death not just in their families, but within themselves as well.

We know that Libyans from across the country are trying their best to help and international aid is on the way. Some are saying, though, it's not getting to Derna quickly enough, and that this tragedy might have been avoided.

I mean, yeah, just start with the country's oil reserves. This country should be prosperous. But for the past 10 years, it's been under two divided governments divided rule. You have one government claiming authority in Tripoli, the capital, you have another government claiming authority in the east, in Benghazi. And you can imagine how that's gotten in the way of everything, including the relief effort. Even just journalists and aid workers trying to get into Libya are finding a logistical nightmare to do this.

That's NPR's Ayah Batrawi in Dubai, Ayah, thank you very much for your reporting.

Thank you.

And that's up first for Friday, September 15th. I'm a Martinez.

And I'm Steve Inskeep. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Raphael Nam, Susanna Capilouto, Michael Sullivan and Peter Granitz, produced by Shelby Hawkins, Ziad Butch and Julie Deppenbrock. We get engineering support, not just support, awesome engineering and technical direction from Stacy Abbott and Zach Coleman. So start your day with us here tomorrow.

And have you ever considered listening to consider this in their feed right now? The doubling of child poverty? So it turns out the expiration of pandemic-era safety net policies has made millions of children vulnerable. You can hear what that means for families and kids who are already struggling.

Thank you.