Clorox CEO Makes Hard Choice; What's Tinier Than a Nano? So That Happened

Editor’s note: Welcome to So That Happened, our editors’ takes on things going on in the manufacturing world that deserve some extra attention. This appears regularly in the Members Only section of the site. 

Nearly 1,000 UAW Local 2093 workers at Dauch Corp. (formerly American Axle) began a strike on June 1 at the company’s Three Rivers, Michigan, plant amid a dispute over wages. Dauch is a Tier 1 parts supplier to General Motors, with its products used in some of the automaker’s pickup trucks. Last month, the members voted 98% in favor of authorizing strike action. 

Worker wages were slashed during the Great Recession in 2008 from as much as $29 an hour to $14.50 an hour to protect the facility from closure, according to the UAW. Eighteen years later, according to the union, pay has still not recovered, topping out at $22 an hour after a five-year progression, and workers are struggling to afford necessities. 

“This company has made $8.4 billion in the last decade, while some of their workers are sleeping in their cars,” said UAW President Shawn Fain during a livestream update on Sunday. “Auto parts workers everywhere are fighting for their fair share. They’re not asking to be millionaires, they’re asking for dignity.” 

Members have also filed federal unfair labor practice charges against Dauch. The UAW alleges company management in April called local police on off-duty employees distributing union literature and threatened termination and trespassing charges. 

In an emailed statement to CNBC, Dauch described the strike as “disappointing” but said it is committed to good-faith negotiations and hopes to reach a fair agreement promptly.

-Anna Smith 

Remember the Great Additive Manufacturing M&A Standoff of 2023? 

First, Nano Dimension wanted to take over Stratasys in a deal that valued the latter at about $1.3 billion. Then Stratasys sought to buy Desktop Metal for $1.8 billion. The next week, 3D Systems offered $1.2 billion for Stratasys. Good times. 

The dust has settled quite a bit since, and the sector’s leaders have done a better job finding profitable uses for their products. And the dollar amounts being thrown around by the big publicly traded players have taken a massive haircut. 

So it barely registered late last month when Stratasys executives said they had inked a deal to pay $42.5 million for Markforged, a subsidiary of Nano that last year booked $70 million in sales and specializes in so-called continuous carbon fiber technology. Adding Markforged would let Stratasys grow its presence in the booming aerospace and defense industry, as well as the automotive and food/beverage sectors. 

Word of Nano’s planned divestiture came less than two months after CEO David Stehlin announced he had signed a deal worth up to $12.5 million to sell the company’s additively manufactured electronics product line and the discontinued Fabrica line to medical device company Inspira Technologies. 

Stehlin and team have been looking to cut costs as part of a broader strategic review—in Wall Street parlance, that typically means “We want to sell”—after Nano was given a court order to complete the acquisition of Desktop Metal for $179 million. Nano did that in April of last year and pretty quickly put Desktop Metal through a bankruptcy court liquidation that generated less than $20 million. 

— Geert De Lombaerde 

The press announcement by the Clorox Co. last week that Chairman and CEO Linda Rendle would be leaving her leadership position after six years followed a fairly typical template: The company would initiate a CEO search process at the request of Rendle, who said health reasons prompted her decision. The departure is not immediate, the release said, with Rendle committing to remain chair and CEO until a successor is appointed and then serve in an advisory role for some period of time afterwards.  

In an unusual move, however, Rendle shared a personal note about her decision—and her health—on the company's website.  

"I am grateful that I am cancer-free after having been diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer. But, while I am doing well, the side effects of my ongoing treatment to prevent recurrence have prompted me to think carefully about how I care for my health and family," she wrote.  

"The decision to step away from the company and role that I love so much was incredibly difficult. But as I worked through it, I kept coming back to advice I give my team all the time: Control what you can, have the courage to make the hard choices, and take care of yourself so you can take care of others. Those words have guided me in business, and now they are guiding me personally."  

Rendle, who has held numerous roles within Clorox over the past 20 years, was named CEO in September 2020. In early 2024, she added board chair to her responsibilities. 

In her message, Rendle also made it clear that for now, it’s business as usual.  

“ … while I’m making a choice for the long term, nothing changes in the short term. I remain fully committed to Clorox and to leading the company through this transition. Until a new leader is in place, my focus remains exactly where it has always been – on advancing our strategy, improving execution, and supporting our team.” 

—Jill Jusko 

For 26 years, the North American Automotive OEM-Supplier Working Relations Index has tracked how well six automakers—General Motors, Ford, Stellantis, Toyota, Honda and Nissan—work with their suppliers. This year is a milestone of sorts: the first time that relationship scores improved across the board from the year prior.

Angela Johnson, a former GM strategist who is now principal at Plante Moran, attributes the angst reduction to a roll-up-your-sleeves, “we’re all in this together” attitude after years of supply-chain crisis—beginning in 2019 with labor shutdowns, then COVID and cascading geopolitical disruptions.

“I'm going to call it ‘permacrisis fatigue,’ and what I mean by that is everybody out there might not be happy, but you're starting to see a recognition that everybody's out there trying to help each other deal with the crisis, says Johnson, who led the WRI survey research. “I think that helped put an undercurrent of a positive spin on it.