Big Three Autoworkers Approve Contracts After UAW Strike

By Jessica Corbett

"It's a good contract, you just can't get around that," said one UAW local president. "You look at the investment we got in 2019 compared to now, it's not rocket science. It's just better."

As voting wrapped up on Friday, United Auto Workers members at Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis were all on track to approve contracts finalized during a six-week UAW strike demanding improved pay, benefits, and working conditions from the "Big Three."

The union's online trackers had the ratification vote results as 68.2% to 31.8% at Ford, 54.7% to 45.3% at GM, and 69.6% to 30.4% at Stellantis as of press time. The UAW and companies have not yet commented on the results.

The UAW launched its "Stand Up Strike" in mid-September, and increased walkouts at various U.S. locations throughout the talks. Rutgers University labor studies professor Rebecca Givan toldThe New York Times that the strategy "really upended a lot of conventional wisdom" in the labor movement and helped reverse some concessions the union had previously accepted, showing that "if workers build enough power, they can win things back."

The pending agreements, which were reached over a few days at the end of last month, don't deliver on all worker demands but celebrated provisions include 25% wage increases and cost-of-living adjustments through April 30, 2028.

As Bloombergreported:

Workers at Ford's Dearborn, Michigan, truck plant voted 78% in favor of ratifying the agreement Friday, putting Ford over the top, according to UAW Local 600 President Nick Kottalis.

"It's a good contract, you just can't get around that," Kottalis said. "You look at the investment we got in 2019 compared to now, it's not rocket science. It's just better."

The contracts' expiration date sets up a possible mass action around International Workers' Day on May 1, 2028. The UAW said last month that "we invite unions around the country to align your contract expirations with our own so that together we can begin to flex our collective muscles."

Also framing the Big Three battle as part of a bigger effort, UAW president Shawn Fain declared last month that "if we are going to truly take on the billionaire class and rebuild the economy so that it starts to work for the benefit of the many and not the few, then it's important that we not only strike, but that we strike together."

Fain on Tuesday testified at U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Chair Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) hearing about how unions raise up working families and take on corporate greed. The UAW leader stressed the "essential role" of federal lawmakers, calling on them to not only support "our fights and other fights like ours," but also "finish the job for economic and social justice for the entire working class."

Already, the historic Big Three deals are leading to "UAW bumps" at other automakers including Honda, Hyundai, Subaru, and Toyota. The union is also aiming to help organize workers at Telsa, the electric vehicle company of billionaire Elon Musk.

Democratic U.S. President Joe Biden, who is seeking reelection next year, became the first sitting president to join striking workers on a picket line in late September, when he rallied with UAW members outside a GM plant in Belleville, Michigan.

The Biden campaign's Ammar Moussa said in a statement Friday that "Joe Biden isn't just saying that he'll always have workers' backs—he's proving it. After President Biden made history by standing with striking autoworkers, unions have notched historic wins and even nonunionized auto companies are taking note, increasing workers' wages.

"This is what happens when you have a president who cares about working people," added Moussa. "Workers win."

Originally published on November 17th, 2023, in Common Dreams

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'We're Not Gonna Wait Around Forever': UAW Expands Strike to Ford's Most Profitable Plant, Common Dreams

As of noon, 25,000 UAW members will be striking against the Detroit Three automakers

'This Is Our Defining Moment': UAW Launches Historic Strikes Against Big Three Automakers, Common Dreams

In two days, 144,000 US autoworkers workers are set to strike, Peoples Dispatch

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United Auto Workers union hails strike-ending deals with automakers that would raise top assembly-plant hourly pay to more than $40 as ‘record contracts’

 Marick Masters, Wayne State University

The United Auto Workers union agreed on a tentative new contract with General Motors on Oct. 30, 2023, days after landing similar deals with Ford Motor Co. on Oct. 25 and Stellantis, the global automaker that makes Chrysler, Dodge and Ram vehicles in North America, on Oct. 28. The pending agreements have halted the industry’s longest strike in 25 years. It began on Sept. 15, when the UAW’s prior contracts with all three automakers expired, and lasted more than six weeks. After gradually ramping up, the strike eventually included about 46,000 workers – roughly one-third of the union’s 146,000 members at the three companies.

