DETROIT (AP) — Last fall’s contentious United Auto Workers’ strike changed Ford’s relationship with the union to the point where it will “think carefully” about where it builds future vehicles, Ford’s top executive said Thursday.

CEO Jim Farley told the Wolfe Research Global Auto Conference in New York that the company always took pride in its relationship with the UAW, having avoided strikes since the 1970s.

But last year, Ford’s highly profitable factory in Louisville, Kentucky, was the first truck plant that the UAW shut down with a strike.

Farley said as the company looks at the transition from internal combustion to electric vehicles, “we have to think carefully about our (manufacturing) footprint.”

Ford, Farley said, decided to build all of its highly profitable big pickup trucks in the U.S., and by far has the most union members — 57,000 — of any Detroit automaker. This came at a higher cost than competitors, who went through bankruptcy and built truck plants in Mexico, he said. But Ford thought it was the “right kind of cost,” Farley said.

“Our reliance on the UAW turned out to be we were the first truck plant to be shut down,” Farley told the conference. “Really our relationship has changed. It’s been a watershed moment for the company. Does this have business impact? Yes.”

In a statement, union President Shawn Fain said Ford should stay focused on building the best auto industry, not on a race to lower wages.

“Maybe Ford doesn’t need to move factories to find the cheapest labor on Earth,” he said. “Maybe it needs to recommit to American workers and find a CEO who’s interested in the future of this country’s auto industry,” Fain said.

Asked about Farley’s comments, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said President Joe Biden believes in making goods and creating jobs in the U.S. “We’re going to do everything we can to make sure that continues,” she said.

Biden, she said, believes that workers have the right to collective bargaining to get better wages and benefits like the UAW did. “That is something that the president is always going to speak for and is going to stand up for” she said.

The UAW made strong wage gains after a six-week strike at selected plants run by Ford, General Motors and Jeep maker Stellantis. Top-scale factory workers won 33% raises in a contract that runs through April of 2028, taking their top wage to around $42 per hour.

High manufacturing costs are among the reasons why Ford has a $7 billion annual cost disadvantage to competitors, Farley has said. He told the conference that Ford is making progress on cutting those costs with cultural and structural changes at the company.

It expects to take out $2 billion worth of costs this year, and Farley said he thinks cuts in manufacturing costs will offset the cost of the UAW contract. Ford has said the contract would add $900 to the cost of a vehicle by the time it reaches full effect.

Ford has shifted its electric vehicle strategy to concentrate on smaller, lower priced EVs and work vehicles such as pickup trucks and full-size vans, Farley said. Any EV larger than a Ford Escape small SUV “better be really functional or a work vehicle.”

A small team within the company is developing the underpinnings of a less costly smaller vehicle, which Farley said would be profitable because of U.S. federal tax credits as high as $7,500 per vehicle.

He gave no time frame for the small EV to come out, but said Ford’s next generation of electric vehicles would come in the 2025 through 2027 time frame.

His comments about the union raise questions about whether the new small EV would be built in Mexico, which has lower labor costs. Vehicles built in North America are still eligible for the U.S. tax credit.

Farley also sees EV battery prices coming down with more competition. The company, he said, may go with a common cylinder-shaped cell to leverage purchasing and get better prices. He also said Ford might do that with another automaker.

Ford’s Model e, the electric vehicle unit, lost nearly $5 billion before taxes last year. Farley wouldn’t give a date for it to break even, but said any new EV built by the company has to make money within 12 months of its release.

The company still posted net income of $4.3 billion due largely to big profits from its Pro commercial vehicle unit and Ford Blue, the internal combustion division.

Farley said Ford and others will have trouble competing on EVs with Chinese automakers, who have gone from no EV market share in Europe two years ago to 10% of the market now.

Chinese auto giant BYD ‘s Seagull small electric vehicle, he said, has about $9,000 in material costs, and it will probably cost the company another $2,000 to meet crash test standards, for a total of around $11,000. It has a range of about 150 miles in cold weather, “not a fantastic vehicle, but pretty damn good.”

Ford’s lowest-priced U.S. EV is the Mustang Mach e, which starts around $43,000.

Shares of Ford closed Thursday up 2.4%.

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — It shouldn’t take long for Caitlin Clark to become the NCAA women’s career scoring leader when No. 4 Iowa hosts Michigan.

Clark goes into Thursday night’s game needing eight points to pass Kelsey Plum’s total of 3,527 points. Clark has scored at least eight in the first quarter in 17 of 25 games this season, and she’s hasn’t gone into a halftime with fewer than that.

“Obviously she’s going to just blast it out of the water,” Iowa coach Lisa Bluder said. “So it’s going to be fun to see how many points she adds on to that.”

Clark and her dynamic game have captivated the nation for two seasons, including last year’s run to the NCAA title game and her being named the AP player of the year. More than just her pursuit of the record, her long 3-point shots and flashy passes have raised interest in the women’s game to unprecedented levels. Arenas have been sold out for her games, home and away, and television ratings have never been higher.

