Recently elected UAW union president Shawn Fain, who extracted multiple concessions from GM and the other Big Three automakers during 2023’s Stand Up Strike, has been named the 2024 MotorTrend Person of the Year.
MotorTrend‘s article describing the selection says the “indelible and ongoing impact” of the aggressive, but calculated use of targeted strikes, refusal to accept the standard negotiating playbook, and significant successes of Shawn Fain show how “the tenacity of one man has impacted a nation.”
Shawn Fain was picked as the MotorTrend Person of the Year for winning bigger wage increases for UAW workers than the total raises granted during the previous two decades, the announcement points out. It also remarks on how multiple non-unionized automakers responded to Fain’s strategic gains by raising their own workers’ pay in an apparent bid to head off unionization.
Honda boosted pay by 11 percent shortly after the Stand Up Strike, while Toyota gave a 9.2-percent increase and changed its wage progression rules so that workers advance to the highest level of pay after four years rather than the previous eight years. Shawn Fain expressed a desire to unionize other carmakers’ workforces, declaring “when we return to the bargaining table in 2028, it won’t just be with the Big Three. It will be the Big Five or Big Six.”
In addition to saluting Shawn Fain for his labor union successes, MotorTrend published its 2024 Motor Trend Power List of the most significant 50 automotive sector executives for the year. Several GM personnel made the list, starting with Michael Simcoe, The General’s Senior Vice President of Global Design. Ranking 36th, Simcoe fell from 18th place in 2023 despite his team’s recent creation of the Cadillac Optiq.
Nick Katcherian, Vehicle Chief Engineer at GM, ranked 33rd in his first year on the Power List, earning a slot because of the redesigned Chevy Colorado he worked on. CEO Mary Barra fell from second place to 17th, but still made the list for her “steady hand” on GM policy. By contrast, GM president Mark Reuss climbed from 24th last year to 7th place this year, winning praise for his role in overseeing the launch of the overhauled Chevy Trax, the Chevy Blazer EV, and recent Cadillac models.
Shawn Fain, of course, occupies the number one slot on the Power List, followed by Rebecca Tinucci, the Tesla Senior Director of EV Charging, and BYD president Wang Chuanfu in second and third place.
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Comments
I’m sure all the union workers he represents feel the same…NOT…
Cue the Union haters to cry like 8 year olds beside a doublewide because somebody stole their skateboard.
Please, be open to the large issues that the UAW has… they’ve practically ruined the American car business…. they are the singular reason that Germany and Japan have such a huge presence in the US… most of us out their on Social Media remember when American Cars were much different than they are now… today, shoddy engineering due to cost cutting and UAW demands that people get paid that don’t work ….. this all and much more that is wrong with the UAW have done these things.
There are places for good Union representation, i.e. UFCW and the like, but the UAW is not one of those…. the UAW needs a complete reset…
He gets no praise from me.
Union folk always gives me mafia vibes.
Cause you’re stupid?
Cousin – maybe because the mafia controlled the unions for decades and now the Democrats control them. They still use the same tactics to get there way. Intimidation and threats. The only difference now is that they have the media and a major political party backing them.
Well I now will right off anything motor trend has to say.
Grammar
MotorTrend discrediting themselves pretty hard here…
Agreed. Shawn fain uses tactics right out of Karl Marx’s handbook.
If anything the negations showed how inept and terrible he is.
When I can tell your publication’s political leanings in the automotive industry, you have lost me as a reader.
Autoblog always runs these anti-Musk stories; I had enough and stopped reading it. MT is on that path, too. There is also automotive news.
But Musk (and Fain) ARE automotive stories, not political ones. YOU’RE off-track.
What a snowflake
So go off and lick Elon’s boots the way you so clearly want to, and stay out of otherwise objective conversation.
Dude, this site’s comments lean heavily to the right all the time. I don’t think you care about a publication leaning one way or the other. You just care if it goes against your own ideals.
The once great Motor Trend has evolved into Motor Electric Trend Magazine and has taken a hard turn left. Can’t wait till my subscription expires.
IMO, Shawn Fain should get the “Bankrupter of the Year Award”.
Shawn ranked above Mary?
