After weeks of strikes, several US car giants are planning a 25 percent pay increase for their workforce. A few days after ford he also agreed Stellantis-Company reached a corresponding deal with the UAW union with President Shawn Fain.
Like Thursday’s agreement with Ford, this contract is for 4.5 years and includes record wage increases, the UAW said Saturday. The agreement includes a 25 percent wage increase for employees and an agreement to reopen the automaker’s assembly plant in Belvidere, Illinois. In total, the automobile manufacturer has committed to new investments of $19 billion in US operations and to the creation of 5,000 additional jobs.
Stellantis is in Europe with brands like Peugeot, Opel and Fiat represented in the USA These include Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep, among others. Ford agreed to a 25 percent pay increase with the UAW on Wednesday agreed on the more than four-year term of the new collective agreement. However, the agreements still have to be approved by the union members.
The agreements with Ford and Stellantis increase the pressure on the third US car giant General Motors (GM), as its competitors’ factories on strike are now resuming production. The auto union has not yet been able to reach an agreement with GM. Therefore, the UAW announced that it would expand the strike to include General Motors’ largest plant in North America in Spring Hill, Tennessee, with a total of 4,000 employees. Economic losses from the UAW strike total $9.3 billion, according to Anderson Economic Group estimates.
The UAW’s original demand was 40 percent – on the grounds that the income of the top management of the large car companies had grown by this amount. Before the strike began, car manufacturers were ready for increases of up to 20 percent over a period of four and a half years. The union decided to gradually expand the strikes to other plants. This meant that the companies did not know which of their factories might be affected next.
US President Joe Biden (80), who expressed solidarity with workers at Stellantis, Ford and GM at the start of the strike, welcomed the agreement between the UAW and the Chrysler parent company. In a statement, Biden said the contract was a testament to the power of unions and collective bargaining, which created essential jobs for the middle class.