Aug. 4 (UPI) — UAW President Sean Fain indicated Thursday in a Facebook Live video that autoworkers will be seeking substantial wage increases over the life of a new labor contract with Big Three automakers.
According to a page of the union’s written demands obtained by the Detroit News, the UAW is seeking a 46% raise increase over four years during its negotiations beginning this week with U.S. automakers.
Fain said during the live-streamed event that the Big Three’s second-quarter profits this year were $3.2 billion at GM, $12.1 billion at Stellantis and $1.9 billion at Ford.
He said the companies combined have made $21 billion in profits in the first half of 2023.
Fain said CEOs at the Big Three Detroit auto companies have had pay raises that averaged 40% over the past four years.
“Record profits mean record contracts,” Fain said in a Facebook livestream. “As I go to the table this week I will be giving the Big Three the most audacious and ambitious set of proposals that they’ve seen in decades.”
Fain said the main UAW demands are:Elimination of tiers on wages and benefitsSubstantial wage increasesRestore COLA (cost of living allowance)Defined pension for all workersRe-establish retiree medical benefits
Fain said the contract demands are designed to make up for deep UAW concessions in the recession of 2008-09, when auto companies faced the threat of bankruptcy.
“The UAW once set the standard for the working class in this country,” Fain said to members in a video posted to the UAW website. “This contract could change the course of our lives and the lives of future generations. I know when our membership is united there’s no limit to what we can accomplish.”
During the 2008-09 recession when automakers came perilously close to bankruptcy, the UAW made a number of concessions, giving up automatic cost-of-living increases and agreeing to a two-tier system in which new hires were paid substantially less and provided fewer benefits than veteran union members.
The result is that where there once was a standard labor contract for all UAW members at the Big Three protected by cost-of-living clauses, now there are tiers of lower-paid workers with fewer benefits even as auto companies make record profits.
The auto labor negotiations come on the heels of the Teamsters winning major improvements in their contract talks with UPS.