Wow. I’ll bet the ren cen is shaking from the temper tantrum she is throwing. Lol
Nothing could be further from the truth this guy is the Person of the year for what’s wrong with America ! My brother buys all toyotas because of the unions. I still buy only GM but I see his point !
James Reese. Let’s talk about what’s wrong with America. Mary Barra and GM takes endless tax incentives from the American people. Then offshores and outsources jobs to Mexico, Korea China etc.
So Americans loose their jobs and end up being taxed for it while Barra gourges on more money than she can ever spend. This is exactly what happened with the GM Lordstown plant.
If your blaming the worker, you delusional.
Frank said it well, ‘MT has evolved into Electric Trend Magazine’ and I don’t want it in my home. Mary Barra, Billy Ford and Billy’s lapdog, Farley only care about milking the government for a couple of years the way Musk was smart enough to see how he could use government rules/credits to sucker billions of dollars for his car-manufacting-unprofitable products to get himself to be very rich. As for Fain, well, if you think an uncivilized wanna’ be bully is going to do well for the USA when all he is going to do is force the entire USA work force in to higher tax brackets as everyone has to make more, sort of like Venezuela, then you are as full of half-brained truth as Elizabeth Warren.
Motor Trend once was a car magazine. Fain is not a car brand that I’m aware of-more woke BS, I hope they go broke.
Don’t worry, they’re headed there. It’s now a quarterly and not a monthly. Moving HQ to California was the beginning of their slide downhill. But I’ve always found MT to be better written than C&D. Funny that C&D is thriving (as Porsche&Driver).
Fain should have been awarded for the destruction of American manufacturing as all will have to be made out of country to be competitive.
Worst, Choice, Ever.
Fain needs to finish the gm contract lots of members waiting on sap details.
Wow, that’s the last straw for me and Motor Trend. I’m done. That person has little to do with cars.
Shawn Fain did no one any real good except himself. The workers got higher wages and better conditions but in the long run it may kill U S automotive manufacturing.
We’re already having trouble competing with the Asian market and this sure didn’t help. Maybe the workers will still be happy when they don’t have a job.
Fain is a snake
Reading comprehension skills must be lacking. Picking Fain as the “Person of the Year” does NOT mean they like him or what he did, just that HE shook the automotive world by what he did. It’s not praise, it’s an acknowledgement of the power of the UAW, rightly or wrongly. Get a grip. It’s no different than discussing the polarizing aspects of Elon Musk: he doesn’t design the cars, he isn’t an engineer, heck he only owns 20% of the company that he had to BUY his way into. He didn’t create Tesla, but he is all people see so what he says affects the company, just as what Fain did affected the industry.
Oh dear, I spoke poorly of Muskiboi….cue the hate! I don’t like Fain and I don’t like Musk, and that’s ok. Didn’t say I liked their choice in picking him as POY either, just that I understood why they did. Apparently no one who gave me a thumbs down understood that. Meh. Again, reading comprehension skills must have withered during the last couple of years.
Frank, that’s funny as hell. Just because u still get it don’t read it if u don’t like it. Have up on them yrs ago. Making that numb nuts man of yr. Really
Let Motor Trend join the ranks of failing publications that shot themselves in the foot by going political–
Some I can think of offhand: Consumer Reports, AARP Magazine, Time Magazine, USA Today,
It’s only “going political” if you don’t like what they said, the rest of us just see “news”…and by calling them “failing publications” we can tell which side you’re on. It’s practically code.
MT is just a bunch of low talent hacks.
He should be A-Hole of the year. Some day he’ll probably go missing like Jimmy H. The crooks always outlive their usefulness.
Ass-ole
There’s not enough down arrows on the Interweb for this guy.
Two comments rejected. Cowards much ?
Exactly and very well said!
Go figure…a money grabbing wokie as MT person of the year. China approves and it says more about MT then it does Fain.
I think the guy is a rather polarizing figure. Folks that work for the Big 3 under the UAW contracts, (at least most of them) love him. Other folks who have no attachment to the UAW, don’t much care. I am just a frequent new vehicle buyer. I look at everything through that lens. As in how much more, is that epic contract going to add to the price of my next new vehicle?!