A 46% pay raise. A 32-hour workweek with 40 hours of pay. A restoration of traditional pensions. The demands that a more combative United Auto Workers union has pressed on General Motors, Stellantis, and Ford—demands that even the UAW's own president calls "audacious"— are edging it closer to a strike when its contract ends Sept. 14, per the AP. The automakers, which are making billions in profits, have dismissed the UAW's wish list. They argue that its demands are unrealistic at a time of fierce competition from Tesla and lower-wage foreign automakers as the world shifts from internal combustion engines to electric vehicles. The wide gulf between the sides could mean a strike against one or more of the automakers, which could send already-inflated vehicle prices even higher.
A potential strike by 146,000 UAW members comes against the backdrop of increasingly emboldened US unions of all kinds. The number of strikes and threatened strikes is growing, involving Hollywood actors and writers, sizable settlements with railroads, and major concessions by corporate giants like UPS. Shawn Fain, the pugnacious new leader of the UAW, has characterized the contract talks with Detroit's automakers as a form of war between billionaires and ordinary middle-class workers. Last month, in an act of showmanship during a Facebook Live event, Fain condemned a contract proposal from Stellantis as "trash," then tossed a copy of it into a wastebasket, "where it belongs," he said.
The Detroit Three have emerged as robust profit-makers. They've collectively posted net income of $164 billion over the past decade, $20 billion of it this year. The CEOs of all three major automakers earn multiple millions in annual compensation. Speaking last month to Ford workers at a plant in Louisville, Kentucky, Fain complained about one standard for the corporate class and another for ordinary workers. "They get out-of-control salaries," he said. "They get pensions they don't even need. They get top-rate health care. They work whatever schedule they want. The majority of our members do not get a pension nowadays. It's crazy. We get substandard health care. We don't get to work remotely." UAW members have voted overwhelmingly to authorize its leaders to call a strike.
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So, too, have Canadian auto workers, whose contract ends four days later and who've designated Ford as their target. The UAW hasn't said whether it will select one target automaker. It could strike all three, though doing so could deplete the union's strike fund in under three months. On the other hand, if a strike lasted even just 10 days, it would cost the three automakers nearly a billion dollars, per the Anderson Economic Group. Last week, the union filed charges of unfair labor practices against Stellantis and GM, which it said have yet to offer counterproposals. As for Ford, Fain asserted that its response, by rejecting most of the union's demands, "insults our very worth." All three automakers have countered that the union's charges are baseless and that they're seeking a fair deal that would allow them to invest in the future. Much more here.
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