I am STRONGLY PRO UNION and PRO LABOR, always have been. I first got my Actors Equity (Broadway's actors) and SAG Screen Actors Guild / AFTRA American Federation of Television and Radio Actors as a teen. The GOP's union busting efforts was one reason they left me as a voter. I support the UAW members, but 40% for 150,000 workers based on a few CEO's pay seems high but solvable.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/14/business ... index.htmlHaven’t been paying attention to the UAW strike? What you need to know:
Time has run out to avert a strike at America’s unionized automakers. The United Auto Workers contracts expired at 11:59 pm ET on Thursday. The contracts covered 145,000 UAW members at the three companies: General Motors, Ford and Stellantis, which builds vehicles under the Jeep, Ram, Dodge and Chrysler brands for North America.
***
Based on their latest reports, Ford and GM are now offering a 20% raise during the life of the contract, and Stellantis is offering 17.5%. The union started with a demand for an immediate 20%, and four additional raises of 5% each over the course of a four-year deal.
***
GM CEO Mary Barra sent a letter to employees Thursday saying the company’s latest offer now include a 20% raise, with an immediate 10% pay hike. The lower paid temporary employees would get $20 an hour, which represents at 20% raise from current $16.67 an hour they receive. “We are working with urgency and have proposed yet another increasingly strong offer with the goal of reaching an agreement tonight. Remember: we had a strike in 2019 and nobody won,” she said in the letter.
***
Ford CEO Jim Farley told CNN the offer from Ford of a 20% raise over the life of the contract is the most lucrative offer the company has made to the union in the 80 years it has been there. But he said meeting the union’s demands of close to a 40% raise, along with a four-day work week and other benefit improvements, would have been unaffordable. Farley blamed the union for the lack of progress in negotiations. But the union has blamed the companies for waiting until the end of August or early September to make their first counteroffers.
The union came up with the 40% raise request based on the increase in the pay of CEOs at the three automakers over the last four years. Ford CEO pay rose 21%, from $17 million for Farley’s predecessor Jim Hackett in 2019, to $21 million for Farley last year. (Farley is the lowest compensated of the three CEOs.) Ford has not had a national strike since 1976 and has not had a strike of any kind at its US plants since 1978.
Even some of the UAW guys think it's too much:
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/09/1 ... n-00116207[Garry Quick, the president of Local 685 In Kokomo Indiana] Quick sunk into his seat inside a conference room in the union hall and thumbed his phone before looking back up at the TV. A CNN chyron read: “AUTOWORKERS ON BRINK OF HISTORIC WALKOUT”.
Had [Shawn Fain, President of the UAW[ Fain asked for too much? A 40 percent wage increase over the next four years?
“I think he did,” Quick said. “And I think he set high standards and I think everybody knows that you gotta shoot high and then you can always go lower. In the past, we’ve always set low and we’ve settled for crumbs.”
Lots of DOOM stories about President Biden. But where the hell is the GOP? What is the House doing? Oh, right, they can't even pass ONE of ELEVEN budgets, due end of September, and obsessed over non-politician Hunter Biden. What a joke the Republican Party has become. We need a robust two party system in America.
Word is Bernie Sanders may be heading to Detroit in solidarity. Democrats have to get this worked out, there's too much at stake for the economy and the party's reputation.
President Biden is talking with both sides. They're missing Marty Walsh, the former Labor Secretary, he was very effective. To me, this seems solvable with a compromise; if they get to 25% or 30% would it be worth it to keep striking? Biden is going to be speaking later today.
Thought we should have a topic because now that they went out, it may be a while and there will be a lot of news.
Gregg, would be really interested to hear your thoughts on this (and anyone else involved with the motor car industry).
s titular Mama June in Fogbow's Favourite Show™ Mama June: From Not To Hot! Fogbow's Theme Song™ Edith Massey's "I Got The Evidence!" 