Ford released a statement in which it said it was “pleased” to have reached a deal and “focused on restarting Kentucky Truck Plant, Michigan Assembly Plant and Chicago Assembly Plant.” Stellantis, likewise, looks forward to “resuming operations,” as one of its executives said in a statement. General Motors initially made no public statements.

The Conversation asked Marick Masters, a Wayne State University scholar of labor and business issues, to explain what’s in these contracts and their significance.

What are the terms of the contract?

According to several media reports and the union’s own announcements, Ford’s tentative labor agreement includes a 25% wage increase over the next 4½ years, as well as the restoration of a cost-of-living allowance the UAW lost in 2009.

In addition, the tentative agreements also will convert many temporary workers to full-time status, higher pay for temps, the right to go on strike over plant closures and significant increases in contributions to retirement plans.

By the end of the period covered by the Ford, GM and Stellantis contracts, the top worker wage at assembly plants will be more than US$40 an hour. All three contracts will expire on April 30, 2028.

The Stellantis deal, according to UAW officials, is similar to the one reached with Ford in other ways – as, reportedly, is the one that the UAW agreed upon with GM.

The Stellantis agreement also has provisions regarding specific North American plants, including the plant Stellantis had idled earlier in 2023 in Belvidere, Illinois, the UAW said. Stellantis has promised to add 5,000 new jobs at Belvidere and other factories over the next four years, in stark contrast to its previous intention to cut that many jobs during the same period, UAW President Shawn Fain said on Oct. 28.

The Ford contract, likewise, calls for more than $8 billion in investments in factories and other facilities, according to the UAW.

Why did workers feel the strike was necessary, and did they achieve their aims?

The workers knew that the companies had enjoyed big profits over the past several years. GM, for example, earned $10 billion in profits in 2021 and $14.5 billion in 2022.

After having made major economic concessions to help the companies survive the Great Recession, stiff international competition and the 2009 bankruptcies of GM and Chrysler – before the latter became a division of Stellantis – UAW members believed they deserved what they’re calling a “record contract” for having contributed to “record profits.”

“The days of low-wage, unstable jobs at the Big Three are coming to an end,” Fain said on Oct. 28. “The days of the Big Three walking away from the American working class, destroying our communities, are coming to an end.”

To forge its militant strategy, the union tore a page from the playbook of labor leader Walter Reuther, who led the UAW from 1946 until his death in 1970. Reuther believed that workers deserved a fair share of corporate abundance – just like shareholders and customers.

What happens next?

The UAW released the full details of the Ford contract to all of its members who are Ford workers on Oct. 29, after its leaders had signed off on it. Rank-and-file members now have to ratify the deal for it to go into effect.

The same process will happen with Stellantis on Nov. 2. The separate deal the UAW negotiated with GM will also require ratification.

In the meantime, the autoworkers who went on strike will be returning to their jobs.

How will this affect the automakers’ bottom line?

Some analysts have estimated that Ford’s contract, if ratified, would add $1.5 billion to the company’s annual labor costs. Ford itself estimated that this could add up to $900 in labor costs to each vehicle rolling off its assembly lines. Ford has also estimated that the strike cost it about $1.3 billion in pretax profits.

To put these numbers into perspective, Ford generated slightly more than $130 billion in revenue in the first three quarters of 2023, and almost $5 billion in profits.

Stellantis has not yet made public what it believes the strike has cost the company.

General Motors has said that the strike is costing the company more than $800 million.

This article was updated on Oct. 30, after GM and the UAW reached a tentative agreement on a new labor contract.

Originally published on October 30th, 2023, in The Conversation.  

Related Posts

'We're Not Gonna Wait Around Forever': UAW Expands Strike to Ford's Most Profitable Plant, Common Dreams

As of noon, 25,000 UAW members will be striking against the Detroit Three automakers

'This Is Our Defining Moment': UAW Launches Historic Strikes Against Big Three Automakers, Common Dreams

In two days, 144,000 US autoworkers workers are set to strike, Peoples Dispatch

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Kaiser Settlement Sends Strong Message to Providers That Ignore Patient Needs

A California settlement compels the state’s largest health care provider to spend $150 million on behavioral health services.

