Strike Looms For UAW And The Big Three On Contract Deadline Day

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“There’s still time left,” Farley said. “Whether there’s room in there or not, we won’t know if we don’t get feedback. We don’t understand why we can’t get feedback to make this deal to forge the future.”

Asked if the UAW was negotiating in bad faith, Farley asked rhetorically: “How can you negotiate if you don’t get a well considered, genuine counteroffer?”

General Motors said in its own statement that it has submitted multiple “strong offers.”

The companies differ on the temporary worker issue, according to the union. Fain said Ford is offering to convert all current temps with 90 days of continuous service into full-time status. GM, he said, was offering “inadequate benefits, no profit-sharing and a meager wage increase,” while Stellantis had a similar offer to GM with “no path to full-time” status.

Regarding cost-of-living adjustments, the union said Ford was willing to restore an old COLA formula but noted it would offer wage protection of “less than $1 over the next four and a half years.” He said GM and Stellantis were offering a formula that would provide zero wage protection over the course of the next contract.

He also said the profit-sharing formulas offered by the companies would be less generous than they are today.

Regarding cost-of-living adjustments, the union said Ford was willing to restore an old COLA formula but noted it would offer wage protection of “less than $1 over the next four and a half years.” He said GM and Stellantis were offering a formula that would provide zero wage protection over the course of the next contract.

He also said the profit-sharing formulas offered by the companies would be less generous than they are today.

He said all three continue to reject all of the union’s “job security,” “work-life balance” and retiree priorities. The job security priorities include reinstating a jobs bank that would continue to pay workers when they’re laid off, and the work-life balance proposal calls for a four-day work week at five days’ worth of pay.

Moore, in Grand Rapids this week attending a statewide meeting, is also president of Michigan Joint Council #43 that encompasses all locals in the state or 35,000 Teamsters. Michigan has an additional 200,000 Teamsters retirees. The Teamsters are on standby to respond at a moment’s notice to a UAW strike, he said.

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Since Moore has run Local 299 for 24 years, he said he knows just about every Teamster local leader in the country. And they represent a membership of 1.4 million, he said.

Detroit Teamsters are on standby, Moore said. “The Tier 1 workers are fighting for the Tier 2 workers. This is about fairness.”

In addition to driving trucks, Teamsters work in warehousing, operating and repairing ferries and building ships. The Teamsters ratified last month a five-year contract for more than 340,000 UPS workers, raising wages for full- and part-time employees.

The scope of support for the UAW also includes the United Steelworkers, AFL-CIO, Service Employees International (SEIU), Starbucks Workers United, American Federation of Teachers (AFT), American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and CWA (Communication Workers of America).

Biden has “encouraged the parties to stay at the table and to work 24 and 7 to get a win-win agreement that keeps UAW workers at the heart of our auto future,” Bernstein said.

Asked whether Biden will bring in negotiators or be more actively involved, Bernstein said “the president’s been very much engaged.”

Biden has met the UAW president in the Oval Office, called him on Labor Day, and called executives from all three automakers before he left for the G20 last week to “encourage them to provide more forward leaning offers to stay at the table.”

Pickets were seen in downtown Detroit on Wednesday morning as the Detroit auto show opened its doors. The UAW’s contracts with General Motors, Ford and Chrysler parent Stellantis are due to expire at 11:59 p.m. EDT on Thursday.

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“Our main thing we’re having some concerns with is outsourcing,” Janice Hilliard, president of UAW Local 2145 in Grand Rapids, told Crain’s. “Currently a lot of our work gets outsourced to vendors, including out of the country, such as El Salvador and the Philippines. This is work in our claims area or customer service area, so we wanted to get some type of (contract) language to pretty much stop that, so to speak.”

Hilliard said the outsourcing has led to a dramatic reduction in UAW employees at BCBSM, which represents about 1,100 today, down from more than 5,000 years ago.