Members of the United Auto Workers voted overwhelmingly on Friday to authorize a strike on the so-called Detroit Three automobile manufacturers – Ford, General Motors and Stellantis – if these companies fail to offer competitive contracts by the time they expire on Sept. 14. Lives ,
The strike authorization is the latest in a series of high-profile labor actions in the US during the past year, including the ongoing SAG-AFTRA and Writers Guild of America strikes, a UPS strike authorization that resulted in a fair contract, and a threatened The American railway strike in December was thwarted by the government. While all of these actions point to a more pronounced labor presence in the economy, UAW strike authorization – like the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes – is much more than that. Just the conditions under which the employees will perform their duties. UAVs also wants to see what the industry looks like as it changes with technological advances such as the switch to electric vehicles.
The UAW represents about 150,000 workers at the three companies – 97 percent of whom voted to authorize the strike. UAW President Sean Fein indicated the union would not extend the September 14 date. Deadline to ratify new four-year contract. Union talks with the automakers began in July, according to Reuters, but have moved slowly since then, Fain said. “We have a lot of options that we are looking at but a contract extension is not one of them.”
Fein and the UAW are demanding wage increases and a series of improved or reinstated benefits that offset labor concessions over the past few decades, and that would eliminate the two-tier employment system that has existed at the Detroit Three factories since 2007.
American labor unions enjoyed power and popular support until the 1970s and 1980s, when a combination of a series of corruption scandals and the Reagan administration’s breaking of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) strike in 1981 greatly weakened collective bargaining. done. Globalization, especially after the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in the 1990s, also weakened the power of workers, as companies could – and did – move their operations to countries where labor was scarce. It was cheap, which destroyed the industries and regions of the whole country.
This has resulted in lower wages despite higher inflation, as well as reduced benefits such as pensions despite rising cost of living. And in 2023, companies can now use the specter of artificial intelligence and automation as a bargaining chip against the future of workers.
Proposed UAV contract aims to rectify the past
Like all union contracts, the UAW is extremely ambitious; Unions negotiate knowing that they will have to compromise on some elements of what they are asking for, so they aim high. In the case of the UAW, as well as other striking industries, the contracts are trying to regain lost ground and protect workers for the future.
“We are fed up,” Fain told Reuters. “We’ve been sitting for decades while these companies just keep taking and taking and taking from us.”
Real wage growth, which represents real purchasing power, has stagnated since the 1980s, only reaching 1983 levels during the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall, wages haven’t increased at the same rate as the cost of living, 401(k) plans have replaced pension benefits, increasing the pressure on workers to save for retirement – labor productivity over the last 50 years Despite the boom.
US Bureau of Labor Statistics
The UAW is striving to reverse some of these changes. Its compromises include demands for a defined-benefit pension and to re-establish the retiree medical benefits program. The union is also demanding a 46 per cent hike in wages during the contract period to take into account the increased cost of living, as well as reinstatement of the cost of living allowance, which was abolished in 2009 by the auto industry. was terminated after the bailout of the industry. With major auto manufacturers on the brink of bankruptcy, the UAW renegotiated their contracts at the behest of the federal government.
But a key driver of the strike is actually the two-tier pay system first established in the UAW’s 2007 contract; Previously hired workers are level one and start at around $28 per hour, while level two workers start between $16 and $19 per hour – a rate that has barely risen in the past decade. The second class of workers grows as first class workers retire and are replaced by new second class workers, ultimately reducing the wages of an increasing number of workers – whatever Make UAW membership fast.
UAW strike will have serious impact on auto industry and labor as a whole
There are a number of reasons why labor has become more visible over the past few years, and workers appear more willing to demand more from their employers. It doesn’t mean that America is in a new era of the labor force, and even that phrase doesn’t mean what it did in the first half of the 20th century.
Amazon’s Chris Smalls has been a visible figure in demanding the right to unionize and better conditions for his fellow workers, and the joint SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes have been highly visible because they target the entertainment industry, people Pause favorite TV shows and movies. Unless studios and unions agree to fairer contracts — including the use of generic AI in the writing and shooting of movies and TV shows.
Similarly, the UAW strike is not only about raising individual living standards, but is also expected to impact technology on jobs in that sector. As the industry shifts from combustion engines to battery-powered electric cars, manufacturing will need fewer workers with different skills, Peter Berg, professor of employment relations at Michigan State University, told Michigan State University Today.
If the strike action goes ahead – and Berg told Vox in an interview he believes it will in some form – then each company could lose 500 per week, according to Deutsche Bank analyst Emmanuel Rosner. Billions of dollars in stalled work could be lost.
This is the right time for the workers to reverse the losses of the past few decades and try to get security and benefits for the future; There is a tight labor market, an aging workforce, high consumer demand, and political and popular support for trade unions. “These strike actions on the part of labor unions [are saying]’Well, we have to renegotiate the fundamentals of how work is done,’ Berg said, and ‘use our power to redefine working conditions going forward.’
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