The escalated walkout began Saturday evening at a Spring Hill, Tennessee plant, GM’s largest in North America. Its nearly 4,000 workers join about 14,000 already striking at GM factories in Texas, Michigan and Missouri.
The pact includes 25% in general wage increases over the next 4 1/2 years for top assembly plant workers, with 11% coming once the deal is ratified.
The UAW’s move further escalates a labor dispute that’s in its sixth week and now has about 46,000 union workers off the job.
Union leaders want promises from the Big Three automakers that their wave of new electric vehicle battery plants will fall under the UAW’s contract and that workers at those plants will make UAW assembly wages of $32 an hour.
United Auto Workers union President Shawn Fain is expected to update members Friday afternoon on progress in contract talks with Detroit’s three automakers as movement was reported with General Motors.
IBJ reporter John Russell talks about his recent trip to Kokomo to learn how the union boss was shaped by his experiences there.
In just a few months, Shawn Fain has gone from obscurity to one of the most visible leaders in America, demanding that his workers get more concessions from the Big Three automakers after two decades of givebacks.
Labor historians say they cannot recall an instance when a sitting president has joined an ongoing strike, even during the tenures of the more ardent pro-union presidents such as Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry Truman.
The UAW’s initial list of demands was projected to cost each of the companies $80 billion over four years, according to people familiar with the companies’ estimates.
A strike against all three major automakers—General Motors, Stellantis and Ford—could cause damage not only to the industry as a whole but also to the Midwest economy, and could lead eventually to higher vehicle prices.
A strike of more than a couple of weeks would reduce still-tight supplies of vehicles on Detroit automakers’ dealer lots. With demand still strong, prices would rise.
The United Auto Workers union says it has filed unfair labor practice complaints against Stellantis and General Motors for failing to make counteroffers to the union’s economic demands.
The Teamsters said in a statement that 86% of the votes cast were in favor of ratifying the contract.
The Allied Pilots Association said that 73% of pilots who took part voted in favor of the four-year contract, which it valued at $9.6 billion.
The United Auto Workers union will present a long list to General Motors, Ford and Stellantis when it delivers economic demands to the companies this week, the union’s president says.
Drastic changes in consumer demands are driving labor unrest in diverse industries upended by technology, from actors and writers to UPS delivery drivers.
Some 340,000 UPS employees are inching toward a strike, threatening the largest work stoppage in over half a century, that could upend a part of the broader package delivery system that Americans have come to depend on.
Negotiations between the delivery company and the union representing 340,000 of its workers have been at a standstill for more than a week with a July 31 deadline for a new contract approaching fast.
As the industry undergoes a historic transition from internal combustion engines to EVs, the UAW sees this year’s contract as an opportunity to ensure representation in the industry’s jobs of the future.
The Teamsters represent more than half of the company’s workforce in the largest private-sector contract in North America. If a strike occurs, it would be the first since a 15-day walkout by 185,000 workers crippled the company a quarter-century ago.
