United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain on Thursday sent another warning shot over the heads of the CEOs of the Detroit Three, reinforcing the consensus in Detroit that a strike this fall at one or more of the unionized Motor City manufacturers is inevitable.
As 143,000 UAW-Detroit Three workers vote on whether to authorize a strike, (they will,) economic forecasting firm Anderson Economic Group said Thursday a relatively short ten-day strike at General Motors, Ford and Stellantis North America could cost the U.S. economy more than $5 billion.
Contract negotiations between the Detroit Three automakers and the United Auto Workers are serious business, but there’s theater involved as well.
Negotiators on both sides use the media to gain support for their positions or rattle the opposition, and later set the table for deals not everyone will like.
Still, as outlined in this new analysis by Federal Reserve policy advisor Kristin Dziczek, it is starting to sink in that Fain is serious when he says the UAW will not conduct this round of bargaining the way it has done in the recent past.
The Sept. 14 expiration date of the current contracts is “a deadline, not a reference point,” Fain told Reuters. He is not ruling out simultaneous work stoppages at all three automakers. The UAW has bulked up its strike fund, and has told members they could get $500 a week in strike assistance.
Fain has outlined an agenda that would reverse more than 15 years of wage and benefit concessions that his predecessors agreed to over a series of contracts bargained when the Detroit Three were struggling financially.
The UAW’s goals now include restoring defined benefit pension plans for all UAW workers. That could be a red line issue for the companies. The automakers switched to 401(k) savings plans for new UAW hires in 2007, in part because guaranteed benefit plans weighed down their balance sheets with multi-billion dollar liabilities.
