If the UAW wants to prevent job losses to Mexico, it should insist that a UAW affiliate represents any Mexican GM plant. GM Mexico holds wages down because unions are organized by plant, not over the company. Unions have no leverage. It holds back Mexican wages and prevents economic progress for the border region.
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The UAW bankrupted small businesses and caused many people to lose their jobs all so they could get a wage increase that won't make up for the wages lost striking? UAW leaders had no business striking when they had absolutely zero leverage.
@Kohl They got what they wanted, didn't they? That would indicate that they did indeed have leverage. The billions that GM lost in the strike qualifies as that.
As to wages lost during the strike, this is a multiyear contract. They will get back more than they lost because the union paid part of their lost wages during the strike. besides, there is a thing called respect and it has real value.
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@WillyD The UAW did not get what they wanted here. GM lost billions and the UAW lost 100's of millions in wages. There were no winners, only losers. In the long-run all this strike did was further incentivize car companies to send even more production overseas.
It's unbelievable that GM is going all-in on trucks and SUVs again...just like in the mid-2000s. So now there's crossovers, as well, but the motive is the same: bigger vehicles mean bigger profits.
As new vehicle sales continue to decrease, GM is positioning themselves to be less competitive when people are ready to start buying new vehicles again. People who may have considered a Volt, Cruze, Sonic, or Impala are going to look at other automakers. Many of those people may ultimately buy an SUV or crossover once they get to the dealer lots and can compare them, which is a win for GM's competitors.
Many of GM's competitors have also invested more in making sure the dealership experience is better and more consistent. Compare a Toyota dealership to a Chevrolet dealership, or better yet, compare multiple Toyota dealerships to each other and multiple Chevrolet dealerships to each other. The Toyota dealerships will be more consistent and generally higher-quality than the Chevrolet dealerships. This is yet another area where GM could have invested some of their immense profits but failed to do so.
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Hopefully the union members will save the profit sharing and signing bonuses to carry their families through any future strikes.
1
Sounds like this is good for workers.
However, the issue of reduced health care expenses for employees means more health care costs are baked into auto costs for consumers.
The point here is that this is a union representing workers for a corporation not for benefits conferred by a public entity such as a federal, state or even a county. So the nobility of the strife and the measured response of management present in clarity followed by some kind of agreement that has some semblance of equivalence and respect for the process is impressive.
Just how further down the road this reverberates is unclear at this American juncture. But it is a hopeful sign that a major American corporations synonymous with American transportation might and creativity is actively calculating just how they can escape the fossil fuel.hole they know they are falling Down and I so applaud at my fellow Americans. : You on the.factory floor, you with a short end of the stick , you in management who understands just how important IS the renewal of General.Motors, As an uncontested top tier of world.class.tranportation. God bless you all.
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All workers should have good union protection like the auto workers.
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@ivo skoric when did the autoworkers get a good union?
We need more people with guts to fight for what is right! Go Warren!! We don't 4 years of "go along to get along" We need massive change and that requires a spine to stand up to the headwinds we will face. Just like ACA sometimes you need to drag the scared people across the finish line to prove to them that it will be better & worth it.
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Here’s to hoping GM sticks with building affordable efficient cars in America! Never owned a GM car in my life until yesterday. We’re all in on the Bolt! Nice car. The corporation has a real opportunity to offer any driver a zippy driving experience at an affordable price. Keep the partnership with the SK electric drive train and battery manufacture strong and keep innovating.
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Let us all support the American UAW and buy American made cars by Ford, GM and Chrysler. Only them will our automobile producers be healthy again with decent salaries for its workers. So what’s the problem folks? Let’s do it. I did.
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It makes me sick that GM bought back $10 billion worth of stock since 2015. Stock buybacks are an admission by a business that they have no vision. The effect is that the stock price is supposed to go up, which in a sense behaves like a dividend. But GM's stock performance over the past 4 years has been fairly flat. What a waste of capital. And what's more important to GM than human capital? That $10 billion could have built a few plants in the US and paid workers for years to come. Instead they flushed it down the equity markets toilet. Really, this anti-worker/anti-American attitude by corporate America is all the fault of the Republican Party and the stupid Americans who vote for these charlatans.
