The UAW Strike Plan Revisited: Why Do UAW Workers Want to Save Our Lives? Ford, General Motors, and Stelllantis
The United Auto Workers are about to go on strike in September in an effort to get a new labor agreement. The union wants pay increases, shorter working days, and stronger pensions from the Big Three, but they wouldn’t agree to them.
As the strikes continued across the companies, the union would be given more leverage and they would be kept guessing about how operations would be disrupted.
Only those at a specific set of plants would walk off the job first, followed by everyone else.
“It is going to keep the companies guessing, and it is going to power our negotiators to be as effective as possible, because they will be kept guessing by this,” he said.
“We’re living in a time of stunning inequality throughout our society,” Fain said. “We’re living in a time where our industry is undergoing massive transformations, and we’re living in a time where our labor movement is redefining itself.”
Ford, General Motors and stelllantis have all raised their pay raises since their opening bids, but to less than 20%, just part of the union’s 40% demand.
The unions pension and retiree healthcare proposals have been rejected by the companies. Cost of living adjustments, and profit sharing, are points of contention.
Union members have made sacrifice to these companies, but no offers have been put on the table that reflect that. We will probably have to take action to win.
A strike plan has traditionally been something the UAW does not do. Historically, UAW strikes have involved all union members at a single company walking off the job at once.
In a statement responding to UAW’s strike preparations, Ford CEO Jim Farley said the automaker has put forth four “increasingly generous” offers. “Ford is still ready to reach a deal,” he said.
The UAW leader said that he and other top union leaders will attend a rally in Detroit on Friday, even if negotiations do not pan out.
The Big Three Autoworkers Are About to Go On Strike — Here’s What’s at stake, and Why the UAW Is Getting Closer
In the short term, a strike could have an effect on car prices. A strike means fewer cars are produced, and as we learned in 2021, that can lead to a steep rise in prices.
There are signs that the EV factories will shift from being unionized to being non unionized. The employees at the joint venture battery plant voted overwhelmingly last December to unionize.
Meanwhile, the Big Three are pumping billions of dollars into EVs in a race to catch up with Tesla, which employs a nonunion workforce. Investments in EVs are being subsidized by the Biden administration, which has made them an important part of its efforts to fight climate change.
Pretty likely! According to analysts at Evercore ISI and Wedbush Securities, there’s about 85 percent of a strike at all three companies. A 36 percent wage increase is the union’s most recent proposal, down from a 40 percent increase in the previous proposal. But the two sides still seem far apart on most issues.
A restoration of cost-of-living adjustments, better pay, shorter working hours, and a shift back to a traditional pension are some of the things that can be said. The UAW says that its members have made concessions over the last 20 years as foreign competition and the economic downturn hit the automotive industry.
Fain was elected president of UAW in March (the first time a UAW president was picked through a democratic vote by the union’s membership) on a promise of “no corruption, no concessions, no tiers,” according to Labor Notes, which likened his election to the shakeup at the Teamsters. In order to protect his membership, he’s going to have to take his union in a more militant direction.
Source: The ‘Big Three’ autoworkers are about to go on strike — here’s what’s at stake
The Auto Workers Are About to Go On Strike – Here’s What’s at stake: The Big Three’s Case for the Survival of the Big Three
Their main issue is the cost gap that exists between their factory and nonunion ones in the South which is owned by foreign companies. They say this will make them a major disadvantage in the market because their rivals spend less on labor than they do.
It costs the company up to $50 per hour to have a non union workforce. The Big Three argue this is why they’ve struggled to keep up with Tesla, which still commands around 60 percent of the EV market in the US.
Good question! This is one of the main arguments made by the union. They claim that they have been willing to make major concessions in the past to ensure the survival of the Big Three. Now they say the script is flipped, and at a time when the industry is posting record profits — a combined $21 billion in just the first six months of 2023, according to UAW — the companies are unwilling to share the success with the workforce.
Privately, Fain has been more skeptical about the shift to EVs, calling it a “race to the bottom” in an internal memo, according to The New York Times.
“Hopefully this gets resolved before it gets to that point,” @CarDealershipGuy, independent dealership owner and pseudonymous Twitter user, wrote the other day. I highly doubt it.
Source: The ‘Big Three’ autoworkers are about to go on strike — here’s what’s at stake
On the Cost of Nothing: An Economic Perspective on a Dilepton Strike in Michigan’s Higher-Cost Metropolis, Kaluza-Klein
Often, the cost of a strike is portrayed in terms of its effect on a state or nation’s economic output. The Michigan economy would likely be in a recession, if a 10-day strike were to take place.
The cost of doing nothing is higher according to the union. In a video posted on August 29th, Fain said corporations wanted him to believe there was nothing we could do to stop them. “Never forget that when our labor isn’t valued, we have the power to withhold it. We have the fundamental power of a strike. The cost of a strike might be high, but the cost of doing nothing is much higher.”