• MARK KREIDLER
• OCT 16, 2023

Kaiser Permanente’s $200 million settlement with the State of California for its 
repeated failures to provide patients with adequate and timely mental health care 
was a long while coming.  The deficiencies themselves? Kaiser’s own employees 
say they’ve been hiding in plain sight.

“Years and years of banging our heads against the wall have finally paid off,” said Ilana Marcucci-Morris, a therapist at Kaiser Permanente’s Oakland Medical Center. “This has the potential to make Kaiser a leader in mental health care, rather than a serial violator of mental health care laws.”

The settlement, announced late Thursday by the state’s Department of Managed Health Care, includes a $50 million fine — the largest the department has ever levied against a health plan, Director Mary Watanabe said in a statement. Kaiser also pledged to spend $150 million over five years to build out behavioral health services that critics say have been woefully underdeveloped for years, leading to appointment wait times that violated state standards.

The settlement resulted from the department’s enforcement investigation and a nonroutine survey of Kaiser’s practices last year, which identified “several deficiencies and violations in the plan’s provision of behavioral health care services to enrollees,” the department said in a news release. Those included long delays for patients trying to schedule mental health appointments, a failure to contract enough high-level behavioral care facilities within its network, and Kaiser not making out-of-network referrals consistent with requirements under the law when in-network providers were not available, the department said.

Under the settlement, Kaiser must hire an outside consultant “to focus on corrective actions” related to access, referrals, appeals and grievances and to ensure that patients receive the mental health care they need, regardless of the type or severity of their conditions.

“Today’s actions represent a tectonic shift in terms of our accountability on the delivery of behavioral health services,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement. Newsom said the settlement aims to “provide Kaiser patients with the care they are entitled to in a timely manner.”

In a statement, Kaiser CEO Greg A. Adams said the agreement “takes full accountability for our performance during the survey period including our shortcomings, acknowledges our work to improve mental health care, and ensures that our ongoing investments not only help the members of Kaiser Permanente but also build a stronger mental health foundation in the communities we serve.”

Critics have argued that Kaiser patients haven’t received adequate care for years, despite previous enforcement actions. Kaiser paid a $4 million fine in 2013 for not providing its members proper access to mental health care. Four years later, it agreed to redress similar failures. Yet Kaiser has consistently left patients without follow-up mental health appointments for weeks, sometimes months, state officials and critics have said.

The situation reached a boiling point last fall, when more than 2,000 mental health professionals affiliated with the National Union of Healthcare Workers walked off the job, frustrated during contract negotiations by what they said was Kaiser’s refusal to address persistent staffing issues and long wait times for behavioral services. (Disclosure: NUHW is a financial supporter of Capital & Main.)

Capital & Main reported in 2021 and again last year that Kaiser workers said wait times for mental health appointments often stretched four to eight weeks or more. Jenny Butera, a marriage and family therapist in Sacramento who has since left Kaiser, said on Aug. 14 last year, “My earliest next appointment (is) mid-October — for anybody.” The American Psychological Association said in 2020 that it had never “seen such an egregious case of delayed access for follow-up appointments.”

The DMHC paid attention to such stories, and legislation that took effect last summer required providers such as Kaiser to schedule follow-up appointments for mental health care patients within 10 days of their last visit. In the wake of Thursday’s announced settlement, the department said its survey continues and could prompt a modified corrective plan.

“This settlement is a monumental victory for Kaiser Permanente patients and its mental health therapists who have waged multiple strikes over the past decade to make Kaiser fix its broken behavioral healthcare system,” said union President Sal Rosselli. “The DMHC’s report affirms everything that Kaiser therapists have said about their patients’ inability to receive timely, adequate mental health care.”

In his statement, Adams said demand for Kaiser’s mental health care services rose 33% during the COVID-19 pandemic and that 20% more people have sought care in 2023 than at the same time last year. He added that “an ongoing shortage of qualified mental health professionals,” along with clinician burnout and turnover and the 10-week strike last year, made it “very difficult to meet this growing need for care.”

