Those “20%” raises are spread over 4 years which averages to ~5%/year, barely keeping ahead of inflation. The media throwing that out without quantifying it is a blatant attempt by the corporate press to breed animosity towards the unions and paint them as greedy.
And to help keep GM from going bankrupt they took concessions a decade ago or whatever that they never got back. Now they want back what they had and some more to account for the ridiculous inflation and corporate greed we’ve seen since then across all of corporate America. I don’t see why that’s so unreasonable.
Just wait until “the strike is hurting the holy economy” narrative gets going.
Just wait until Congress passes a bipartisan law to make it illegal for them to strike.
Yup. All Republicans and exactly enough Democrats. And complicit anti-union centrists will be like “don’t blame Manchin! Look at all the other people we agree with who he voted with!”
Manchin is probably providing cover for a few corporate Dems. If it wasn’t him, it would be one of them, I’m sure. We just really need to get corporate money out of politics.
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Is that you, Florida teachers?
Just wait until “the strike is hurting the holy economy” narrative gets going.
Fuck
I used to work at Electronic Arts for 13 years. Doesn’t sound very different. Large public corporations will do anything to make profit, including layoffs.
Remember everyone: Unions and strikes are cool, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
The automakers made around 5 BILLION USD in stock buybacks this last year alone.
Fuck then up. Workers need to put the hurt on their useless CEOs.
i can here it now, more cries of “nobody wants to work anymore”
Nobody wanted to work before, either. It’s why you have to pay them to do it.
If I had my expenses covered I’d still do some kind of work. Some things I just enjoy doing.
Some things I just enjoy doing.
Those are called hobbies.
And every time I’ll say to that: “Nobody wants to work in shit conditions with shit pay”.
Nobody wants to work anymore…
The limited strikes will help to preserve the union’s $825 million strike fund, which would run dry in about 11 weeks if all workers walked out. But Fain said more plants could be added if the companies don’t make better offers.
Even Fain has called the union’s demands audacious, but he maintains the automakers are raking in billions and can afford them. He scoffed at company statements that costly settlements would force them to raise vehicle prices, saying labor accounts for only 4% to 5% of vehicle costs.
Smart idea: ask for a lot and strike immediately. Don’t wait and strike all at once. Pull more workers off the job if they refuse to negotiate, but start out slow.
That allows time for the board to ask management wtf is going on, because they are slowly losing money.
It also a great move for getting support from the general population. It makes it hard to villanize the Union when they are being reasonable.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The strike will likely chart the future of the union and of America’s homegrown auto industry at a time when U.S. labor is flexing its might and the companies face a historic transition from building internal combustion automobiles to making electric vehicles.
Instead, the UAW targeted a handful of factories to prod company negotiators to raise their offers, which were far lower than union demands of 36% wage increases over four years.
Starting in 2007, workers gave up cost-of-living raises, defined benefit pensions for new hires, and wage tiers were created as the UAW tried to help the companies avoid financial trouble ahead of and during the Great Recession.
“We’re the ones for the last 20 years who have been kind of hoping things would change and we would get back some of the stuff that we lost with the bankruptcy,” said Tommy Wolikow, who delivers parts to an assembly line at GM’s pickup truck plant in Flint, Michigan.
The automakers, however, say they’re facing unprecedented demands on capital as they develop and build new electric vehicles while at the same time making gas-powered cars, SUVs and trucks to pay the bills.
GM CEO Mary Barra told workers in a letter Thursday that the company is offering historic wage increases and new vehicle commitments at U.S. factories.
The original article contains 1,009 words, the summary contains 217 words. Saved 78%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
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I don’t know, but the US auto industry mostly assembles the final vehicle from my understanding. The parts are frequently made elsewhere and shipped in. They can say it’s made in the US because the assembly is completed here.
Imported trucks need to be built in the US, but domestic trucks can be built outside the US.
Won’t automakers be moving their production lines aboard as result ? There are companies that moved production abroad to reduce costs or/and not have to care about working conditions. Just saying.
Thanks to the chicken tax, they’ll have to keep some manufacturing in the USA. Maybe this will be what finally kills it.
Ain’t the chicken tax already being evaded by Ford making trucks in Turkey ?
They kinda already did, the big automakers fighting unions are arguably what caused Detroit’s current situation. I wonder if they can outsource even more or if they’re stuck for some reason.
