With a new president who wore an 'eat the rich' shirt, UAW won big

The United Auto Workers agreement with GM likely means the end of the strike. With 25% pay increases and cost-of-living adjustments, the deals add to a run of labor successes.

Public sentiment is pro-union »

How the UAW won a major victory and what it could mean for U.S. labor going forward

United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain’s aggressive tactics and rhetoric proved successful during the 6-week strike.

Christopher Wilson
·Senior Writer
Tue, October 31, 2023 

United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain, center left, and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, bottom center, after a rally for striking workers in Chicago on Oct. 7. (John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

The United Auto Workers announced a tentative agreement with General Motors on Monday, the union's third agreement in recent days that likely means the end of the six-week strike against Detroit’s Big 3 automakers. Their win came after an aggressive campaign from a new union chief that built on a string of recent labor victories.

Led by new president Shawn Fain, the UAW used what was called a “rolling strike” in which workers at different factories walked off the job at different times versus all the workers at the same time. The tentative contracts with Ford, GM and Stellantis that still need to be formally ratified include 25% pay increases over the course of the deal, cost-of-living adjustments and putting battery plant employees under the UAW agreement, a major step as automakers continue the transition to electric vehicles.
Who is Shawn Fain?

UAW President Shawn Fain and President Joe Biden on the picket line outside a GM distribution center in Belleville, Mich., in September. (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters)

Fain is the first UAW president directly elected by the membership and the head of an insurgent bloc; his election followed years of corruption by union leadership, including two former presidents embezzling millions. An electrician from Kokomo, Ind., Fain provided constant video updates to his membership via social media, breaking from previous approaches where the work was done behind closed doors. He was combative in his approach to automaker executives, pillorying their salaries while wearing an “EAT THE RICH” T-shirt and expressing a belief that billionaires shouldn’t exist.


"They look at me and they see some redneck from Indiana," Fain said in a speech earlier this month. "They look at you and see somebody they would never have over for dinner or let ride on their yacht or let fly on their private jet. They think they know us. But us autoworkers know better."

Fain also mixes in Scripture with his speeches, telling the Atlantic that his favorite verse was Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 and his favorite line from it was: “A cord of three strands is not easily broken.” Fain says that the passage “speaks about what life’s about: standing together and helping one another and loving one another.”

The UAW benefited from public support, with an August Gallup poll finding that 75% of Americans sided with the UAW in the labor dispute, while only 19% sided with the Big 3. They also had the backing of the White House, as President Biden became the first sitting president to ever join a picket line when he visited strikers in September. It was a move criticized by former President Obama’s auto industry task force head Steven Rattner, who called it “outrageous,” which shows some of the shift in the Democratic Party’s approach toward labor.

“The fact of the matter is that you guys, the UAW, you saved the automobile industry back in 2008 ... you made a lot of sacrifices,” Biden said while wearing a UAW hat. “You gave up a lot. And the companies were in trouble. Now they’re doing incredibly well and guess what? You should be doing incredibly well.”
Building on the win

Factory workers and UAW union members form a picket line outside a Ford Motor Co. plant on Oct. 14 in Louisville, Ky. (Michael Swensen/Getty Images)

The UAW victory follows a recent run of labor successes. In August, UPS averted what would have been a historically large strike by more than 300,000 drivers and warehouse employees represented by the Teamsters union, agreeing to higher wages and protections for workers like air-conditioning in delivery trucks. In September, the Writers Guild of America ended five months of striking with a deal that achieved nearly all of the union’s goals and was ratified by 99% of membership.

Those victories come in a climate with pro-union sentiment across the nation. The August Gallup poll found 67% support for unions overall, down from a high of 71% last year and still above the recent average. Fain is hoping for continued cross-union solidarity and is calling on other organizations to align their contract expirations with the UAW’s new deals, which are set to end on April 30, 2028, and would allow for a strike to begin on May Day, also celebrated as International Workers' Day.

"May Day was born out of the intense struggle by workers in the United States to win an eight-hour day. That's a struggle that is just as relevant today as it was in 1889,” Fain said at a speech Sunday night in Detroit, adding, “We invite unions around the country to align your contract expirations with our own so that together we can begin to flex our collective muscles.”

"If we are going to truly take on the billionaire class and rebuild the economy so that it starts to work for the benefit of the many and not the few, then it's important that we not only strike, but that we strike together.”