The union has disputed Kaiser’s characterization, arguing that qualified therapists fled Kaiser over the years because of unreasonable workloads and short-staffing practices that predated the pandemic.

Kaiser Permanente is the largest health care provider in California, with 9.4 million residents using the system. The company was founded as a nonprofit, though its Permanente Medical Groups operate as for-profit entities. Kaiser reported a record $8.1 billion in net revenue in 2021 before showing a loss in 2022 — the only year since 2007 that the company has posted negative income.

Kaiser therapists have complained for years that Kaiser paid scant attention to the mental health care needs of its patients — a fairly common practice among health providers, industry economists say. Thursday’s settlement will change the math a bit.

“It makes me feel hopeful, knowing they have to put money into this,” Marcucci-Morris said. “We’ve been pushing for well over a decade.”

Capital & Main

The opinions expressed here are solely the author's and do not reflect the opinions or beliefs of the LA Progressive.

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Why are thousands of Kaiser health care workers on strike? 5 questions answered

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'We're Not Gonna Wait Around Forever': UAW Expands Strike to Ford's Most Profitable Plant

By Jake Johnson

"If Ford can't get that after four weeks on strike, these 8,700 workers shutting down their biggest plant will help them understand it," said United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain.

The United Auto Workers launched a surprise strike at Ford's most profitable plant on Wednesday evening, calling on nearly 9,000 members in Kentucky to walk off the job after the company did not come to the bargaining table with a new contract proposal.

Speaking outside of Ford's Dearborn, Michigan headquarters, UAW president Shawn Fain said that "we came here today to get another offer from Ford."

"Unfortunately, this offer was the exact same offer they gave us two weeks ago," said Fain. "They're not taking us serious. We've been very patient working with the company on this. At the end of the day, they have not met expectations, they're not even coming to the table on it. So at this point, we had to take action."

The walkout at Ford's Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville brings the total number of UAW members on strike at the Big Three U.S. car manufacturers to roughly 33,000. The companies have laid off thousands of non-striking workers since the UAW's walkouts began last month.

Citing an unnamed source inside Ford's Kentucky facility, the Detroit Free Pressreported that "with little warning, thousands of workers left their jobs at 6:30 pm, just minutes after union officials walked through the plant, shut off the line, and told workers to walk out peacefully."

"We're not gonna wait around forever," Fain wrote in a social media post late Wednesday. "If Ford can't get that after four weeks on strike, these 8,700 workers shutting down their biggest plant will help them understand it."

Ford, which has seen its profits surge this year, expressed outrage over the strike expansion, noting in a statement that the Kentucky Truck Plant is one of the biggest auto factories in the world.

"The vehicles produced at the Louisville-based factory—the F-Series Super Duty, the Ford Expedition, and the Lincoln Navigator—generate $25 billion a year in revenue," the company said.

Chris Brooks, a UAW organizer, responded that "Ford just admitted they're losing $48,000 a minute in revenue while the Kentucky Truck Plant is on strike."

"That is how much value autoworkers at this one plant produce—and now they're showing Ford how expensive it is to not come to the table and pony up," Brooks wrote on social media.

Ford has offered UAW members a 23% wage increase over the course of a four-year contract as well as cost-of-living adjustments. The UAW has demanded a 36% wage hike and significant improvements to retirement, healthcare, and other benefits.

Reutersreported Wednesday that Ford and UAW negotiators "had been working to resolve differences on retirement security and union representation at the company's future battery plants earlier in the day."

Last week, the UAW announced that General Motors has agreed to include electric battery plant workers in its labor agreement, which Fain described as a "transformative win."

On Wednesday, according to Reuters, Fain and other UAW officials "called a meeting with Ford... and demanded a new offer, which Ford did not have."

"You just lost Kentucky Truck," Fain reportedly said in response. "This is all you have for us? Our members' lives and my handshake are worth more than this."

In his remarks outside Ford's headquarters on Wednesday, Fain said the company has only itself to blame for the strike escalation.

"They made it happen. This is on them, they have to own it," said Fain. "If the companies aren't going to come to the table and take care of the membership's needs, then we will react."

