General Motors has filed a federal racketeering lawsuit against Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and several former FCA executives, accusing the automaker and at least three of its employees of carrying out a “multi-year pattern of corruption” that it used to “undermine the integrity of the collective bargaining process” with the UAW.
The suit relates to the collective bargaining processes that led to the 2011 and 2015 national agreements with the UAW. GM alleges FCA corrupted the bargaining process on both occasions, accusing the automaker of “paying millions of dollars in bribes to obtain benefits, concessions, and advantages in the negotiation, implementation, and administration,” of the labor agreements.
“FCA’s manipulation of the collective bargaining process resulted in unfair labor costs and operational advantages, causing harm to GM,” the automaker said in a statement. “With this lawsuit, GM is seeking to reinforce that bargaining must be free from fraud and corruption. All damages recovered will be invested in the U.S. to benefit GM’s employees and grow jobs.”
GM says that former FCA CEO Sergio Marchionne “was a central figure in conceiving, executing and sponsoring the fraudulent activity,” during the collective bargaining processes. Former FCA executives Alphons Iacobelli, Jerome Durden and Michael Brown are also named as defendants in the case. The UAW itself is not named in the lawsuit.
FCA has enjoyed a lower net labor cost than GM in previous years, GM also claimed, which could be a result of the alleged bribes. While Ford may have also been affected by FCA’s alleged UAW corruption, GM did not consult with the automaker in joining the RICO suit, Automotive News reports.
“This lawsuit is intended to hold FCA accountable for the harm its actions have caused our company and to ensure a level playing field going forward,” GM General Counsel Craig Glidden said in a prepared statement.
FCA has yet to release a statement regarding the suit. The case against it comes at a precarious time for the automaker, which recently entered a partnership with France’s PSA Groupe. FCA also entered contract discussions with the UAW on Monday over a new national labor agreement.
Subscribe to GM Authority for more GM legal news and around-the-clock GM news coverage.
Source: Automotive News
This example is a former NCRS award winner.
Many automakers oppose right-to-repair laws citing cybersecurity concerns.
Breaking out the spec sheets for a comparison.
Plus, a nationwide lease on all-electric off-road Pickup and SUV.
Extra comfort for rear-seated passengers.
View Comments
With something like this would the US Attorney also go after FCA? I'm sure for GM to pull the trigger on this they must have pretty damn good evidence
So because Ford and FCA can actually negotiate decent CBAs with the UAW and GM can't....GM thinks they must have cheated?
Hey Barra, maybe it's because they didn't leave thousands of families unemployed and future's in jeopardy. Maybe a little bit of goodwill goes a long way. I'm sure that everyone else is to blame in this situation, BUT GM, sure.
Top brass at FCA is being accused of bribing the UAW in effort to secure lower labour rates for their members. And UAW is accused of accepting. That's not negotiating.
trump wants to know what is wrong with that.
Keep eating you sour grapes loser and your loser party with their loser candidate. Pathetic angry, loser, cry babies...
STFU
Nuff said
Isn't this Sergio Marchionne the same Fiat guy that wanted to auto merge with GM, Ford, Toyota, etc., and no one was interested?
Union leaders taking bribes while giving a big F U to their membership seems about right for the current low life's running the UAW.
Wooooooow
Everyone better get their Popcorn ready...this will be a long Drama.
Who cares, both companies build unreliable Junk in 2019.
Looks like the folks at PSA ought to plan for a bit of contingent liability...if the FCA sales guys are cooking the sales numbers to fraudulently influence investors with inflated sales performance, and the labor guys are paying bribes to their union counterparts in order to garner advantageous labor costs, it makes you wonder what else is yet to be uncovered...
... wait, can you hear that...?? yeah, that. That's the sound of 93
attorneys buying summer homes in Martha's Vineyard ..
Unbelievable
GM should be getting sued not doing the suing.
GM violated agreements with thousands of employees, suppliers and communities, deceived them and mislead them with corporate double talk as they quietly shrink their us manufacturing base.
Amazing how GM has money to pay lawyers and to build new products in Mexico China and Korea to sell in the USA but they don’t have money to retool Lordstown.
Screw you Mary Barry.
GM is mad because RAM is a much better Pick-up Truck than Silverado or GMC
I am curious why a similar suit was not brought against VW by multiple manufacturers over the Dieselgate fiasco. Opel surely lost business. The only thing I can think of is that German laws fail to have any teeth because so far no senior executives are sitting in the clink, except one for a short while, but that was for messing with evidence, not the crime itself.
Part of VW's penalty was they had to put money into electric vehicle development? Duh, that is something that they would have had to do anyways!