With one month to go until the United Auto Workers’ contracts with the Big Three expire, the union is preparing to escalate its fight to achieve its demands at the bargaining table.
UAW President Shawn Fain, citing what the union described as a “slow pace of negotiations” with Stellantis NV, General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co., on Tuesday announced that the union will hold strike authorization votes next week ahead of the contracts’ expiration at 11:59 p.m. Sept. 14.
Strike authorizations are routine actions during labor negotiations that give union leaders the power to call a strike, but don’t necessarily mean one will occur. Nearly 150,000 UAW members at the three companies will vote next week; such votes typically receive strong support. Results are expected Aug. 24.
“Today marks 30 days until our contract expires, and yet we’re still bargaining over non-economics at all three companies. That’s unacceptable. The Big Three need to get serious, and they need to get down to business,” Fain said during a Facebook livestream. “We are 30 days away and the clock is ticking.”
The UAW president said the union would not agree to extend the current contracts past expiration: “Sept. 14 is a deadline,” he said.
Meanwhile, Fain used the bargaining update to members to reiterate the union’s argument that hefty profits generated by the Detroit automakers over the past decade mean they can afford to offer better wages and benefits to their workers. The UAW has pointed to $250 billion in North American profits the Detroit automakers generated from 2013 to 2022, as well as strong profits through the first half of this year.
The union has proposed a 46% wage increase over four years, a 32-hour work week paid at 40 hours, retiree health care coverage to all, restoration of cost-of-living adjustments, expanding pensions, and more.
UAW’s demands could increase labor costs to $100 per hour per worker
Fain pushed back on responses from the automakers arguing that such increases would raise their labor costs to levels that would make them uncompetitive against foreign companies and electric-vehicle startups like Tesla.
“GM’s comment about how our demands threaten their ability to do what is right for the long-term benefit of the team is a thinly-veiled threat to kill jobs because employees have the courage to demand what we are owed,” Fain said. “In fact, GM’s led the way over the last 20 years by closing more plants than any other domestic automaker.”
In a statement, GM spokesperson David Barnas said: “We’ve been working hard with the UAW every day to ensure we get this agreement right for all our stakeholders. We know that our U.S. economic impact supports more than 6 jobs for every job created by GM. We take that responsibility very seriously, and we continue to bargain in good faith each day to support our team members, our customers, the community and the business.”
But as has been the case since negotiations started, Fain reserved his sharpest remarks for Stellantis executives.
Last week, Mark Stewart, chief operating officer in North America for Stellantis, called the UAW’s demands a “losing proposition” that could risk jobs and said the company is looking to reach an agreement “based on realism.” Stewart’s letter came days after Fain threw a copy of a July 27 offer from Stellantis into a trashcan during a Facebook livestream.
Stellantis’ counteroffer to the UAW emphasized what it described as high rates of absenteeism in plants.
“COO Mark Stewart wrote a patronizing letter to our members, saying we need to tone down our demands in the name of ‘economic realism.’ We later learned from media reports that Stewart wrote that letter from his second multimillion-dollar mansion in Acapulco, Mexico, where he spent the last two weeks vacationing rather than bargaining,” Fain said. “That’s the economic realism the companies want us to accept. They make billions in profits and millions in executive salaries, while the rest of us live paycheck-to-paycheck.”
“The discussions between the Company and the UAW’s bargaining team continue to be constructive and collaborative with a focus on reaching a new agreement that balances the concerns of our 43,000 employees with our vision for the future – one that better positions the business to meet the challenges of the U.S. marketplace and secures the future for all of our employees, their families and our company,” Stellantis spokesperson Jodi Tinson said in a statement.
In a statement Tuesday, Ford spokesperson Kelli Felker said: “Ford is proud to build more vehicles in America and employ more UAW-represented hourly workers in America than any other automaker. We look forward to working with the UAW on creative solutions during this time when our dramatically changing industry needs a skilled and competitive workforce more than ever.”
jgrzelewski@detroitnews.com
Staff Writers Breana Noble and Kalea Hall contributed.