Big Three (automobile manufacturers)

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  Buyers turn budget-savvy.

• TORONTO, Oct. 30, 2023 /CNW/ - Unifor has reached a tentative agreement with Stellantis, ending strike action at the company's Canadian facilities.
• "This agreement will considerably improve the living standards of every Unifor member at Stellantis."
• "Our members and our bargaining team stood firm in our resolve to reach a strong agreement that follows the union's core economic pattern and all of the issues specific to our individual Stellantis facilities," said Unifor Stellantis Master Bargaining Chair James Stewart.
• The tentative agreement with Stellantis follows the pattern agreement the union reached with Ford Motor Company and General Motors.

• About 5,600 UAW members at 38 General Motors and Stellantis distribution centers for auto parts in 20 states walked off the job on Sept. 22, 2023, after an announcement by UAW President Shawn Fain.
• Workers at the only Ford plant affected by the strike since it began on Sept. 15 will remain off the job.
• The total number of UAW members involved in the strike stands at about 18,300.
• Rather, I believe management and labor will need to swiftly move on following the strike and work together constructively to meet that goal.

UAW’s demands

• In addition to these demands, the UAW wants defined-benefit pensions for all workers restored, company-paid health benefits for retirees reestablished and the right to strike over plant closures guaranteed.
• Other demands include more paid time off and seeing all temporary workers made permanent.

Precedents for working together

• The company’s approach to its Saturn brand of compact vehicles, launched in 1985, was unique in many respects.
• Its governance structure was characterized by shared decision-making at different levels throughout the plant.
• GM invested billions of dollars in this venture, through which it tried to compete with Japanese imports and transplants that were quickly eroding GM’s market share.
• The plant, which assembles Cadillacs and Chevy Camaros, continues this approach successfully today.

Shift the focus to the future

• Undergoing this transformation with labor and management at loggerheads can’t possibly benefit the UAW or the auto companies.
• Instead, they’ll need to focus on finding solutions together that increase productivity, build a skilled workforce and efficiently convert plants that make conventional vehicles today to EV factories tomorrow.
• In so doing, the UAW is more likely to meet its goal of seeing those EV factories employ its members.

• After decades of making concessions to their employers, the union’s demands for pay increases and better benefits exceed what some automotive industry executives say are reasonable.
• In particular, it should consider the legacy of Walter Reuther, the labor leader who served as the UAW’s president from 1946 until his death in 1970.
• By balancing his vision and aspirations with pragmatism, Reuther showed that bold labor leaders can score big wins.

Miscalculations can be costly for workers

• Strikes that fail to meet their objectives, often due to miscalculations by unions of their power to win concessions from employers, litter U.S. labor history.
• These failures were particularly common in the 1980s and 1990s, as companies and other employers demanded concessions and replaced workers during and after strikes.
• A 15-month walkout by International Paper workers at several plants in 1987 and 1988 was also disastrous for the strikers.
• The companies fired strikers, replacing them permanently with other workers.

Lessons from Walter Reuther

• Reuther understood the union’s capacity to hold a strike and how much harm it could inflict upon a company before the costs became prohibitive for both sides.
• Reuther knew to settle when the union’s ability to push a company for further concessions had reached a ceiling beyond which the losses on both sides exceed any possible future gains.
• Reuther understood that autoworkers and their employers depended on each other to make progress.
• 3: Balance competing interests Reuther also understood the limits of the UAW’s power, and he knew how to bargain for a contract that both autoworkers and automotive executives could accept.

New reality

• At least 85% of the vehicles U.S. drivers bought through the mid-1960s were made by the Big Three automakers.
• Those companies’ total U.S. market share is less than half of that now – a total of about 41%, with 16% for GM, 14% for Ford and 11% for Stellantis.
• Both labor and management could incur potentially substantial losses in a strike, which would compound over time.
• And I keep on wondering what Walter Reuther would do – and whether Shawn Fain is doing that too.