Talks Continue, But UAW Dug In for Long Walkout

A settlement in the UAW strikes against Detroit’s three automakers remains elusive even as the companies and the union continue to exchange proposals and hold intense discussions but reach no breakthroughs on pensions, wages and other critical issues.

Speaking with reporters at a rain-soaked union rally Thursday in downtown Detroit, Mike Booth, head of the UAW’s General Motors department, says there are still substantial differences around wages, pensions and retiree health care. The issues are critical to whether union members can retire with a measure of comfort and security, he says.

GM’s offer of a 20% pay increase now on the table does not go far enough, Booth says as he waves off a video plea from GM Executive Vice President GM Gerald Johnson, who contends the automaker is making a generous offer but cannot go much further without jeopardizing the company’s future plans and market share. The loss of market share would ultimately lead to the loss of union jobs. GM since has revised its proposed wage increase to 23% over four years, the same amount offered by Ford and Stellantis.

Booth, however, tells reporters he is willing to consider accepting a defined-contribution retirement plan rather than a defined-benefit plan, which was seen as the UAW’s preference at the start of the strike last month and alarmed Wall Street analysts.

The video of Johnson’s remarks about the negotiations echoed a speech earlier this week by Ford Executive Chairman Bill Ford Jr., in which he warns the strikes and the UAW’s demands threaten the automaker’s ability to compete in the future and undermine its financial health to the detriment of entire U.S. auto industry.

Meanwhile, UAW Secretary-Treasurer Margaret Mock says during the rally, which included striking Detroit casino workers and strikers from Michigan Blue Cross-Blue Shield, “Our strike fund is strong and we’re here for the long haul.”

Neither Booth nor Mock will say whether the UAW will expand the current strikes, which now involve 34,000 of the 150,000 union members employed by GM, Ford and Chrysler parent Stellantis. The three automakers also have laid off more than 5,000 union members because of strike-related disruptions to production and supply chains.

Union officials, however, confirm the 120 UAW members at the ZF axle plant in Tuscaloosa, AL, have ratified a new four-year contract and returned to work. The strike at the plant threatened operations at a nearby Mercedes-Benz assembly plant.

Mock tells Wards she does not believe the effort by GM and Ford executives to appeal directly to union members will have any impact on the negotiations. “It won’t work,” she says. “It will only make people angry.”

Unlike Ford and GM, Stellantis appears to prefer to stay out the public debate on the strikes, triggered by UAW President Shawn Fain’s aggressive – and surprisingly successful – campaign to highlight the record profits of Detroit’s automakers and the money they have spent on stock buybacks, dividends and executive compensation.

But Stellantis now says the company’s presentation at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in January, a showcase for the hardware, software and technology developed by automakers from the world over in recent years, has become a casualty of the company’s labor troubles.

“With a focus on preserving business fundamentals in the wake of ongoing UAW negotiations, Stellantis is canceling its CES 2024 display and presentations as part of the contingency plan implemented since the beginning of the UAW strike,” the company says in a statement issued by its corporate headquarters in Amsterdam.

Stellantis says the company is “executing comprehensive countermeasures to mitigate financial impacts and preserve capital” in the face of the confrontation with the UAW and the targeted strike, which has tied up critical operations.

Fain says the union will not be adding to the targeted strikes, but he advises union members to stand by at GM’s big truck plants in Arlington, TX, and Flint, MI, as well as Stellantis workers in Sterling Heights, MI, and Kokomo, IN, and workers at the Ford Rouge complex outside Detroit.

During his weekly Facebook Live appearance, Fain says negotiations are reaching a critical point, but the union ought not be afraid to press for more gains, noting the current contract offers from all three companies remain short on wages, pensions, tiers, job security and treatment of temporary workers now and in the future.

“Don’t let them divide us,” says Fain, noting one of GM’s millionaire executives appeared on a video this week saying the company had nothing more to give. But the very next day GM offered more money, he says.

Fain says the union is not just looking for a record contract, but a contract that will recover much of what union members have lost in the past decade and lift the wages of autoworkers in non-union plants, “thousands” of whom are now expressing an interest in joining the UAW.

For now, the negotiations continue to grind forward with new offers from both Stellantis and GM, while Ford continues to “sulk” over the UAW strike at its Kentucky Truck Plant even as it found $600 million for dividends to pay owners of Ford stock, Fain says.