The United Auto Workers said it’s moving forward with attempts to unionize a joint-venture battery cell plant after pushback from Ultium Cells LLC, a company General Motors Co. and partner LG Energy Solution own. UAW-GM leadership attempted to establish a card-check agreement with Ultium Cells that would give the union access to the facility to collect cards as a way to organize the plant, UAW Vice President Terry Dittes told local leaders in a letter. Ultium Cells employees are not covered by the national GM/UAW contract. Rejecting the union’s ability to collect cards from employees to confirm union representation complicates the effort to unionize the plant. Another path would be a vote by employees to decide if they want union representation. The vote would be monitored by the National Labor Relations Board. “The bottom line is that if you go with the secret ballot election route, it’s more difficult for the union to win recognition,” said Marick Masters, a professor at Wayne State University’s Mike Ilitch School of Business.

The ongoing shortage of powdered baby formula in U.S. stores has been caused in part by pandemic-related snags in the global supply chain and high inflation. But it’s also been exacerbated by product recalls from Abbott Nutrition, the largest supplier to the U.S. market. Amid the nationwide shortage, desperate parents have been crossing states and scouring social media for supplies, or making DIY formulas, which can be dangerous to babies’ health. “It is shocking that the U.S. baby formula market is so vulnerable, that the closure of a single factory throws the entire country into a food crisis,” said Kevin Ketels, who researches and teaches supply chain management with a focus on health care at Wayne State University. President Biden has invoked a wartime measure to give formula makers first priority from ingredient suppliers and has ordered military-contracted planes to fly in product from overseas. While it’s difficult to predict how the federal government and industry will prevent a formula shortage from happening again, it is quite possible there will be a shake-up of the players involved. “It seems that more companies will be allowed to sell because of this emergency,” Ketels said, adding that foreign suppliers who already meet the FDA’s nutritional standards (and who have significant production capacity) make ideal candidates.  

By Jake Bekemeyer  Wayne State University has selected Virginia Franke Kleist to serve as the next dean of the Mike Ilitch School of Business after a seven-month national search. The WSU Board of Governors approved the appointment that was announced by Provost Mark Kornbluh. She will begin at Wayne State on July 11. Kleist succeeds Robert Forsythe, who will remain as dean until Kleist’s arrival. “We had a number of outstanding candidates for this highly-coveted position, but Virginia’s extensive leadership experience and her preparedness stood out,” said Kornbluh, WSU provost and senior vice president for academic affairs. “She also has a proven track record in supporting faculty research, creating innovative programs, and growing graduate and undergraduate enrollments. And perhaps most important, she has a passion for students like ours with limited resources, but lots of grit.” Kleist comes to Wayne State from West Virginia University, where she served as the associate dean of graduate programs, research, and academic affairs and a professor of management information systems at the John Chambers College of Business and Economics. 

By Kurt Nagl Two business schools in Southeast Michigan have appointed new leadership. Wayne State University named Virginia Kleist as the new dean of the Mike Ilitch School of Business, taking over for Robert Forsythe, who has held the position since 2014. Kleist, who comes to Detroit from West Virginia University, begins her new role July 11. Forsythe will take an administrative leave before returning to the faculty. In her previous job, Kleist was associate dean of Graduate Programs, Research and Academic Affairs and professor of Management Information Systems at the John Chambers College of Business and Economics. “We had a number of outstanding candidates for this highly-coveted position, but Virginia’s extensive leadership experience and her preparedness stood out,” said Mark Kornbluh, Wayne State provost and senior vice president for academic affairs.

