The contract is incredibly convoluted, so there is ample reason for workers to be confused. The staffer argued that it is unlikely that GM will be hiring anyone as a permanent employee anyway-instead, any new hires will come in as temps at $16.67 an hour, roughly half of top pay.Īuto workers at Ford are now voting on a similar tentative agreement. The eight-year news was confirmed to Labor Notes by a UAW staffer who asked to speak on background. The union’s Highlights brochure did not mention the progression for new hires, but rather publicized only the gains for current workers. “My impression was that there was a four-year progression for everybody.” “I’m very surprised,” said Sean Crawford, a second-tier worker at GM’s Flint Truck Assembly. “This year I definitely was under the impression that everyone from here on out will be on a four-year progression to the top.” “I didn’t even know how you looked at that as a win. “In 2015, all I heard from the union was that they were going to bridge the gap between second- and first-tier pay, but then they came out with the eight-year progression in a four-year contract,” said Jessie Kelly, an apprentice mold maker at the GM Tech Center near Detroit. And GM also managed to increase its net income 56% to $2.6 billion in the second quarter, even after accounting for a $792 million charge related to a 2021 Chevy Bolt recall.This table from the contract shows that new hires will be on an eight-year track. Stellantis chief executive Carlos Tavares said the results were due to a “very strong focus” on profitability on the company’s earnings call.Īt Ford, net income soared to $3.7 billion in the first half of this year compared with a loss of $2.4 billion in the same period a year ago. Stellantis, the Amsterdam-headquartered global auto giant which sells under brands like Jeep, Fiat, and Peugeot, turned in a record $12.1 billion net profit in the first six months of the year. To his point, Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis made a combined $21 billion in profits in the first six months of 2023. And the only way the working class advances is if we stand together,” he said in a fiery Facebook Live Friday morning. “Our employers only value one thing, profit they do not value us. Even president Shawn Fain, newly elected after a series of scandals at union leadership, has called them “audacious.” But Fain also believes automakers’ rising profits justify a move to give workers a bigger slice of the pie. The UAW union’s demands are certainly aggressive. Rising profits lead to ‘audacious demands’ “We spent time in Detroit a few weeks ago and sense a ‘very nervous time’ across the auto industry as there is a lot riding on these negotiations,” Ives wrote of the situation. The UAW union’s moves have left automakers with a tough decision: either face a production-killing strike or risk a major increase in costs for the next decade. If anything close to a 40% wage increase is approved or agreed to, Ives writes, it would be a “major headwind on the cost front and ultimately in some way be passed down to the consumer.” That will likely force Ford, GM, and Stellantis to raise EV prices, which could lead to demand issues amid rising competition. But if negotiations take place and the automakers agree to a new contract with the UAW union that includes some or all of their demands, it will lead to “billions of incremental annual costs.” If they can’t reach an agreement with the UAW union and workers strike, there will be production delays and their EV ambitions will be put on hold, according to Ives. And with “EV competition rising across the board,” the analyst argued, “the timing could not be worse.”įord, GM, and Stellantis are essentially stuck between a rock and a hard place. Ives said a strike is now “very likely” because UAW leadership is under pressure to “deliver a big win” after the Teamsters union reached a lucrative contract agreement with UPS in July that secured wage increases for 340,000 workers, including a highly publicized $170,000 average salary for full-time drivers.
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