"You Are Welcome!"

The United Auto Workers' successful battle for better pay and benefits from the Big Three domestic automobile companies is having a ripple effect elsewhere in the industry:

South Korean automaker Hyundai has joined Honda and Toyota in raising factory worker wages after the United Auto Workers union reached new contract agreements with Detroit automakers.

Hyundai said Monday it will raise factory worker pay 25% by 2028, matching the general wage increase won by the UAW during that period. Toyota raised factory pay 9% to 10% starting in January, while Honda said it will increase wages 11% during the same period.

Labor experts say the increases are at least in part aimed at thwarting UAW President Shawn Fain’s strategy of trying to organize U.S. auto plants run by foreign automakers and Tesla in order to increase the union’s bargaining power. Fain said terrified auto executives at nonunion plants are raising wages, and he called Toyota’s pay increase the UAW bump.

“UAW, that stands for ‘You Are Welcome,’” he said...

Maybe the next time a contract comes around, those non- union autoworkers will have been unionized, rather than let their brothers and sisters in the UAW shoulder the burden.

(Photo: Sean Fain / via CNN)

UAW Reaches Tentative Agreement With Ford

 

There's big, and very welcome news on the United Auto Workers strike against the Big Three automakers:

The United Auto Workers union said Wednesday it has reached a tentative contract agreement with Ford that could be a breakthrough toward ending the nearly 6-week-old strikes against Detroit automakers.

The four-year deal, which still has to be approved by 57,000 union members at the company, could bring a close to the union’s series of strikes at targeted factories run by Ford, General Motors and Jeep maker Stellantis.

The Ford deal could set the pattern for agreements with the other two automakers, where workers will remain on strike. The UAW called on all workers at Ford to return to their jobs and said that will put pressure on GM and Stellantis to bargain. Announcements on how to do that will come later.

“We told Ford to pony up, and they did,” President Shawn Fain said in a video address to members. “We won things no one thought possible.” He added that Ford put 50% more money on the table than it did before the strike started on Sept. 15.

UAW Vice President Chuck Browning, the chief negotiator with Ford, said workers will get a 25% general wage increase, plus cost of living raises that will put the pay increase over 30%, to above $40 per hour for top-scale assembly plant workers by the end of the contract.

Previously Ford, Stellantis and General Motors had all offered 23% pay increases. When the talks started Ford offered 9%.

Assembly workers will get 11% upon ratification, almost equal to all of the wage increases workers have seen since 2007, Browning said...

Chances are now very good that a settlement will now be reached with General Motors and Stellantis. Not having the strike drag on into 2024 works to the benefit of everyone (except the Republican Party).  Union president Fain put the tentative deal into a broader perspective:

“This agreement sets us on a new path to make things right at Ford, at the Big Three, and across the auto industry. Together, we are turning the tide for the working class in this country,” Fain said.

Fain's strategy and the union's solidarity carried the day.  Well done.

(Photo:  UAW's Sean Fain / Paul Sancya, AP)