A shortage of baby formula started in the early days of the pandemic and has only worsened after a plant in Sturgis, Michigan was shut down earlier this year. With low stock and high demand, the lack of available baby formula has created a crisis for parents reliant on the infant food source. Supply chain experts point to several factors leading to the shortage – including the concentration of production. Only a handful of companies are approved makers of baby formula in the United States by the Food and Drug Administration. To alleviate the crisis, the Biden administration invoked the Defense Production Act to boost domestic production of formula. Kevin Ketels, assistant professor of teaching in global supply chain management at Wayne State University, participates in a discussion about what families need to know about the shortage, how the industry operates under a consolidation of production, and what else the Biden administration is doing to alleviate the crisis. Ketels discusses how long it would take for factories to get more formula on the shelves at stores. “What we’re looking at is a consent agreement for the Abbot facility in Sturgis, Michigan to start back up. They have to go through some procedures to get started. Once they get started, they’ve told us it will be about 6-8 weeks before formula starts to hit shelves. The facility hasn’t been restarted yet, it’s expected in the next week or week and a half, so it’s going to take a little bit of time before we start to see the impact,” he said. “They have to line up all the resources and make sure all protocols are followed. They have to go through the production process and the distribution process, and that takes a long time. I think that everyone is going to go as quickly as they can, but they also don’t want to cut corners because we’ve got to make sure that quality and safety are 100%. Everyone’s going to be watching very carefully to make sure we don’t have any more problems and we don’t have any more babies who are adversely affected.”  

By Kevin Ketels  Kevin Ketels, assistant professor, teaching, of global supply chain management at Wayne State University’s Mike Ilitch School of Business wrote an article for The Conversation analyzing the factors that have contributed to the baby formula supply chain issues, which have left retailers with dwindling supplies and parents across the country traveling or paying exorbitant sums of money to obtain formula for their babies. Ketels says that the conditions that led to a shortage of baby formula were set in motion long before the February 2022 closure of the Similac factory tipped the U.S. into a crisis. News that the Food and Drug Administration and Similac-maker Abbott have reached a deal to reopen the formula factory in Sturgis, Michigan, is welcome news for desperate parents, but Ketels says it will do little to alleviate the shortage anytime soon – in no small part because of the very nature of the baby formula industry. “The closure of the factory may have lit the fuse for the nationwide shortage, but a combination of government policy, industry market concentration and supply chain issues supplied the powder,” he writes.  

For small business owners who depend on the warmer months for the majority of their revenue, time is money. From landscapers, restaurants and summer camps to house painters, public relations firms and swim clubs – they all need additional help each summer. And they’re all competing for a smaller pool of workers, whether it’s students on break or adults looking for full-time or supplemental income. Businesses are using financial incentives like higher pay and signing bonuses as well as some now-sought-after perks like flexible hours and hybrid office-remote work models to attract talent. Adding to full-time payroll takes away some flexibility, according to Matt Piszczek, Wayne State University assistant professor of management. Still, Piszczek, who specializes in employee relations and human resource management, sees seasonal employment as a major benefit to small business owners because it allows them to avoid hiring too many full-timers who may not be needed in the off-season. However, small and seasonal businesses are facing new staffing problems, Piszczek said. “Businesses are generally facing the opposite problem. They need more full-time staff over the long term, not just temporary help over the summer,” he said. “Competition for seasonal workers will be stark this year, but rather than thinking of them as a stopgap to wait out the ‘Great Resignation,’ businesses may want to consider this as an opportunity to convert some of those seasonal workers into permanent employees in order to fill now-persistent gaps.”  

By J. Scott Trubey and Kelly Yamanouchi   Ford announces an electric vehicle manufacturing mini-city in Tennessee. General Motors unveils a $7 billion road map to build EVs at plants across the Midwest. An electric upstart picks Georgia for a truck, SUV and delivery van plant. Peach State leaders prepare to uncork a second multibillion dollar EV plant near the coast. Factories to make EV batteries spring up in Georgia and across the South. After years in which Tesla was a lone standout in battery-powered cars and the rest of the industry appeared mired in the slow lane, the biggest vehicle brands are suddenly placing future-defining bets. “We are definitely at a watershed moment, at a tipping point in the automobile industry,” said Kevin Ketels, an assistant professor of global supply chain management at Wayne State University in Detroit.  

