The labor negotiations between General Motors and the United Auto Workers union are set to get even testier. A new report from Bloomberg on Tuesday pegged two of GM’s big points going into negotiations: more temporary workers and lower healthcare costs.
The first point is likely to be a non-starter for the UAW. In recent years, the union has balked at more temp workers, which have zero ability to climb the ranks and become full-time GM employees. Naturally, it irks the union. They’re also paid less and receive fewer benefits.
However, according to sources close to GM and its negotiating team that spoke with Bloomberg, the automaker will argue that more temp workers are a good thing. By paying them less and putting them on a different benefits plan, GM will argue it can provide greater job security and benefits for UAW members. In wages and benefits, GM-UAW workers make $63 an hour, while rival automakers employing non-union workers make around $50 an hour in wages and benefits. At other automaker factories, the staff is 20 percent temp, while GM plants often employ 7 percent temp workers.
GM’s reported bill for healthcare is $900 million in annual contributions—a figure the automaker desperately wants to trim.
A compromise could come in a deal similar to one for the Orion, Michigan assembly plant. There, GM can hire workers through a new subsidiary called GM Subsystems LLC. This staff is paid less for handling parts and materials before it goes off to the assembly line. Three other GM plants have adopted a similar agreement.
Yet, GM’s arguments only add to what will more than likely be a contentious discussion with the UAW. The union is already seething over GM’s plans to idle four U.S. plants. GM will need to successfully negotiate their official closure with the UAW, but the union has already said it will argue for new vehicles allocated to Lordstown and Detroit-Hamtramck. Its target? Vehicles made in Mexico currently, like the Chevrolet Blazer.
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Source: Bloomberg
Comments
“By paying them less and putting them on a different benefits plan, GM will argue it can provide greater job security and benefits for UAW members.”
Something about this statement tells me GM won’t be an ideal advocate for the protection of temp worker rights…
there was a time when workers had no rights and the union actually did alot of good. Now we have a zillion lawyers, the Dept of Labor, Labor Relations, and laws against mistreatment of employees (dont use marxist terms like “workers”.) as well as child labor laws. Today unions are irrelvant and destroy so much more than they help. Unions are absolutely nothing more than money laudering vehicles of corruption for the DNC and they all need to die. America has always been about the individual not the “collective” and thats all unions exist for now, themselves and the DemoTrash Party… GM is seeking to kill the UAW with moving jobs out of the USA as only Ford and FCA have to deal with these corrupt thugs. Honda, Mercedes, BMW, Toyota, Hyundai, Subaru, Kia… who’d I leave off? Do not have to deal with the UAW and I think this is MB’s plan, to kill the cancer once and for all. THough I an no fan of hers this would be a huge legacy win for her and to the contrary for her sponsor Barry Soetoro who essentially annointed her as CEO…
Just another way to jam employees and “build” morale. Barra sure dug a hole with the unions and this fall will be interesting.
They need to shutter the Mexican plants and bring jobs back, instead of selling out US workers.
BTW GM’s “temp” hiring process is an F’N JOKE. Online tests, in plant tests,drug tests AND background checks all while they keep advertising for more temps as the ones already vetted wait for months/years and have to re-test and wait longer.
For what? incomplete benefits and $15.78/hr. Even Amazon pays $15 with FULL benefits.
Hi there after working for GM for over 22yrs nothing shocks me every year we give GM more and more and they pay out chump change smaller bonuses year after year and there pockets get BIGGER AND BIGGER for example MRS BARRAS Bonus I mean come on you could of paid a whole line year wages with just a portion of her BONUS CHECK and yet they still want more. Our answer should be no unless our contract stands with ALL UAW MEMBERS to our BENEFIT not just the other side.
Go work for Amazon then.
what’d you give a crappy days work for a fantastic wage? Every GM car I’ve had has been crap… the UAW legacy costs put them in Bankruptcy… give more and more, you’re lucky you had a job and incredible benefits. NO UAW employee has a thing to whine about you’re all way over paid for your skill set. If you think she’s over paid (I would agree with you but…) YOU simply could not run this company… anyone that complains about CEO compensation is a cry baby loser. Running a company like this, even poorly, takes smart people. Its an incredibly complex role. Daniel Hunt what’d you do sit in a jobs bank for 15 years? The UAW is a cancer, period.
I would agree that Typhoid Mary is simply not getting it done with the crappy interiors and pathetic launches for nearly every line since she was appointed by Barry Soetoro. She’s a lifer as was her father and she cannot bring the change GM needs but then again it really cannot change while its chained to the corrupt UAW. She needs to go but the UAW needs to die… I prefer the later…
Temps are the easiest way for corporations to make profits. GM needs more temps, in management. Replace Mary Barra with a temp before she runs GM into bankruptcy.
I doubt GM will ever get any bankruptcy, bailout support from America again. People will always remember the taxpayer loss of 11 billion in 2009 for the GM bailout. That’s where GM said they needed the bailout to keep good jobs in America. Then they screwed the taxpayers again by moving jobs and plants out of America.
GM the Heartbreak of America
George Bush put up the $$ to help Barry Soetoro (takes the credit) for saving GM. That said GM DID NOT go through traditional bankruptcy, it was a govt run bankruptcy that paid off the unions and destroyed investors. If GM dies you can thank the DemonCrap Party for not allowing a proper transition. Everyone was screwed, investors, taxpayers but the unions made millions, billions even and their members got nothing. The UAW and the DNC, ruining America, lining their pockets all the while “fighting” for the little guy… I think history has proved otherwise….
All companies do this (push for lower wages), why GM have to be the best company in the world?. I got a highway to NYC for sale if you guys don’t think Ford/FCA won’t do the same this fall and let’s not mention what the imports pay and do in the RTW States.
No I’m not 100% on board what GM doing and the UAW should get it’s hands dirty fighting for jobs like it always done but let’s not fool ourselves.
Ask Harley-Davidson how its implementation of temp. workers (casuals) at their plants is working out.
P.S. It is a complete mess and it is actually costing the company MORE money.
Where did I miss the 63$ a hr pay raise.
They publicize that “all in” number to get public opinion jealousy on their side. If they were being genuine, they would be on the side of Universal Health Care, to put them on even footing with the rest of the world’s labor costs. The reality is that employer provided healthcare is another hook to keep people from leaving. They don’t want to raise actual pay to make up for that “compensation”. It does not actually cost them what they claim it is worth to employees, because they are self insured. BC-BS only manages it for them.