DETROIT — A 46% pay raise. A 32-hour week with 40 hours of pay. A remediation of conventional pensions.
The needs that a more combative United Auto Workers union hasactually pushed on General Motors, Stellantis and Ford — needs that even the UAW’s own president calls “audacious” — are edging it closer to a strike when its agreement ends Sept.14
The carmanufacturers, which are making billions in earnings, have dismissed the UAW’s desire list. They argue that its needs are impractical at a time of strong competitors from Tesla and lower-wage foreign carmanufacturers as the world shifts from internal combustion engines to electrical automobiles. The broad gulf inbetween the sides might indicate a strike versus one or more of the carmanufacturers, which might sendout already-inflated car rates even greater.
A capacity strike by 146,000 UAW members comes versus the background of significantly pushed U.S. unions of all kinds. The number of strikes and threatened strikes is growing, including Hollywood stars and authors, large settlements with railways and significant concessions by business giants like UPS.
Shawn Fain, who won the UAW’s presidency this spring in the veryfirst direct election by members, has set high expectations and guaranteed union members that they can attain substantial gains if they are ready to walk picket lines.
In a speech to a Labor Day parade crowd in Detroit on Monday, Fain stated that if the business wear’t come up with a reasonable agreement, “come Sept. 14, we’re going to take action to get it by any suggests needed.”
Fain hasactually defined the agreement talks with Detroit carmanufacturers as a kind of war inbetween billionaires and regular middle-class employees. Last month, in an act of showmanship throughout a Facebook Live occasion, Fain condemned a agreement proposition from Stellantis as “trash” — and tossed a copy of it into a wastebasket, “where it belongs,” he stated.
Over the past years, the Detroit Three have emerged as robust profit-makers. They’ve jointly published web earnings of $164 billion over the past years, $20 billion of it this year. The CEOs of all 3 significant carmanufacturers make numerous millions in yearly payment.
Speaking last month to Ford employees at a plant in Louisville, Kentucky, Fain grumbled about one requirement for the business class and another for normal employees.
“They get out-of-control wages,” he stated. “They get pensions they wear’t even require. They get top-rate health care. They work whatever schedule they desire. The bulk of our members do not get a pension nowadays. It’s insane. We get second-rate health care. We puton’t get to work fromanotherlocation.”
UAW members have voted extremely to license its leaders to call a strike. So, too, have Canadian automobile employees, whose agreements end 4 days lateron and who haveactually designated Ford as their target.
The UAW hasn’t stated whether it will choose one target carmanufacturer. It might strike all 3, though doing so might diminish the union’s strike fund in under 3 months.
On the other hand, if a strike lasted even simply 10 days, it would expense the 3 carmanufacturers almost a billion dollars, the Anderson Economic Group hasactually determined. During a 40-day UAW strike in 2019, GM alone lost $3.6 billion.
Last week, the union submitted charges of unreasonable labor pra