“There is a profound difference between now and 2007 because GM and the UAW have built a solid working relationship”, Shaiken said. GM’s financial success adds pressure on UAW leaders to strike a good deal or face the risk that any proposed contract will be rejected by rank-and-file members. At the Lake Orion plant, a few workers are technically employed by a separate company, called GM Subsystems Manufacturing, which was established in 2009. FCA’s UAW labor costs fell from $5.5 billion in 2007 to $3 billion past year and GM’s fell from $9.4 billion to $7.1 billion during that time, according to data from the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich.
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The UAW had extended GM’s current contract, which was set to expire on September 14, while it focused on a labor deal with Fiat Chrysler.
The UAW started discussions again with the Detroit-based company Thursday. The UAW will need to make them happy to get any deal ratified.
The new contract will do away with the two-tier wage system through raising second tier wages to $29 per hour over the next eight years or less.
That said, if a strike does occur, Bloomberg’s David Welch and Bob Van Voris appear to be unique in reporting (though quite late in their writeup) the UAW’s cynical strategy. “Neither party wants to strike – it hurts both sides”.
“Your UAW-GM bargaining team has served official notice to GM terminating the National Agreement and Salaried Master Agreement effective at 11:59 p.m. Sunday October 25”, the union said in a Facebook posting to the membership about 3 pm. on Saturday.
They could get a proposed tentative agreement, they could extend the deadline, they could walk out and go on strike, or the company could lock them out.
Corker took a lead role in speaking out against the UAW before the 2014 election, and has been a critic of the union since the auto industry bailout during the Great Recession.
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“A key objective for our local union always has been, and still is, moving toward collective bargaining for the goal of reaching a multi-year contract between Volkswagen and employees in Chattanooga”, said Mike Cantrell, president of Local 42. The union’s strategy would be to minimize the number of workers it has to pay from its strike fund, he said. Workers for Subsystems Manufacturing are employed at many GM plants to do work previously done by outside suppliers or traditional employees.
