FORD

• It’s not clear that the UAW will agree upon a new contract with Ford, General Motors and Stellantis – the automaker that manufactures Chrysler and 13 other vehicle brands – by their impending deadline.
• The union’s leaders skipped the traditional handshake ceremonies it usually holds with these automakers, which are often called the Big Three or Detroit Three.
• The union instead held grassroots photo-ops: UAW leaders greeted rank-and-file members at one Ford, one GM and one Stellantis factory.
• I’m a labor scholar who has studied the history of UAW collective bargaining with the Detroit Three.

Strike could stall Detroit GM, Ford and Stellantis

• And UAW leaders have pledged to garner what they see as their members’ fair share of those profits through higher wages and stronger job security.
• The UAW’s newly elected president, Shawn Fain, frequently denounces corporate greed and has proclaimed the union’s willingness to go on strike.
• “And whether or not there’s a strike, it’s up to Ford, General Motors and Stellantis.” The UAW has said it has more than $825 million in its strike fund to help workers make do without pay should they walk off the job.

Fain’s leadership

• They want to prevent a recurrence of a massive scandal that resulted in the federal prosecution of more than a dozen UAW leaders from 2017 to 2022.
• Two former UAW international presidents were sentenced to time in prison after being convicted of embezzling union funds.

Seeking equal pay for EV workers

• Today, workers at the joint-venture factories earn far less than their counterparts who produce vehicles that run on fossil fuels.
• But pay for workers at the former General Motors plant, which is now a joint EV battery venture between GM and LG Energy, starts at just $16.50 per hour.
• In 2019, the year that GM ended car assembly at that factory, workers earned $32 per hour.
• They include greater job security and steep wage increases for UAW-represented workers covered by the union’s contracts with GM, Ford and Stellantis.

Smaller ranks

• Nonunion competitors with U.S. locations include foreign companies such as Toyota, Honda, BMW and Volkswagen, as well as domestic-based EV rivals Tesla and Rivian.
• Today, a total of only 146,000 people work for those companies – 57,000 at Ford, 46,000 at GM and 43,OOO at Stellantis.
• The Big Three’s share of the U.S. automotive market has declined to about 40% from more than 90% in the mid-1960s.
• Third, nonunion electric vehicle companies like Tesla and Rivian generally pay their production workers less than the Detroit Three.

What the automakers say

• Ford, GM and Stellantis have noted that they have invested heavily in U.S.-based factories to preserve UAW-represented jobs.
• Also, the Big Three point out that they have shared their North American profits in sizable annual payments to their workers.
• In 2022, for example, the Detroit Three combined made profit-sharing payments that averaged $36,686 per worker.
• In addition, the companies pay higher wages and provide more benefits to U.S. autoworkers than foreign automakers, such as Toyota and Honda, or domestic EV producers.

What may happen during a UAW strike

• Strikers would lose out on wages that would only be partially offset by the union’s striker benefits of $500 per week.
• And any strike could further disrupt supply chains that have not fully recovered from the shocks caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and natural disasters that have sharply curtailed vehicle production since 2020.
• A weekslong strike would also jeopardize the UAW’s struggle to rebuild its image following a string of corruption scandals.