Posts tagged concessions
Boeing union members are angry they lost their pension plan. They’re not likely to get it back
September 24, 2024 // But the fact is that the traditional pension plans, once a staple of the retirement of many workers, have become exceedingly rare in the modern American workplace. And once a company drops traditional pensions plans to shift employees to a 401(k) type of retirement account, they are almost always gone for good. While other unions have also sought to have lost pension plans restored, as the United Auto Workers union did during its successful strike at General Motors, Ford and Stellantis last fall, no American union has ever succeeded in bringing them back. Even though the auto strike produced a deal with record pay raises and other gains for the UAW, it did not restore pension plans to workers hired since 2007.
Union autoworkers won big after striking. A year later, some face an uncertain future
September 15, 2024 // Now, workers are wondering how committed the trans-Atlantic automaker is to remain in the U.S. at all. For years, Cooper says, old-timers at his plant in Toledo have warned that if wages rose too much, the company would move jobs to Mexico. It's a threat he's always shrugged off, given how profitable the Jeep plant has been for Stellantis.
Some movement in negotiations as Salem nurses, Salem Regional Medical Center officials face strike deadline
April 16, 2024 // The nurses' union has posted an online petition asking for residents to sign. As of Tuesday afternoon, 638 people have signed the petition, which claims, "In the last 3 years, the hospital lost over 100 registered nurses, largely because nurse wages and benefits have not kept up with other area hospitals." Harklewood said that 116 Registered Nurses at the hospital are prepared to strike if nurses and the hospital don’t come to an agreement on a new contract.
UAW president Shawn Fain on labor’s comeback: “This is what happens when workers get power”
February 26, 2024 // Volkswagen worker Shaun Lawler says skepticism of the UAW runs deep in the community. When asked how his family views unions, he replied, "They don't see it as a good opportunity; they see layoffs." What do they call unions? "They call them communist," Lawler said.
As Predicted, UAW Strike Remains Limited, Spares Automakers From Full Walkout
October 11, 2023 // As CEI noted when the strike began, “The claim that this ‘stand up’ approach creates the maximum pressure is bogus. History clearly shows that if a union wants a serious confrontation with the manufacturers, it has all of its members on the picket lines. … The fact that [UAW President Shawn] Fain hasn’t ordered that suggests he doesn’t actually want that or doesn’t think the union could sustain it.” After two weeks, Fain tacitly conceded there had been no progress in the talks, so he upped the pressure to 25,000 workers on the picket lines, or about one-sixth of the UAW’s members. To be clear, this is causing problems for manufacturers. Fain has targeted the plants where work stoppages can cause the most economic damage. Losing $200 million is still real money even for a corporation like GM. But the UAW’s call for wage increases of up to 36 percent, well beyond the 20 percent the auto makers have offered, is something the manufacturer hasn’t budged on yet. And it isn’t likely to so long as only one-sixth of the UAW members are striking.
Why the Obama era ‘car czar’ thinks striking autoworkers risk overplaying their hand
October 3, 2023 // Because you have to put the whole thing in context. GM and Ford and Chrysler are doing quite well at the moment. They have cash, they have profits, they have the ability to pay them more, but they also have to compete against other companies. And in the South, you have companies like Toyota and Honda that don't have unions at all. In Mexico, you have workers making literally $9 or $10 a day and are very productive, according to what auto executives tell me. And so, if the Detroit companies have an excessively high burden of wage costs, or fringe benefit costs, then they can't compete. They lose car sales. Ultimately, the workers lose jobs and the jobs move to these other places.
Opinion: UAW veers off the road in demanding more money for less work
September 26, 2023 // Last week, the UAW called for a work stoppage for about 12,700 employees at three U.S. plants. And until the union listed its demands, I had no idea that working five days a week was so undignified. Any union is only as strong as it is reasonable. The UAW – which represents about 150,000 autoworkers – has four major demands. They range from fair to fantastical. It's fair that the union is seeking the restoration of defined-benefit pensions and a rollback of concessions that workers made in 2007 when U.S. automakers were struggling. That is, as long as the union and the workers it represents understand that these things are cyclical and that they may have to make concessions again .
‘I want to work’: UAW members face financial turmoil amid strike, share frustrations
September 22, 2023 // "This doesn't just affect me," Mitchell said. "This plant runs the city. This is affecting other people because now our suppliers are out of work. And the way they said it works in Ohio is, if you are laid off because of a strike you can't get unemployment." Desia Clement, a spokesperson for the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, confirmed that workers involved in a labor dispute such as a strike may not be eligible for unemployment benefits, but noted that every claim is unique and decided on a case-by-case basis.
Chances of costly autoworker strike extra high amid Biden’s EV push
August 24, 2023 // This time around, labor negotiations are taking place under much different circumstances, with Detroit automakers in a precarious spot in an unsettled industry. Yes, they've been raking in huge profits from high-priced pickup trucks and SUVs. But they're also investing billions of dollars to develop future EVs that consumers are still hesitant to buy. Of note: In a rare move, Biden entered the fray last week, urging both sides to come to an agreement. "I support a fair transition to a clean energy future," the president said in a statement.
Who’s on strike and who’s close? Labor unions are flexing
August 8, 2023 // Recent decades suggest there won’t be a strike at more than one at once. UAW (United Auto Workers) typically picks one “target” at which to focus negotiations and possibly strike and then demand that the other two unionized automakers agree to the same “pattern” deal. That one really has the chance to hurt the Democrats since the union is very upset about the auto industry plans to shift to EVs (electric vehicles). They see EVs as a jobs killer because of so many fewer parts – it takes about one-third fewer jobs to build an EV than an internal combustion engine (ICE) car. And many of the EV jobs are at battery plants being built nationwide right now, but which are joint ventures between the automakers and foreign battery companies, and thus not guaranteed to be unionized. Even if those battery plants end up with a union, it’s not clear the joint venture will agree to UAW-level wages. The one UAW-represented plant in Ohio pays roughly half of what workers are paid at an engine or transmission plant owned by one of the Big Three (US automakers) and represented by the UAW.