General Motors and the United Auto Workers union are still hammering together a contract after the UAW went on strike over the weekend. Now, the automaker is shifting health insurance costs to the union as the GM strike continues into the week.
While the UAW sought to have GM pay for health insurance costs through the end of the month, the automaker has said it is now halting those payments as a result of the GM strike. The move places additional pressure on the UAW with a further drain on the union’s strike fund.
Barra and UAW boss Gary Jones prior to the strike
GM spokesman Jim Cain addressed the move, saying in an email, “We understand strikes are difficult and disruptive to families. While on strike some benefits shift to being funded by the union’s strike fund, and in this case hourly employees are eligible for union-paid COBRA so their health care benefits can continue.”
In a letter to union leaders, the vice president responsible for the UAW’s GM department, Terry Dittes, indicated that the union would review its legal options with regard to the automaker’s decision.
Health care costs can be substantial, with GM indicating previously that it allocates roughly $1 billion annually on healthcare coverage for hourly workers.
During the GM strike, UAW members are expected to receive $250 a week from the union fund. However, some employees of GM supplier companies are ineligible for the payments and have already been laid off.
This is the first company-wide strike seen in some 12 years. With the latest GM strike now stretching into a third day, the walkout has surpassed the two-day strike seen in 2007.
So far, little progress has been seen in hammering together a workable deal between the UAW and GM. For now, the GM strike will continue, with some financial experts predicting costs up to $100 million per day for the automaker.
Rest assured, we’ll be covering this story in its entirety as it develops, so make sure to subscribe to GM Authority for more UAW news and around-the-clock GM news coverage.
Source: Reuters
Comments
Why would GM pay for benefits?
Most people that don’t show up to work get fired. That’s what should happen.
Words from someone that probably voted for Trump just stupid and ignorant don’t be mad member 12 we all understand how people on the outside feel !! And we also know you would take a job at GM in a heartbeat if you could but you can’t so go cry somewhere else!!
How do you know that your employer hasn’t already hired me?
I design systems that automate menial, trivial industrial jobs where workers are over compensated and unreliable. Long term …..people like me are Big Labor’s worst nightmare.
I am sure that someone in GM is working hard to outsource yours and others similar jobs to India, Mexico, and China. What will you do when someone on the other side of the world is willing to do your job for $9 hour?
Trump has been better for the UAW than any other recent president. But again the UAW greed is first over the workers. GM gave them a good deal. But they basically want everything paid for. The funny thing is the UAW likes democrats and those same democrats want to take away your great health insurance. that makes a lot of sense. Where is all the money the UAW received all the years without a strike. Oh yea big boys are getting arrested. the employees should have the option to tell the UAW to go away or leave them and go back to work.
Joe
The black guy was better!
Someone making a simple valid point and you felt the need to personally attack them while bringing politics into the equation is a textbook trump supporter move… don’t drop to their level.
I think you got sides mixed up here. Personal attacks? Politics? That’s exactly what the left has been living off of. Don’t try to act civilized. Your side isn’t.
Every state should have a right to work law. Unions should be killed off. If you don’t like your job go work for somebody else. If you choose to stay then you must think it is a good company. Don’t hire a Union rep goon to act as your thug to go twist the arm of a employer.
I would like to thank everyone on this site for a good chuckle obviously no one here has ever been in the union and has no idea how union-management relationships work and as far as right-to-work yes you have that right you have the right to take a job without a union or with one that is your choice.
This has nothing to do with Politics.
No contract + No work = No Benefits or Pay. It is that simple.
The Union chose to walk out and at that point on it is up to them to provide for their members as they are now held responsible for them due to their actions to call a walk out.
Union employment is a contracted employee and it is different than a non union worker. A non union worker works to the rules and regulations set by the company and is paid to follow that agreement.
A union worker works to a contract that has time limits and is renegociated on a timed basis. Once that contract expires or is broken unless it is written in the company is not resposible for any beneift or benefit time.
My Grandfather was a long time United Rubber Worker member till they failed and left him hanging.
The smart thing was to stay in and keep negociating as GM would have kept paying benefits as long as the current contract was observed.
Corperations are not welfair centers. They are places of buisness and they are there to make profits. If you are not satisfied with the compensation there are other options out there.
This was not a political deal just how the cold hard world works.
It is in the best interest of everyone they come to an agreement soon. If not The company will hurt but the workers will hurt even more. You will lose money that you will never get back even with a wage hike or agrement to pay back wages that rarely happens.
If I were a UAW member I would be more concerned about my leadership. With the corruption arrest it has to make you wonder how focused some of them are on negociations.
No work. No pay.
We should all be fairly compensated for the economic value we provide. Like a broken machine or bad line of code, an unproductive worker should be replaced immediately.
Maybe that’s a lesson that corrupt UAW leadership will learn when they have to pay their for their hourly legal defense team when they get hit with federal bribery charges.
I wish that unions didn’t make it so difficult for management to get rid of horrible workers.
Modern day unions seem to only be in the business of finding loop holes for lazy or trouble making employees to keep their jobs.
Here we are once again only seeing one side yes UAW what’s wrong but who paid them the money I guess the corporations we’re only doing it out of the goodness of their heart lol
Brilliant. Maybe it will force the Communists to come to the table sooner.
It will put pressure on corrupt UAW leadership that clearly just turned their back on plant workers in Lordstown and Detroit.