Photo by By Chris Isidore and Vanessa Yurkevich, courtesy of CNN
Story by Toriana Williams / Contributing Writer
Around 50,000 General Motor employees with the United Auto Workers union went on strike on Sunday, September 15, until October 26.
This strike, which lasted one month and 11 days, was the longest auto worker strike in 50 years. Employees at 50 different plants in the United States walked out of their jobs to fight for fair wages, affordable health care, profit sharing, job security and much more.
The strike was in response to the expiration of the collective bargaining agreement from 2015 and negatively affected both the workers and GM.
A collective bargaining agreement is a contract between an employer and a trade union setting the terms and conditions of employment and working conditions of employees.
As Terry Dittes, the lead UAW negotiator at GM, discussed terms with GM, auto workers spent over a month living off of $250 a week in strike pay as opposed to their usual checks nearing or above $1,200.
“We understand strikes are difficult and disruptive to families,” GM said in a statement.
GM stopped paying for health care coverage for striking workers two days after the strike started, forcing them to pick up coverage that wasn’t as comprehensive through COBRA with the help of the union.
At the end of the strike, it was concluded that GM lost nearly $2.9 billion due to halted production at 31 factories and displacement and job loss at 21 other facilities.
“I work on all the GM parts that get shipped out. When the strike was going on, they hadn’t made any parts, and they cut the option for overtime because GM makes up a big part of the car industry,” said Williams Brock, an employee at L&W Supply, one of the 21 other facilities that were affected.
Brock was shifted from department to department as the strike continued. He contributed the continuous move to the fact they were idled.
No parts were being made so there was no work to do.
“Others were fired, and they cut all the temporary workers, which was very sudden,” said Brock. After the strike finally ended, it took two days for everything to go back to normal.
The strike resulted in a few wins but one major loss.
“Beginning January 6, 2020, the contract gives full-time temporary workers a shortened path to permanent status, and beginning January 1, 2021, provides a path for part-time, temporary employees to convert to regular status. The contract also provides for improved paid and unpaid time off for temporary workers,” according to the International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW).
The contract establishes an $11,000 ratification bonus for seniority employees and a $4,500 ratification bonus for temporary employees.
Workers are guaranteed a 3 percent pay raise and a 4 percent lump-sum increase in alternating years.
GM also agreed to lift the $12,000 cap on profit-sharing. So now there’s no limit to the commission workers can receive from GM’s profits.
Right now, they each get $1,000 for every $1 billion the company earns.
As great as these advancements sound, loss is still prevalent.
“Union negotiators were unable to get GM to move car production from Mexico to a shuttered factory in Ohio. The fate of the Lordstown, Ohio, plant, which once produced the Chevy Cruze, was perhaps the most sensitive issue on the table,” according to an analysis by the New York Post.
Fortunately, GM executives have promised to open an electric car battery factory near the Lordstown plant. However, it doesn’t justify the closing of the Lordstown plant because it would only employ a few hundred people at lower wages.
The auto worker’s healthcare plans went untouched.
To contact News Editor Savannah Meade, email newseditor@mtsusidelines.com.
For more news, visit www.mtsusidelines.com, or follow us on Facebook at MTSU Sidelines or on Twitter at @Sidelines_News