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@Aurora
Yeah - that's a great idea! Spend $10 billion to build more factories when the company already has more production capacity than it needs.
A business adds capacity when market demand (or the anticipation of market demand) calls for it.
This is why Trump's corporate tax cuts had so little impact on investment. Yes - companies had additional cash to spend, but for the most part, they saw no need to invest it in plant and equipment, because they already had all the capacity they needed.
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After not enough attention, brave unions went on strike for their temporary buddies, same job, 5 yrs, half the pay.
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Extortion and conspiracy are rewarded and the perpetrators will be praised by the dozen leftists running to destroy capitalism. How does any publicly traded company justify consorting with $63/hr employees when just south of the border the same job gets $1.90? Mary Barra and the entire GM board need to be fired before they have a chance to resign.
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@from where I sit. Management signed the contract too. If the board doesn’t like it fire them. The GM workers are hero’s Now we need a general public sector strike across the country to bring the corporate terrorists and their elected sycophants to their knees. That would be a good start
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@From Where I Sit
Mary Barra is paid millions per year. The "temporary" factory workers who make her salary possible were paid minimum wage for the same jobs "permanent" employees got twice as much for. Unfairness isn't a basic requirement for the continued existence of capitalism. As Winston Churchill said, "Regulated capitalism is an excellent system. Unregulated capitalism is a disaster." Or would you prefer fascism? The government could control production and wages. We know how well that worked out.
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@Linda
The basic fact remains: If someone else will do your job for less, you are overpaid. That's how markets function. Your pay is determined by the value an employer places on your labor. Not what you'd like to make, not what you need to support a family (a decision in which your employer likely had no input),
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What does the tentative contract provide for the furloughed employees of the parts manufacturers, the affected shipping companies, the impacted businesses that serve auto workers? The UAW doesn’t care a lick about any of them.
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Why, they should unionize, too!
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@From Where I Sit
I am ignorant, so I'm asking. Could not those workers also unionize?
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@From Where I Sit They could unionize. What’s stopping them?
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One other union of teachers used a weeklong strike to cement a new deal recently: UTLA - public school teachers in Los Angeles.
Jay
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It is important to realize that what allowed the UAW to go on strike is a tariff. There has been 25% import tax on foreign made pick ups and large SUVs (technically both are light trucks) since 1964
Tariffs are regularly denounced in the NY Times but they saved the Union. GM makes money on pick ups - precisely because of the tariff - and barely breaks even on passenger cars . Those, with their 2.5% import tax are exposed to competition from low wage countries
Here is how El Pais reports the settlement
"This is the longest strike that affects GM operations since 1970. The unions claimed a greater part of the company's benefits through an increase in bonuses, better health coverage and guarantees that the Production will not be relocated to other countries with cheaper labor, following the closure of four factories announced in November by the multinational."
El Pais , today
Note : guarantees that the Production will not be relocated to other countries with cheaper labor,
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It's good to see workers getting higher wages, albeit modest increases for now. It's hard not to believe that at a big part of the reason it is that this country is finally taking a hard line on unlimited numbers of illegal immigrants swarming in from south of the border and their resultant effect of depressing wages for blue collar Americans everywhere. The days of US businesses getting cheap labor from millions of non-US citizens are ending. This will not go unnoticed by working folks, and good luck to the Democratic Party (and their cheerleaders at the New York Times) in trying to convince voters that we need open borders, unlimited immigration, free heath care for illegal immigrants and the like. No thanks.
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@mpound
Your argument shines in the first sentences but descends into lying exaggeration toward the end when you characterize Dems and the NYTs as supporting “open borders” and the like. It sounds like you have been influenced by right wing lie strategists who twist a real issue into an untrue smear on your opponents. Some may believe your made-up conclusions, but probably not many.