GM reaches tentative deal with UAW to end autoworkers strike, joining Big Three rivals Ford and Stellantis

Pras Subramanian
·Senior Reporter
Mon, October 30, 2023

GM (GM) has reportedly reached a tentative deal with the United Auto Workers (UAW), joining its rivals Ford (F) and Stellantis (STLA) in coming one step closer to putting behind an acrimonious labor dispute that has shut down key operations for over six weeks.

Details of GM's tentative agreement were not available, but Bloomberg reports the particulars of the deal mirror those agreed to by Ford and Stellantis. To recap, Ford and Stellantis have agreed to pay union workers 25% wage increases, reinstate COLA (cost of living adjustment) benefits, institute a three-year wage progression to top pay, convert temporary employees to full time, and end wage tiers among other benefits. GM declined to comment on the deal at this time given the sensitive nature of the discussions.

GM’s talks with the UAW reportedly took longer than its rivals because of pension payment obligations and conversion of workers from temp to full time, though it appears those issues have been resolved. The UAW stepped up its strikes against GM over the weekend, calling a strike at GM’s Spring Hill plant in Tennessee, where the Cadillac XT5, the Cadillac XT6, the Cadillac Lyriq EV, and the GMC Acadia are assembled, in addition to engines for various Chevy, GMC, and Cadillac trucks.

With a GM deal likely in place, the next steps will include the UAW’s GM national committee voting on approving the agreement, before submitting the deal to a full member vote.

President Biden praised the agreement. "I think it's great," Biden said on Monday when asked about the deal.

This past weekend more details emerged from Ford’s deal with the UAW. The UAW said Ford agreed to $8.1 billion in new investments in plants in the US, with the 800-page contract revealing plans to spend $2.1 billion at Ohio Assembly for current products and a new electric van; $1.2 billion at Louisville Assembly in Kentucky for a new EV, pickup, and SUV production, including hybrid versions of the Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator; $1 billion at Ford’s Kansas City truck assembly plant; and $900 million for F-150 production and a new EV truck.

In addition, Ford agreed to have its battery and EV plants be part of the UAW master agreement, and allow workers the right to strike over plant closures, which the union said was a first.


As for Stellantis, the automaker also has a tentative deal with the UAW signed over the weekend. Most importantly, Stellantis agreed to reopen a Jeep plant the company shut down in Belvidere, Ill., which the UAW roundly criticized at the time. Stellantis will now assemble a new midsize pickup there, as well as build a new battery plant in the same facility.

"[Stellantis] ripped the hearts out of that community [when it closed Belvidere]. And, Stellantis didn't care. Brother and sisters, we made them care," UAW vice president Rich Boyer said.

Finally, early Monday morning Canada’s Unifor autoworker union announced it reached a tentative deal with Stellantis, meaning the big three automakers north of the border have tentative deals in place as well.

"Once again, we've achieved what just weeks ago we were told was impossible," UAW president Shawn Fain said shortly after Stellantis's tentative deal was reached.

Pras Subramanian is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. You can follow him on Twitter and on Instagram.

GM reportedly reaches tentative agreement with UAW, ending six-week strike

David Welch
Mon, October 30, 2023 

The tentative GM deal includes a 25% hourly pay raise plus cost-of-living allowances over the more-than-four-year contract, according to people familiar with the matter. (Tony Dejak / Associated Press)


General Motors reached a tentative agreement with the United Auto Workers to end a 6-week-old strike with similar terms to the deal signed earlier by Ford Motor Co., according to people familiar with the matter.

The deal includes a 25% hourly pay raise plus cost-of-living allowances over the more-than-four-year contract, according to the person, who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly. GM’s tentative agreement has similar economic terms to Ford’s but it is unclear if there are differences in retiree benefits, which has been a sticking point, according to the person.

The agreement still needs to be approved by GM’s union members.

GM’s shares jumped 3.9% on the news before paring gains in pre-market trading. The were up 1.1% as of 9:29 a.m. Eastern time.

The UAW expanded its walkout at GM on Saturday by calling for another strike at the automaker’s Spring Hill, Tenn., plants. The UAW had previously targeted eight assembly plants and 38 parts-distribution facilities from GM, Ford and Stellantis since the strike began Sept. 15, including at GM’s Arlington, Texas, facility that makes SUVs and a pickup truck plant in Missouri. The strikes at Ford and Stellantis ended when those companies reached tentative deals with the union.