A Starbucks store in Grand Rapids is poised to be the first in Michigan to count votes for unionization, while more than half a dozen others in the state have set election dates. Staff at Workers United are confident the vote will be in favor of unionizing. On Monday, the National Labor Relations Board authorized four stores in Ann Arbor and one each in Grand Blanc, East Lansing and Flint to hold elections. Workers United was notified that a total of 10 stores in Michigan have been approved for election dates in early June. Seattle-based Starbucks has more than 15,000 locations throughout the U.S. Since the recent wave to unionize began in December in New York, more than 50 stores have voted to unionize, while hundreds more are poised to vote soon. Employees have demanded higher wages, better working conditions, and a platform to voice worker interests. On the other side, CEO Howard Schultz has taken a strong stance against unions and said the company could not have grown into a globally famous coffee behemoth with the restraints of organized labor. The Starbucks unionization effort has the potential to rekindle the labor movement in the U.S., and organizing in Michigan, once a union stronghold, has symbolic significance, said Marick Masters, former director of Wayne State University’s labor relations department and current interim chair of the department of finance and business. “If you combine it with some recent successes that unions have had at Amazon, I think that they have the potential to be transformative in the sense of really rekindling the labor movement, but we are a long way form that type of rejuvenation.” Unionization is only half the battle, Masters said. Winning better benefits for employees will be a tough go. “There are serious challenges that the union will face in trying to represent workers at Starbucks sites,” he said. “Their management team is going to become more aggressive and sophisticated in resisting in these campaigns. They’ll resort to a whole bag of tricks to discourage workers at other sites from unionizing.”

By Malachi Barrett  Detroit is looking at policy changes to ease the “unsustainable” tax burden it places on residents and to deter land speculators from snapping up and sitting on vacant property. Varying tax rates – higher for open land and lower for structures and improvements – could reduce tax bills for homeowners and accelerate the development of long-vacant properties, according to a study cited by the city as it investigates how to bring down residential property taxes. The “split-rate” system has attracted interest from city leaders for years, dating back to when Detroit filed for bankruptcy in 2013, and is getting a renewed push. Matthew Roling, an adjunct professor at Wayne State University with past experience at the Detroit Economic Growth Corp. and Rock Ventures, said he’s encouraged city officials are looking at innovative ways to prevent tax delinquency and foreclosure that is “burning out” neighborhoods. “I don’t know if it’s going to be a silver bullet,” Roling said. “The devil is in the details. There is a huge problem here and it’s that the property tax regime in the city of Detroit has failed the city. Let’s start with that.” 

There’s an undertone of panic beneath the stirring sounds of “Pomp and Circumstance” at your average college graduation ceremony – the knowledge that after the well-earned joy of the occasion, there’s that tricky business of finding a job. Zeeshan Tariq graduates Saturday from Wayne State University’s Mike Ilitch School of Business, and his concerns are a bit different: How’s the work crew doing on those new porches at the apartment complex in Troy? And has anyone dealt with the bathroom door in unit 17 that won’t all the way shut? In 2020, Tariq sold off the last of his 10 residential properties in Detroit, and is concentrating on the apartments he co-owns in Troy and Linden while he crunches numbers to see what might be worth acquiring next. Tariq, now 21, bought his first house at 17, when he was a senior at Farmington Hills Harrison High. Bussing tables at a Middle Eastern restaurant while slinging boxes at a grocery store during summer breaks, he amassed $6,500 and paid all but $500 of it for a bungalow on the west side of Detroit. He sold the home a year later for almost $30,000. Tariq estimates that his real estate company Tariq Development Co., LLC has bought, sold or consulted on more than $10 million worth of property. Tariq says his unofficial charge to the rest of the class of 2022 is “Do the right thing. And do what’s in front of you.”  

