The United Auto Workers union announced Friday that negotiations with Ford Motor Co., General Motors Co. and Chrysler parent company Stellantis are making progress and a strike against the companies that began three weeks ago will not expand.
Union President Sean Fein said in an online video that GM has agreed to include battery factory workers in its domestic contract with UAWGM, but previously did not include these workers because they are employed in a joint venture. He said that he said he could not. between GM and battery suppliers.
“Here’s the bottom line: We’re winning,” said Fain, wearing a T-shirt that read “Eat the Rich.” “We are making progress and heading in the right direction.”
Fein said unions had threatened to strike at GM’s plant in Arlington, Texas, which produces some of the most profitable sport-utility vehicles, including the Cadillac Escalade and Chevrolet. In response, GM said it had made concessions to battery factory workers. Tahoe. In this factory he has 5,300 employees.
GM has started production at one battery factory in Ohio and is building other battery factories in Tennessee and Michigan. Workers at the Ohio plant voted overwhelmingly to represent the UAW and are continuing to negotiate a separate contract with Ultium Cells, a joint venture GM owns with LG Energy Solutions.
Ford is building two joint venture battery plants in Kentucky and one in Tennessee, and is building a fourth battery plant in Michigan that will be wholly owned by Ford. Stellantis just started building a battery factory in Indiana and is currently looking for a site.
Mr Fein said all three companies had agreed to significantly improve their offer to the union, including higher pay raises and a higher cost of living.
GM did not immediately respond to questions about its battery factory employees. “Negotiations are ongoing and we remain committed to finding solutions to address outstanding issues,” the company said in a statement. “Our goal remains to reach an agreement that rewards our employees and sets GM up for success into the future.”
After Fein’s speech, the stock prices of the three companies rose. GM stock rose more than 2% in late afternoon trading. Stellantis rose about 3%. Ford rose more than 1%.
The strike began on September 15, when workers walked out of three factories in Michigan, Ohio, and Missouri, each owned by one of the three companies.
The outage was later expanded to 38 spare parts distribution centers owned by GM and Stellantis, and later to a Ford plant in Chicago and another GM plant in Lansing, Michigan. About 25,000 of the 150,000 UAW members employed by three Michigan automakers were employed. Strike as of Friday morning.
The contract battle has become a national political issue. President Biden visited picket lines in suburban Detroit last month. The next day, former President Donald J. Trump spoke at a nonunion factory north of Detroit and criticized Biden and UAW leaders. Other elected officials and candidates have expressed support for the UAW or criticized the strike.
When negotiations began in July, Fein initially argued that workers’ wages had not kept up with inflation over the past 15 years and that chief executives at the three companies had seen pay increases at roughly the same rate. and demanded a 40% wage increase. size.
Automakers that have posted near-record profits over the past decade are all offering increases of just over 20% over four years. Company executives said anything more would threaten their ability to compete with nonunion companies like Tesla and invest in new electric vehicle models and battery factories.
The union also wants to eliminate a wage system that requires new workers to earn just over half the UAW’s maximum wage (currently $32 an hour) and work eight years to reach the maximum wage. They also want cost-of-living adjustments in the event of rising inflation, pensions for more workers, company-paid retirement health care, shorter working hours, and the right to strike in response to factory closures.
In a separate statement, Ford and Stellantis said they had agreed to raise cost of living, shorten the time it takes for employees to reach maximum wage and several other measures sought by the union.
Mark Stewart, Stellantis’ chief operating officer for North America, said the company and the union are “making progress, but there are still gaps that need to be filled.”
The union is also calling on companies to convert temporary workers, who currently earn up to $20 an hour, to permanent employees.
The strike at only selected locations at all three companies is a change from the past, when the UAW typically called for strikes at all locations at one company the union had chosen to target. While strikes in just a few locations hurt companies, idled factories producing some of the most profitable models, economic damage to the broader economies of affected states is limited.
It could also help preserve the union’s $825 million strike fund, which pays striking workers while they are out of work. The union pays striking workers $500 a week.
GM announced this week that the first two weeks of the strike cost it $200 million. Three automakers and some suppliers said they had to lay off hundreds of workers because the strike disrupted supply and demand for certain parts.
Santur Nerkar Contributed to the report.