The deal UAW President Shawn Fain closed on his 55th birthday is modeled on the ones agreed to with crosstown rivals Ford and Jeep-maker Stellantis, and would give workers higher raises than they've received in years. If approved, it would also claw back some concessions the UAW agreed to almost two decades ago, when the automakers were in desperate financial shape.
Fain, the first UAW president directly elected by members in the union’s 88-year history, campaigned against the union establishment by telling workers the companies are the enemy and the UAW would be at war with them. He decried what he called corporate greed, outrageous CEO salaries and a system where the union acted as a business partner with the automakers.
Seeking to bring the talks to an end and facing an estimated $200 million per week in losses, GM CEO Mary Barra went to the union’s Detroit headquarters to finalize the deal. Mike Huerta, president of a striking UAW local in Lansing, Michigan, was hesitant to celebrate the deal before seeing more information, saying “the devil’s in the details.”
Marick Masters, a business professor at Wayne State University in Detroit, said the contracts will cost the automakers billions and force them to cut costs elsewhere or raise prices. Ford said earlier that its deal with the union would raise labor costs by $850 to $900 per vehicle. With increased costs and geopolitical uncertainty, Detroit automakers face an increasingly difficult future, Masters said.
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