UAW strike deadline nears, despite contract offers from GM and Ford

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) said Thursday that she is speaking with the Big Three automakers and the union in an effort to head off a strike, telling Bloomberg News that she is “concerned about where it’s headed.” The White House is also involved, having assigned longtime Democratic adviser Gene Sperling as its liaison to the union and automakers.

A strike against one or all of the Big Three would destabilize an industry that contributes about 3 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) and deliver a blow to the economies of automaking states in the Midwest and beyond.

United Auto Workers authorize leadership to call strike against Big Three

In a sign of the union’s particular animosity toward Stellantis, the UAW said Thursday that it would hold a protest rally at the company’s engine plant in Trenton, Mich.

In the event of a strike, the union would pay workers $500 a week out of the UAW’s $825 million strike fund. To make that money last longer, the UAW could decide to strike only against one or more engine plants, which would cripple overall production without requiring every factory to be shut down, Ambrose Conroy, an auto expert and founder of Seraph Consulting, said in an interview.

The union and its fiery new president, Shawn Fain, have made big demands, including a 40 percent pay raise over four years and the restoration of benefits that workers gave up around the time of the Great Recession. The automakers have said that they can’t give the workers everything they want and still remain competitive against non-unionized automakers such as Tesla.

GM said the 10 percent wage increase it is offering most of its UAW workers over the life of the contract would be the largest increase since 1999 and 67 percent higher than the last wage hike in the 2019 contract. Workers would also get two lump-sum payments equal to 3 percent of their wages and a $6,000 one-time “inflation-recognition payment.” The company would also give workers a $5,500 bonus for ratifying the contract.

“Our offer includes well-deserved wage improvements that far exceed the 2019 agreement and reward you for your hard work. We still have work to do, but we wanted to make this offer to show our good faith efforts to keep the process moving,” GM said in a letter to employees Thursday.

Last week, the UAW filed complaints with the National Labor Relations Board against GM and Stellantis, accusing the companies of refusing to bargain in good faith. The companies denied the charges.

On Thursday, Fain dismissed GM’s offer.

“After refusing to bargain in good faith for the past six weeks, only after having federal labor board charges filed against them, GM has come to the table with an insulting proposal that doesn’t come close to an equitable agreement for America’s autoworkers,” Fain said in a statement. “The clock is ticking. Stop wasting our members’ time. Tick tock.”

Talks with Ford are at a more advanced stage. The company submitted its offer to the UAW last week, including a 9 percent wage increase over the four-year contract and a lump-sum payment equaling 6 percent of wages. It would also pay $12,000 in “cost-of-living adjustment bonuses” over the life of the contract, and would allow employees to reach the top wage level at a faster pace than in the past. And like GM, Ford would give temporary workers an immediate 20 percent raise to $20 an hour. The status of temp workers has been a sticking point in the negotiations.

“Overall, this offer is significantly better than what we estimate workers earn at Tesla and foreign automakers operating in the U.S.,” Ford Chief Executive Jim Farley said in a statement last week.

Last week, Fain rejected the offer, but the UAW president has become more personally involved in talks with Ford in an effort to reach a deal, according to a person familiar with the negotiations. On Wednesday the union submitted a counteroffer to Ford, the person said.

Stellantis this week said its offer would arrive by the end of the week. “We look forward to continuing our discussions to reach an agreement that better positions the business to meet the challenges of the U.S. marketplace and secures the future for all of our employees, their families and our company,” Stellantis said.