India by any other name would still be India

Also: Do autoworkers deserve a raise? [Bloomberg]( This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a mezcal flight of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. [Sign up here](. Today’s Must-Reads - The country formerly [known as India](? - Two takes on the [UAW-automakers face-off](. - Wanted: [More tin pushers](. Say My (Country’s) Name As the Group of 20 summit in New Delhi gets underway, there’s some confusion over how the host would like to be addressed: Is Narendra Modi the leader of India, or of Bharat? Although both names are in the constitution under which he governs, convention favors the former. On the eve of the gathering, however, his government indicated it would prefer the latter. This is hardly the first time a populist leader has used a name change to score a political point: Just last year, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that Turkey would henceforth be known as Türkiye. Delving into the complex and contentious [history of national nomenclature](, Howard Chua-Eoan notes that while change may be easy to decree, it’s hard to make it stick. Rebranding a country can be as expensive as, say, changing the logo and livery of a popular soft drink. But it can take years or even decades before the new name gains international currency. The modern era presents new kinds of difficulties: Can India really become Bharat if it can’t change the ‘.in’ it its web domain? (The ‘.bh’, you may recall — or not — belongs to Bahrain.) Having grown up in India myself, I know many Indians use both names — India, especially when communicating in English, and Bharat, usually when speaking one of the country’s many other languages. And I know from many visits to Istanbul that people likewise switch easily from Turkey to Türkiye. For all the propaganda purposes of populists, as Howard points out, the new names “can coexist with what the rest of the world uses. There’s no need to force universal compliance.” Careful What UAW Wish For As the Big Three carmakers face off with the United Auto Workers union over pay and benefits, Bloomberg Opinion columnists have been weighing their claims and counterclaims. Yesterday, Allison Schrager ran the rule over the UAW’s call for [defined-benefit pension plans](, concluding that they were unrealistic. Today, Justin Fox [analyzes the data on autoworkers’ wages](, while Brooke Sutherland examines how the union’s demands, if met, [might affect productivity]( in an industry struggling to stay competitive. Justin acknowledges that the inflation-adjusted average hourly wage for autoworkers on the production line has dropped 30% over the past 20 years. (Management, you won’t be surprised to learn, has done much better.) The decline in real wages was enabled by concessions made by the unions in the 2000s, when the carmakers were losing money. They have since bounced back: GM, Ford and Stellantis had a combined net income of $42 billion for the 12 months ended in June, much of that coming from US operations. So the UAW’s aggressive demands in negotiations may seem entirely reasonable. But the past two decades have demonstrated that the auto industry doesn’t stay in the black for very long. Profits tend to yo-yo: And this is an especially precarious moment, since pressure from the US government is forcing companies to invest heavily in EVs — even though they are not yet a profitable category. Brooke, meanwhile, warns that the UAW’s demands, such as the four-day workweek, are “in direct confrontation with the kind of labor force productivity that’s necessary to stay competitive in manufacturing.” This is a risky strategy to adopt at a time when companies are investing more and more in automation and robotics. The compulsion to switch to EVs is making productivity and efficiency all the more important for the Big Three. The unions may be in a strong negotiating position now, but their demands could prove to be self-defeating. Telltale Charts Long flight delays or cancellations have become as much a part of summer vacation as sunburns and too many pisco sours. As Chris Bryant explains, this is in large part due to an [acute shortage of air-traffic controllers](. Despite an aggressive hiring push, the Federal Aviation Administration is currently short about one-fifth of the required 14,500 air traffic personnel. The scarcity extends to Europe, though it is not as acute there as in the US. The proximate reasons for the shortages include a hiatus in recruitment and training during the pandemic, as well as workers retiring early. Higher salaries are being offered, but there’s no quick fix. The job involves intensive training and there are strict age limits for applicants, on both sides of the Atlantic. A controller must have considerable powers of reasoning, spatial orientation, memory and the ability to multitasking — and be able to cope with enormous stress. Unsurprisingly, the dropout rate is high.   Next summer, maybe I’ll take the train. Further Reading Western criticisms of Ukraine’s counteroffensive [play into Putin’s hands](. — Bloomberg’s editorial board The dollar’s rally may have run its course. [Watch out for disruption elsewhere](. — John Authers “Teardown” specialists monitor China’s progress in chips by [cracking open the latest phones](. — Dave Lee [Turning empty offices into apartment blocks]( isn’t as simple as it sounds. — Conor Sen The UK is paying the bill for being [penny wise and pound foolish on school maintenance](. — Matthew Brooker The main beneficiaries of student-loan programs [are colleges and universities](. — Claudia Sahm The world’s safest airline [has a sorry image](. — Tim Culpan  ICYMI Unemployment? What unemployment? The US [labor market keeps tightening](. [China is extending its iPhone ban]( to to government-backed agencies and state companies. … And that has taken a [$194 billion bite out of Apple’s value](. Saudi Arabia wants to extract [more than just oil from under the sand](. Video: How Estonia became [a model for digital democracy.]( Today in Blame the Boomers: [Soaring US house prices](. Kickers For one South Korean, incarceration is [no bar to making billions](. It’s not a good look to get [pied at your own protest](. The Bud Light controversy [doesn’t bother Bill Gates](. Pinochet was scary enough without [being turned into a vampire](. Notes: Please send your Tobalas, Tepeztates and Espadins to Bobby Ghosh at aghosh73@bloomberg.net. [Sign up here]( and follow us on [Instagram](, [TikTok](, [Twitter]( and [Facebook](. Follow Us Like getting this newsletter? [Subscribe to Bloomberg.com]( for unlimited access to trusted, data-driven journalism and subscriber-only insights. 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