Most United Auto Workers members employed by Jeep maker Stellantis NV would receive a 14.5% wage increase over four years under the automaker’s first economic counterproposal to the the Detroit-based union on Friday, the company said.
The wage increase is above the wage increases offered by its crosstown rivals. Ford Motor Co. last week offered a 9% wage hike, and General Motors Co. on Thursday proposed a 10% boost. The union, however, has requested a 46% increase (40% without compounding).
Unlike the GM and Ford counters, Stellantis doesn’t include additional lump-sum payments as part of its wage proposal. The transatlantic company employs about 43,000 UAW members.
Stellantis’ proposal would bring the maximum wage for production operators to about $36.37 per hour by the end of a new agreement, up from the present $31.77. Stellantis declined to provide a breakdown of when the increases would occur.
“This is a responsible and strong offer that positions us to continue providing good jobs for our employees today and in the next generation here in the U.S.,” Mark Stewart, chief operating officer for Stellantis in North America, said in an email to employees on Friday. “It also protects the Company’s future ability to continue to compete globally in an industry that is rapidly transitioning to electric vehicles.”
Following the issuance of Stellantis’ proposal, a news release promoting a 5 p.m. Facebook livestream on Friday with UAW President Shawn Fain said he will “discuss disappointing counterproposals made by Ford, General Motors and Stellantis.”
A flyer shared by the union on social media criticizes the wage increase, saying it “doesn’t make up for inflation, let alone make up for past losses, and leaves workers even further behind.”
The flyer also said that for UAW-represented salaried workers, the proposal offers only lump sum payments and no wage increases.
The Stellantis proposal for hourly workers follows Ford and GM’s lead in suggesting lump-sum payouts in response to the UAW’s request to end the suspension of the cost-of-living adjustment, which previously had affected workers’ wages, allowing the changes to compound. Stellantis suggests a one-time $6,000 inflation protection payment in year one and $4,500 in inflation protection payments over the final three years of the contract.
Ford’s COLA bonuses would be an initial $6,000 in the first year with another $6,000 spread out through the contract life. GM’s also included an initial $6,000 and another $5,000 over the contract life.
Like GM and Ford, Stellantis’ proposal also would decrease the timeline for full-time employees to reach the top of the wage scale to six years instead of the current eight years. For part-time, on-call supplemental employees, the starting pay would increase to $20 per hour, up from $15.78 — appearing to match the other companies’ proposal for temporary employees.
Stellantis also would make Juneteenth a paid holiday, as GM also suggested.
On the surface a 14.5% pay increase to get over $37 per hour would be a positive outcome if it was paired with a cost-of-living wage adjustment, said Lynda Jackson, 36, of Detroit, a team leader at Stellantis’ Jefferson North Assembly Plant in Detroit and 13-year UAW member. But given that a late-July proposal from her employer suggested workers sharing a larger portion of health-care costs, she would want to see a more complete picture.
“The 14.5% increase,” she said, “doesn’t mean anything if we can’t see what it is you’re trying to take away.”
She also wants to see workers like herself receive a pension like the workers before her did and for supplemental workers to have job security.
“I kind of feel like they threw something together because of the unfair practice charge the UAW put on them. Like, ‘Hey, we offered them something.’ There wasn’t a whole lot of substance.”
With less than a week before the 11:59 p.m. expiration time on Thursday, Stellantis is the final of the Detroit Three automakers to submit its proposal after the UAW provided its demands last month. Last week, the UAW submitted unfair labor practice charges against Stellantis and GM with the National Labor Relations Board, because it still had not received an economic counterproposal from those two companies.
Fain this week said the union will strike any of the companies with which it doesn’t have a tentative agreement by the time the current contract expires.
bnoble@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @BreanaCNoble