From New York Times, I'm Michael O'Borrow. This is a Daily.

Later this week, as many as 150,000 U.S. auto workers may begin a historic strike against their employers,

car makers collectively known as the Big Three.

Today, my colleague, Neil Baudet, on the tangled decades-long dynamic

that explains why such a walkout looks increasingly likely.

It's Tuesday, September 12.

Neil, we are here to talk with you about a very big potential strike.

And it occurs to me that this has already been a summer of uniquely intense labor activism in the United States.

It has. It's been quite a summer.

The Hollywood writers went out on strike. They were followed by the Hollywood actors.

They're still on strike. The teamsters and UPS were negotiating a contract.

There was a threat of a strike there. In the end, they did come up with a contract.

There was a local hotel strike in Los Angeles.

So it's been a really busy summer in terms of labor movement.

And now we're coming to what could be the biggest labor conflict of the year.

And that's a potential strike between Ford, GM, and Stellantis,

which is the parent of Chrysler, on one side, and the United Auto Workers on the other side,

and why might this be the biggest?

Because the auto industry is a big piece of the U.S. economy.

It's the largest manufacturing sector. It employs 150,000 UAW workers.

And the union is threatening to strike all three companies at the same time.

It's never done that before. And the impact would be significant.

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