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@mpound Couldn't have said it better.
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@mpound Oh good gosh... not even close. You must be joking... it is automation causing job loss, not illegal foreign labor. I know, the ads were up during the debate last night, but printing them ad nauseam here isn’t going to fool anyone. I’m UAW, GM, and what your putting forth is patently false.
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To the membership:
Compare the last pre-strike offer from the company, to this one. Was it worth it? Will you make up your lost wages during the term of this contract?
If yes, congratulations!! If no, why to you have a union?
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@Bruce1253
That is how the system works. It does seem to overall depress wages, but serves as a check on “runaway inflation”, or so the story may go.
Build a tiny $5K electric vehicle and I will buy one.
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The battery would cost more than twice that so don’t hold your breath.
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@Suzanne Wheat
They exist. They are called "bicycles."
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Let's hope the agreement benefits both sides, as they do need each other - the UAW seems to forget that. Time to get back to work, this strike affected thousands of non union suppliers, costing Michigan millions in tax revenue.
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Medicare for those who want it. I believe health care is a right but don’t force me into a system when I am satisfied with my current coverage. Remember if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor. That did not last for long.
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@Patrick
What does that even mean? Insurance companies are constantly changing which doctors, hospitals and healthcare providers are in their network. I have to pick a new doctor every three years or so because they drop out of network.
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Under a single payer system (aka "Medicare for all") you would keep your doctor. In fact, under single prayer there is a higher chance of being able to keep your doctor than under our current system because right now your doctor can change what insurance they take, cutting you off from them. Under a single payer system there is only 1 primary insurance and every doctor takes it, including your doctor, meaning you can see them until the day they retire.
This is also why we should not settle for the non-single payer, hybrid private/public, plans that some Democratic canidates are championing (and calling "Medicare for all" even though it is not).
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Hi Carrie. The government should resolve the issues you encounter. It is flat out wrong. All I ask is that I do not be forced into an unknown system when I am quite content @patrick
1
"G.M. entered the talks hoping to reduce its health care costs"
Medicare for all is even more important for the employers who pay top dollar for the best and most expensive health plans. All that waste isn't free.
What amazes me is that with all the employees and employers who should want Medicare for All, we still have such effective opposition from those looting the system.
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@Mark Thomason That's a feature of the system to them. Tying healthcare insurance to employment binds workers to their employers and makes it less likely for them to organize and win other concessions. Instituting Medicare for All will free workers around the country to leave less than ideal employment situations and pursue better opportunities.
Medicare for All will be a win for the workers of this country. And it might lower costs to employers, but they are correct to see this as a threat to their privileged position in society today.
53
Medicare for All will financially hobble the nation and severely damage employers. Only a few months ago, the NYTs explored the obscene cost of turnover. Even a minimum wage employee who departs causes direct and indirect costs of about $1,500. If that same employee damaged a $1,500 piece of equipment, you would immediately fire them and refuse to provide a reference. If they caused the loss of $1,500 in business, you’d immediately fire them and blacklist them against future employment. If they removed $1,500 from the till, you’d fire them as you waited for the police then prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law. Yet the anti-business left has long praised turnover, the costs be damned, and would suggest that a departing employee be wished well.
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@Mark Thomason
As Dan R said, employers may see this as a threat to their "privileged" position, which I think he means makes them more attractive to potential employees because they offer a better/Any insurance coverage as a perk to working for them.
The solution to this I suggest is that, when/If anyone in Congress finally finds the gravitas to write up a Medicare for all bill, that it is specified that all employers who Do currently offer insurance to their employees would then have to pay their employees' Medicare premiums in place of their present insurance, if the employee chooses Medicare instead.
I bet the Laissez-faire capitalist, greedy corporate suits end up paying Less off their bottom line for the Medicare premium than the "Cadillac" or even Yugo insurance plans they offer now.
1