n the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic, Michigan's public higher education institutions have found themselves in a landscape rife with challenges, some long-anticipated, others entirely now. Enrollment in Michigan's public institutions overall took a downward turn during the pandemic, dropping 6.24% between fall 2019, when 280,490 students enrolled, and fall 2021 when 262,985 students enrolled. The landscape of higher education has changed, including class modality. Despite a push for in-person classes, assistant dean Kiantee Rupert-Jones said remote and hybrid classes will remain at the university's Mike Ilitch School of Business due to student demand. "Our students are usually working full time or have family obligations. So they're looking for flexibility and online and hybrid classes," she said. "And so at the graduate level, that's what we're offering, because we'll see an even greater decline in our enrollment if we don't offer that type of flexibility." Wayne State University bumped tuition for first-year undergraduates by 3.83%  for the 2021-22 school year after freezing tuition for 2020-21. Annual tuition for lower-division resident undergraduates at WSU for 2021-22 was $14,043. "It was a priority for us to keep any increase to the lowest level possible while not jeopardizing academic and student resources and investment," said Mark Kornbluh, Wayne State's provost and senior vice president for academic affairs. "Also, there was a significant increase in financial aid over this period." Between 2020 through 2022, WSU increased its commitment to financial aid by $16.6 million dollars, an increase of 21%. 

By Jessica Wehrman  Much of a trucker’s day is spent waiting to drop off and deliver goods, and many are paid by the miles driven, rather than hours worked. As a result, drivers who spend four or five hours waiting to deliver or pick up cargo are often not paid for those hours. All of this is perfectly legal. The 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act, which requires employers to pay workers time-and-a-half for more than 40 hours worked, carved out an exemption for truck drivers. But a bipartisan bill in the House aims to eliminate that exemption. The bill would repeal the motor carrier exemption in the Fair Labor Standards Act, allowing truck drivers to be compensated for all the hours they work. The bill has no counterpart in the Senate and would face an uphill battle. Michael Belzer, a professor of economics at Wayne State University, cautions that companies will likely fight the idea of paying overtime. “Consumers will consume an infinite amount of free goods,” he said, arguing that companies have treated much of drivers’ time as free for years.  

By Kiara Hay  A nationwide infant formula shortage has families in metro Detroit struggling to feed their babies. Empty shelves and signs rationing out supplies is a sight many have not seen since the early days of the pandemic. But moms across metro Detroit say it’s a constant crisis. Moms are struggling to find sensitive-stomach and lactose-free formulas, and some are relying on limited doctors’ samples or cans brought from relatives out-of-state. “We had a bad situation with access to baby formula before, and the recall by Abbott only made it worse,” said Kevin Ketels, an associate professor at the Mike Ilitch School of Business at Wayne State University. Ketels says a massive federal recall earlier in the year is one of the causes for the empty shelves, with 31% of formula products being out of stock across the country. According to Ketels, Abbott has begun airlifting formula products to the states to fill the gap, and other companies are looking at ways to stretch the supply. But he said the solution could take weeks, not months. “Hopefully, the company can ramp up production quickly and we can avoid the severe shortages that we have right now, but we ill not be able to escape the general shortages just because of the pandemic.” 

By Lauren Williams  Jenae Lodewky is one of the few female assistant equipment managers in the NBA. The 22-year-old Bay City native started with the Pistons as an intern in the human resources department last year, but found herself working as a team attendant after strict COVID testing protocols created staffing shortages for the team. She has earned the respect of the players and coaches, whose needs she sometimes anticipates without a word. Lodewyk is finishing up her senior year at the Mike Ilitch School of Business. ”I’m so fortunate to be with the Pistons because they’re an organization that believes in hiring women,” Lodewyk said. “So, I have role models. I have women who are 10 years older than me, 20 years older than me so on, and I’ve very lucky for that. When it comes to equipment, I think it makes me just value my community that much more. But even then, being the only woman in equipment with the Pistons, I’ve very grateful to have Kong and Black (Mahorn) and John (Narra) who believe that women belong in the locker room.” 