Originally published on October 12th, 2023, in Common Dreams

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Why are thousands of Kaiser health care workers on strike? 5 questions answered

 

Kaiser Permanente health care workers in five states and Washington, D.C., are rallying against low wages and understaffing that they say is undermining patient care. AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes

Michael McQuarrie, Arizona State University

More than 75,000 Kaiser Permanente health care workers began a three-day strike in Virginia, California, Colorado, Washington state, Oregon and Washington, D.C., on Oct. 4, 2023, after company executives and eight unions representing aides, techs, support staff and other employees failed to agree on the terms of new contracts. This is the largest U.S. health care strike on record. In a statement it released when the walkout started, Kaiser asserted that it wanted to reach a deal soon with the striking workers.

Although hospitals and emergency rooms are still open during the strike, and Kaiser is making use of temporary workers, many of its noncritical services are temporarily closed or operating under reduced hours. The strike does not include any nurses unions or doctors.

The Conversation asked Michael McQuarrie, an Arizona State University sociologist who directs its Center for Work and Democracy, to explain why this strike is happening now and how labor actions like this can affect patient care.

Kaiser health care workers on the picket line outside of a Kaiser Permanente facility in Sacramento, Calif. It is the largest medical care worker strike in U.S. history.

1. Why is this historic strike happening now?

The two main reasons are concerns over staffing levels and practices and dissatisfaction with pay that hasn’t kept up with inflation and was too low to begin with.

Kaiser says its options are limited due to a national shortfall in all sorts of health care workers, including home health aides and nurse practitioners. Workers counter that higher pay and better working conditions would attract more applicants.

Health care workers have long worried that inadequate staffing is undercutting the quality of care for patients – this has been a central issue in contract negotiations and strikes for years. But the COVID-19 pandemic greatly exacerbated the problem.

At the same time, inflation has outstripped negotiated wage increases for Kaiser workers. Kaiser is currently offering some workers in Northern California and Washington state 4% annual raises for the four years covered by the new contract and lower raises for everyone else. The unions have rejected this offer, which they say would not make up for past inflation and would unnecessarily create different wage scales based on the region where workers are located.

“Why are we here? Patient care! How do we get it? Higher staffing. Why are we here? Patient care! How do we get it? Living wages.” Video by Amanda Mascarelli.

2. Has Kaiser’s financial management played a role too?

Kaiser, which provides health care for 12.7 million Americans, took in US$95.4 billion in revenue in 2022 but ran a $1.2 billion operating loss that it attributed to “strong economic headwinds in the financial markets” – suggesting that its investments were to blame rather than its health care operations.

For 2021, Kaiser reported that it had about $56 billion in unrestricted cash and investments, excluding assets tied to employee and retiree pensions.

Kaiser’s profits in the first half of 2023 totaled about $3.4 billion, however. And with the exception of its losses in 2022, Kaiser has been consistently profitable for years.

Concerns over low worker pay are growing while Kaiser’s executive compensation is increasing. As of 2021, its CEO Gregory Adams was making more than $15.5 million a year in pay and “other” compensation.

3. But isn’t Kaiser a nonprofit – and does that mean it has any special obligations?

Like many health care systems, Kaiser is a nonprofit. This means it pays very little in taxes. In exchange for their special tax status, nonprofits are supposed to provide public benefits.

Nonprofits may make more money than they spend, but they can’t distribute profits to its shareholders. Nonprofit executive compensation must be “reasonable,” according to the Internal Revenue Service – although it can be hard to determine how much is too much.

4. Are there any precedents for this strike?

Health care strikes are not unusual, with more than 40 occurring in the past two years. However, the industry and the workforce are heavily fragmented, which means that these strikes tend to be relatively small.

In September 2022, the Minnesota Nurses Association took 15,000 members on strike over many of the same issues, such as staffing and inflation. That strike, which lasted three days, was the largest health care strike in U.S. history by that point in terms the number of workers involved.

Prior to that, the largest was probably another Minnesota strike in 2010, in which about 12,000 nurses walked off the job for 24 hours.