Read more: Ford and UAW reach tentative deal to end autoworker strike

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

UAW's record deal could boost others' wages as labor notches another victory

Updated Mon, October 30, 2023 
By Bianca Flowers and Lisa Baertlein

Oct 30 (Reuters) - The tentative agreements reached between the United Auto Workers and the Detroit Three automakers mark another major victory for labor unions that have turned up the pressure on big corporations to put better deals on the table.

Unions have taken an aggressive approach to campaigning with a series of high-profile battles across the industrial, auto, entertainment and healthcare industries. Experts say gains won by unions could spur more organizing and motivate non-unionized companies to try to stave off those efforts.

The UAW's talks, replete with weekly addresses by union President Shawn Fain, were among the most unabashed. The union came to tentative agreements with Ford Motor and Chrysler parent Stellantis in recent days, followed by General Motors early Monday.

"This is a set of negotiations, historically, where gains made in Detroit would be viewed and adapted by many other industries across the economy," said Harley Shaiken, labor professor at the University of California, Berkley.

Union worker compensation has finally caught up to non-union wage increases dating from the COVID-19 pandemic, according to U.S. federal data, as the labor market has remained tight with unemployment at just 3.8%.

The tentative deals are expected to amount to total pay hikes of more than 33% when compounding and cost-of-living increases are factored in. The agreements may be a selling point for non-union shops to push for unionization, said San Francisco State University labor and employment professor John Logan.

"The Big Three would want the UAW to organize Tesla," he added.

Nissan and other competitors may feel compelled to boost wages to retain their workforce. The union made its intention to expand autoworker unionization clear in a series of posts on social media late Sunday that highlighted the length of the contract, which ends in 2028.

"One of our biggest goals coming out of this historic contract victory is to organize like we’ve never organized before," the UAW wrote. "When we return to the bargaining table in 2028, it won’t just be with the Big Three, but with the Big Five or Big Six."

Public support for unions has helped engagement in traditionally unionized industries such as manufacturing and healthcare. A Reuters poll showed the majority of Americans stand behind striking workers.

Employee-led unionization efforts at retailers, such as Amazon and Starbucks, have reflected a consensus among workers who see unions as a means to secure better wages and working conditions.

Organization has been difficult in recent years. About 11.3% of workers were represented by unions last year compared with 23.6% in 1982, according to data analyzed by the Economic Policy Institute.

RIPPLE EFFECT

The UAW contracts are among many deals reached this year, along with agreements at UPS and construction equipment maker Caterpillar. Workers at other companies, like Mack Truck and equipment makers CNH Industrial and Deere & Co have all rebuffed initial deals despite raises that in some contracts appeared significant.

Increased awareness among workers about record profits has translated to company concessions and improved deals, said Marcos Feldman, senior researcher at Jobs to Move America, a labor organizing nonprofit.

"The task is to solidify and institutionalize it," Feldman said. "Unionizing efforts are the most aggressive they've ever been."

President Joe Biden considers unions a cornerstone of his economic policies, including the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law to boost American manufacturing.

Employers may respond by boosting worker pay to hold off union efforts, or step up efforts to prevent unionization.

Some Starbucks employees have claimed the coffee chain illegally retaliated against organizers by firing employees and closing stores. Earlier this month the U.S. Department of Labor ordered the company to disclose documents pertaining to anti-union spending.

Amazon has dissuaded unionization, with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) recently ruling the e-commerce giant had threatened to withhold wages and benefits from employees at two New York warehouses.

UPS AND ITS RIVALS

The UPS deal in August raised pay and eliminated a two-tier wage system for drivers at the Atlanta-based company. That bolstered organizing efforts among Amazon workers and put pressure on UPS rivals to close a growing gap in pay.

When the new UPS agreement expires in 2028, the average full-time U.S. driver will make about $170,000 annually in pay and benefits, significantly more than peers employed by contractors for Amazon and FedEx.

Amazon in September gave delivery contractors $440 million for the year to raise average driver pay to an estimated $20.50 per hour. Amazon told Reuters that payment was part of normal increases and not influenced by the UPS contract. It did not provide prior-year comparisons. FedEx said it regularly reviews pay for directly employed delivery workers to ensure that it is competitive and that its delivery contractors set their own wage rates.

"One thing we've seen in this economy is that workers are more likely to quit when they are unhappy," said Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of labor education research at Cornell University. "Industries where they're more likely to stay are the ones where they unionize and they stay and fight."

(Reporting by Bianca Flowers; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Alistair Bell)