It’s all been more than Clark imagined when the 6-foot guard from West Des Moines stayed in state and picked Iowa over Notre Dame in November 2019.

“I dreamed of doing really big things, playing in front of big crowds, going to the Final Four, maybe not quite on this level,” Clark said. “I think that’s really hard to dream. You can always exceed expectations, even your own, and I think that’s been one of the coolest parts.”

Though her basketball obligations and endorsement deals (read: State Farm ads, etc.) have put demands on her time, she said she is the same person who showed up on campus four years ago.

“I just go about my business as I did when I was a freshman during COVID,” said Clark, a senior who still has another season of eligibility remaining if she wants it. “Sure, my life has kind of changed somewhat. I still live the exact same way. I still act like a 22-year-old college kid.”

She said she still cleans her apartment, does her laundry, plays video games, hang out with friends and does schoolwork.

“The best way to debrief and get away from things is getting off your phone, getting off social media and enjoying what’s around you and the people around you and the moments that are happening,” she said.

Her run to the record could have come earlier, but it arrived back at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, where ticket resale prices for the Michigan game ranged from hundreds of dollars into the thousands. Fans again will show up early outside the arena, many wearing black-and-gold No. 22 jerseys and holding signs paying homage.

Unlike Sunday’s loss at Nebraska, when Fox drew almost 2 million viewers for the game, this one will be streamed on Peacock.

After Clark breaks the NCAA record Plum set in 2017, her next target will be the all-time major women’s college scoring record of 3,649 by Kansas star Lynette Woodard from 1977-81. During Woodard’s era, women’s sports were governed by the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women. Francis Marion’s Pearl Moore holds the overall women’s record with 4,061 points from 1975-79.

“I understand the magnitude of this,” Clark said. “It’s come along with how my four years have gone, and it’s crazy looking back on how fast everything has gone. I’m really thankful and grateful.”

CHICAGO (AP) — Three separate unions representing flight attendants at major U.S. airlines picketed and held rallies at 30 airports Tuesday as they push for new contracts and higher wages.

The flight attendants are increasingly frustrated that pilots won huge pay raises last year while they continue to work for wages that, in some cases, have not increased in several years.

They argue that they have not been rewarded for working through the pandemic and being responsible for the safety of passengers.

The unions are calling Tuesday’s protests a national day of action. It is not a strike — federal law makes it difficult for airline unions to conduct legal strikes.

The unions planned to picket at some of the nation’s busiest airports in New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles and elsewhere.

“We haven’t had a raise in five years. Our flight attendants have seen the very rich contracts that the pilots did get, and they expect American Airlines to come to the table,” said Julie Hedrick, president of the union at American.

Pilots had tremendous leverage in winning big raises because of a shortage. It takes years of flying for pilots to meet requirements to work for an airline. That is not the case for flight attendants. Airlines have bragged in the past about how many people apply when they advertise openings for flight attendants.

Tuesday’s protests were organized by Hedrick’s union, the Association of Professional Flight Attendants; and the Association of Flight Attendants, which represents crews at United Airlines, Alaska Airlines and several other carriers; and the Transport Workers Union, which represents crews at Southwest.

The unions have conducted strike votes to put pressure on company negotiators, but of course management knows that airline strikes can be delayed or blocked by federal mediators, the president and Congress.

Mediators have already turned down one request by flight attendants at American Airlines to begin a countdown to a strike. The union is seeking immediate pay raises of 33%, followed by four annual increases of 6% each. American’s last offer, in September, was 18% upfront including boarding pay, followed by annual raises of 2%.

At Southwest, attendants rejected a deal that their union negotiators reached with the airline — it would have raised pay about 35% over five years.

Flight attendants also want to be paid during the time that passengers board the plane. Only Delta Air Lines, whose attendants are nonunion, currently pays during boarding. At other U.S. carriers, hourly pay for crews starts when the passengers are seated and the plane doors close.

American Airlines’ September offer included half-pay during boarding time.

“We appreciate and respect our flight attendants’ right to picket and understand that is their way of telling us the importance of getting a contract done — and we hear them,” American said in a statement Tuesday. The airline said it intends to reach a deal that would put flight attendant pay “at the top of the industry.”

Southwest said it reached “an industry-leading tentative agreement” with its union last fall, only to see the deal rejected. The airline said it is scheduled to meet with union representatives and federal mediators again next week “to continue working toward an agreement that benefits our Flight Attendants and Southwest.”

Union leaders say they need large wage increases to catch up with inflation.

“We negotiated the contract that we’re working under back in 2014, when the cost of rent was much different, the cost of food was much less,” Hedrick said. “Here we are, 10 years later, trying to get a contract done so that our flight attendants can survive.”

Lyn Montgomery, president of the union at Southwest, said crews need to be compensated because their work is getting harder.

“Flying these days is not fun,” she said. “It’s chaotic. It’s crowded. We’re late, (flights are) delayed. We are tired and exhausted.”