by Samuel Messidor
United Auto Workers’ (UAW) negotiating team has reached tentative agreements with Ford, Stellantis, and GM.
UAW ordered striking workers at The Big Three back to the job on October 31, with UAW President Sean Fain declaring the strike “suspended.” Workers are back with no contract, laying down their weapons before the peace accords are signed. As of November 14, multiple locals across GM and Ford—Stellantis votes have just begun—have already voted against the contract as inadequate when weighed against past concessions, with production workers going against the contracts at a higher rate than skilled tradesmen.
The “Stand Up Strike” began when 17,000 workers hit the picket lines across the three auto companies in mid-September. Rather than calling for all locals to strike at once, UAW leadership asked select locals to “stand up” and walk out, gradually adding more locals to increase pressure during negotiations without completely halting production or causing too much loss of company profits. By the time the tentative deals were announced, about one third of the 150,000 workers at the Big Three were on strike.
As in past negotiations, the first deal reached will likely be the model for the other Big Three contracts. While the contracts are not publicly available, the UAW leadership released highlights in video messages to membership.
At Ford, the proposed deal includes a 25% wage increase over the life of the contract, along with a $5000 one-time bonus. The cost of living adjustment pay (COLA), a system that increases pay based on inflation, would also be re-instituted. The COLA does not fully account for inflation, and only slows the rate of decline of real wages. The progression to the top wage rate would be reduced from eight years to three. The wage increase is less than the 40% increase the union initially demanded, and does not cover the 30% drop in real wages since the concessions of 2009. According to UAW, temp workers would move from a $16/hour starting wage to $21/hour. There is talk of current temp workers gaining full-time status, but no details about future temps or abolishing the practice of hiring this second tier of workers. The proposal would put an end to the hated wage tiers, although benefit tiers would remain in place.
The Ford tentative deal includes the right to strike over plant closures, an issue which will continue to be a battleground for autoworkers as the capitalists further their investments into electric vehicles, threatening mass layoffs in the coming years. Under the tentative agreement, Ultium workers, who are responsible for GM’s electric vehicle batteries, would be included in the national contract, although they would be on a lower pay tier. The Ultium battery plant in Ohio was the site of a struggle for better wages and safer working conditions earlier this year which was cut short by the UAW bureaucracy.
Fain has signaled that the UAW will next attempt to unionize non-union automotive factories. Toyota, Honda, and Hyundai have already responded to the tentative agreements by raising wages 9% at its US factories. Fain also called on unions to set new contract expiration dates for May 1, 2028 in order to coincide with the Big Three contracts, hinting at the possibility of a general strike on International Worker’s Day of that year.
