Driving Change: UAW Stands Up To Big Three Automakers Corporate Greed
Where do federal bailouts end and corporate greed take over?
America spent about $80 billion to rescue GM, Chrysler, and their auto-part suppliers when they were close to bankruptcy (The Week) and autoworkers made many concessions.
“The “Big Three” automakers have made $21 billion in the first six months of 2023. Corporate CEO pay went up 40%.
Corporations talk about how workers being treated fairly is going to drive up the cost of vehicles.
In the last four years, the cost of vehicles went up 30%; our wages went up 6%.
This boils down to one thing: It’s corporate greed. It’s not our contracts, it’s not our members’ demands.
Either you stand for a billionaire class where everybody else gets left behind, or you stand for the working class” – Shawn Fain
Follow the federal bailout, corporate profits and the UAW’s demand for fairness against corporate greed with this relationship map.
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Why are the United Auto Workers threatening to strike?
“Our union’s membership is clearly fed up with living paycheck to paycheck while the corporate elite and billionaire class continue to make out like bandits,” said UAW President Shawn Fain. – CNN
- The union and its 150,000 autoworkers are fighting for big pay and compensation improvements at the Big Three automakers.
- Under new UAW President Shawn Fain, the union is demanding a 40 percent wage increase over four years, shorter working hours and the restoration of many benefits that workers lost during contract negotiations around the time of the Great Recession in 2008.
- They say workers’ wages haven’t kept up with inflation, and they point to high executive pay and strong company profits as reasons they are due a big raise.
- Wages for full-timers at the Big Three currently range from roughly $18 an hour to $32 an hour, depending on seniority, according to the union. Starting wages are about $10 lower than what they would be had they kept up with inflation since 2007, the UAW says. – Washington Post
Stand up for yourselves
As the automakers are making contingency plans, so is the union, filing unfair labor practice charges against GM and Stellantis for bargaining in bad faith. It’s a common tactic unions deploy in anticipation of a strike to discourage the companies from hiring permanent replacements. “They’re getting ready, so we’re getting ready,” said Fain on Facebook Live.
“I’ve got two words for every Big Three worker out there listening: ‘Stand up!’ “Be ready to stand up for yourselves. For your families. For your communities. Be ready to stand up against corporate greed, against management’s lies, against distortions in the media.
“Corporations want us to believe there’s nothing we can do to stop our race to the bottom,” Fain said. “Never forget that when our labor isn’t valued, we have the power to withhold it. We have the fundamental power of a strike. The cost of a strike might be high, but the cost of doing nothing is much higher.” – Jacobin
TakeAway: Stand up for yourselves. For your families. For your communities. Be ready to stand up against corporate greed!
Deepak
DemLabs
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The negotiations and potential strike demands – MSU Today
- Eliminate tiers on wages and benefits. Currently, domestic automakers have a tiered wage system in which those in the first tier earn about $28 per hour, while those hired after 2007 are in the second tier and earn about $16 to $19 per hour. The number of second-tier workers is growing, which is fueling this contract demand.
- Increase wages by 46% over four years
- Restore cost-of-living allowances
- Establish a defined benefit pension for all workers
- Reestablish retiree medical benefits
- Ensure the right to strike over plant closures
- Create a working family protection program
- Make all temporary workers permanent
- Institute more paid time off
- Significantly increase retiree pay
- Possibly institute a 32-hour work week
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