Welcome, friends, to another edition of Economic Update, a weekly program devoted to the

economic dimensions of our lives and those of our children. I'm your host, Richard Wolfe. In today's

program, we're covering many topics, a little bit about the United Auto Workers' successful

strikes and contracts at the auto companies of this country, a talk about the national realtors

and a slap across their face and wrists that they got last week.

A strike in Bangladesh and how it affects all of us.

More on the competition between the United States and China and a remarkable vote in the United Nations.

And that's all before we get to the second half,

where we interview Professor Stephen Bezruchka about the healthcare system here in the

United States. So let's jump right in. The United Auto Workers, I don't have to tell you,

because we've covered it and many others have, achieved really remarkable

gains by going out on a brilliantly executed series of strikes against Ford General Motors

and the parent of Chrysler, the Stelantis Company, and winning stunning contracts, 25, 30, 35% increases and more, particularly for the lower

paid workers, thereby making good on the commitment of the labor movement to equalize,

to make for more genuine equality in a society that talks about it, but rarely does very much

about it. But I want to talk about one particular dimension, as a contribution perhaps others

could have and should have made, but I didn't hear or see very often. Basically, what the United Order workers achieved was clawing back much of what they lost

over the last 10 years. This in no way diminishes their achievement. Many, many other unions are

unable to do that, and they did it, and that's stunning.

But if you put together what they lost from rising interest rates, what they lost these,

I'm talking about the auto workers, what they lost from the inflation, what they lost from the

givebacks that they agreed to in 2008 and 9 with the crash then that took General Motors

...