By Margaret Blohm  LaunchDETROIT, the Rotary-powered program established 10 years ago to help entrepreneurs in under-resourced areas of Detroit, has made significant strides. The program has provided business education, mentoring and networking opportunities to 83 entrepreneurs as well as micro-loans of up to $2,500 each to 39 qualifying participants. Loans have gone to businesses in Dearborn, Dearborn Heights and many Downriver communities as well as other cities in the Detroit Metro region. Wayne State University’s Mike Ilitch School of Business and International Strategic Management partnered to provide additional business education resources customized to better serve participating entrepreneur’s business needs.  

By Steve Tengler  The point of sale (POS) of any business is critically important. If you imagine the register at any retail outlet or fast-food franchise, the operator must know the menu, those items presently sold-out, and the semi-scripted-yet-extemporaneous process of reacting to unforeseen incidents as to salvage the customer relationship. So is the standard life of an auto dealership. Only this year presents multiple challenges that far exceed the norm, and as the annual conference approaches where manufacturers and dealerships meet to coordinate the upcoming year – the 2022 National Automotive Dealers Association Show. The question hangs in the air about whether this year is the most critical for dealerships, specifically the looming areas requiring fantastic communication between manufacturer and dealer are how to presently manage the integrated circuit chip shortage and how to prepare for the anticipated, step-function change in electric vehicle sales. Depending upon the strategies of the manufacturer, supply chain issues have played out either by reducing manufacturing, offering fewer vehicle options, or stockpiling semi-built vehicles with plans to retrofit the shells later. Ford, for example, has stockpiled unfinished vehicles in various sites expressly to maintain manufacturing staffing, to be ready to quickly meet the pent-up demand of new vehicles, and per the words of Wayne State Univesity’s Tim Butler, associate professor of global supply chain management at Wayne State University’s Mike Ilitch School of Business, to avoid “…suffering the long-term effects of not keeping [suppliers] sustained with business…” 

For the first time in nearly a week, border officials reported “no delay” Monday as trucks and cars cruised 1.4 miles across the Ambassador Bridge into Canada. Reopening the bridge after a seven-day Canadian trucker protest in Windsor was “a win” for Michigan, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said. But economic experts warn the weeklong trade disruption could reverberate in the short- and long-term. Auto industry losses neared $300 million from Monday, Feb. 7 through Tuesday, Feb. 15, the Anderson Economic Group estimates, including $144.9 million in lost wages and $155 million in losses to automakers. This was mostly felt in the Detroit-Windsor region but stretched as far as Huntsville, Alabama. Beyond the immediate blow, the lingering effects of the trade disruption could erode confidence in cross-border trade, said John Taylor, professor of global supply chain management at Wayne State University. For years, Taylor says it could impact long-term decisions on where companies build plants and who to pick as suppliers. “Anything that reduces the confidence in that system and makes us want to use local suppliers, that has a negative impact on the quality of goods, the variety of goods, the price of goods, and so on,” Taylor said.  

By Kim Russell  As attorneys argued for an injunction that would give police the ability to arrest protesters who block the Ambassador Bridge, they told a Canadian judge the blockade was proving to have a “catastrophic impact” economically already. They spoke about an impact on all consumers and the auto industry. Economists say it is costing automakers hundreds of millions of dollars. “Once it gets beyond a few days it becomes a very serious problem,” said John Taylor, associate professor of supply chain management at Wayne State University’s Mike Ilitch School of Business. Taylor says right now it could be written off as a short, one-time event by the auto industry, but if the government does not end it, it could change the auto industry in a way that weakens U.S. automakers globally. “It costs a lot of money to sit on inventory, storage, obsolescence when the model year ends financing the inventory. It can easily have a cost of 15% of the value of the inventory in operating expense…” said Taylor. “…Anything that impedes the flow across the border is basically a tax on the price of goods.” 

Albert Zhu, an economics professor at the Wayne State University Mike Ilitch School of Business, talks about the most recent consumer price index report, and what the rapid acceleration of inflation means for our purchasing power in metro Detroit. “So, the reports came out this morning and it very quickly made news headlines. And the number 7.5% for headline inflation and 6% for core inflation, those two are both 40-year highs. And back 40 years ago, that was the period we call The Great Inflation,” Zhu said.