Kaiser has experienced much smaller strikes in the past, such as a walkout in 2015 of about 75 mental health clinicians.

5. How much are patients harmed during health care strikes?

It depends on the strike, but usually not much.

Critical care Kaiser facilities will remain open, though the strike will likely cause some delays in care due to short staffing and long lines.

Some appointments and elective procedures at the affected hospitals are being postponed, and nonessential functions like labs and radiology departments are temporarily closed or their hours are being reduced.

Nurses, who are very important bedside caregivers, are part of a different coalition of Kaiser unions. While they won’t be on strike, they may have to help cover work not being done by aides and other support staff who are on the picket lines.

Michael McQuarrie, Director of the Center for Work and Democracy, Arizona State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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'This Is Our Defining Moment': UAW Launches Historic Strikes Against Big Three Automakers

"The money is there, the cause is righteous, the world is watching, and the UAW is ready to stand up," said Shawn Fain, the union's president.

The United Auto Workers union kicked off historic strikes against the Big Three U.S. car manufacturers early Friday morning after the companies failed to meet workers' demands for adequate pay increases and benefit improvements.

The initial wave of strikes hit select Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis facilities, with the union deploying a tactic it has described as a " stand-up strike."

UAW members at General Motors' Wentzville Assembly in Missouri, Ford's Michigan Assembly, and Stellantis' Toledo Assembly in Ohio were the first to walk off the job on Friday, and additional locals will be called on to strike in the coming days as negotiations continue.

Those who remain on the job will be working under an expired collective bargaining agreement, though they still have status quo protections.

The labor actions mark the first time the UAW has ever gone on strike against all three major automakers simultaneously.

"We've been working hard, trying to reach a deal for economic and social justice for our members," UAW president Shawn Fain said in a speech late Thursday, just ahead of the midnight strike deadline. "We have been firm. We are committed to winning an agreement with the Big Three that reflects the incredible sacrifice and contributions UAW members have made to these companies."

"The money is there, the cause is righteous, the world is watching, and the UAW is ready to stand up," Fain added. "This is our defining moment."

The companies' latest publicized offers to the UAW included raises of up to 20% over the course of a four-year contract, but the proposals thus far have fallen well short of the union's demands on wages, cost-of-living adjustments, retiree benefits, and other key issues.

Ford CEO Jim Farley, who brought in nearly $21 million in total compensation last year, told CNN that the UAW's push for a near-40% wage increase would "put us out of business," a claim that Fain dismissed as a "joke."

"The cost of labor for a vehicle is 5% of the vehicle," Fain said from the picket line outside Ford's Michigan Assembly plant. "They could double our wages and not raise the prices of vehicles, and they would still make billions of dollars. It's a lie like everything else that comes out of their mouths."

Between 2013 and 2022, according to an Economic Policy Institute analysis released this week, the Big Three automakers saw roughly $250 billion in total profits—an increase of 92%—and the companies' CEOs received a 40% pay increase. The automakers also rewarded shareholders with $66 billion in dividend payouts and stock buybacks.

U.S. autoworkers' wages, meanwhile, have declined by over 19% since the car industry's 2008 crisis, during which workers gave up cost-of-living adjustments and other benefits to help keep the major automakers afloat.

"As a single parent, I'm working paycheck to paycheck," Adelisa LeBron, a striking Ford worker, toldThe Washington Post. "I love the way Shawn is fighting for us, how he's not going to settle."

In his address late Thursday, Fain urged locals that are not currently on strike to "keep organizing" to "show the companies you are ready to join the stand-up strike at a moment's notice."

"This strategy will keep the companies guessing," he said. "It will give our national negotiators maximum leverage and flexibility in bargaining. And if we need to go all out, we will. Everything is on the table."

On Friday evening, the UAW is planning to hold what Fain dubbed a "mass rally" outside of a Ford building in downtown Detroit, where U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is expected to appear.

"We must show the world that our fight is a righteous fight," said Fain.

This article originally appeared at CommonDreams.org on September 15th, 2023.  

RELATED POSTS

In two days, 144,000 US autoworkers workers are set to strike, People's Dispatch

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