The United Auto Workers labor union, better known as the UAW, has released a new video denouncing corporate greed and justifying union demands amid ongoing contract negotiations and targeted strikes at each of the Big Three Detroit automakers (GM, Ford, Stellantis). The video includes footage of UAW members demonstrating, as well as statements made by UAW President Shawn Fain. It’s likely that the UAW will expand its strike to include additional facilities in the event a deal is not reached.
The video, titled “Corporate Greed,” is about two-minutes, 40-seconds long, and includes a variety of statistics on how the Big Three Detroit automakers “funneled their extreme profits to CEOs and wealthy investors.” The video states that over the last four years, profits at the Big Three have increased 65 percent, while CEO pay has increased 40 percent. The UAW also states that the Big Three have increased spending on stock buybacks by 1,500 percent, while the average price for a new car has increased by 34 percent and inflation has increased 20 percent. Meanwhile, autoworker wages have increased by just six percent over the same time period.
“They pretend that the sky will fall if we get our fair share of the quarter of a trillion dollars the Big Three has made over the past decade,” UAW President Fain said. “They want to say that our righteous fight for a higher quality of life for the working class would wreck the economy. We’re not going to wreck the economy, we’re going to wreck their economy because it only works for the billionaire class.”
Check out the full video below:
The UAW is currently conducting targeted strikes at three locations, including the GM Wentzville plant in Missouri, Ford’s Wayne Assembly plant in Michigan, and the Stellantis Toledo Assembly Complex in Ohio. Goldman Sachs estimates that the strike at the GM and Ford facilities may end up costing the automakers between $100 million and $125 million per week. A total of 12,700 union members across all three automakers are currently participating in the strikes.
In total, there are roughly 146,000 autoworkers currently represented by the UAW, 46,000 of which work at GM, 57,000 of which work at Ford, and 43,000 of which work at Stellantis. This is the first time in which the UAW has called for strikes at each of the Big Three Detroit automakers simultaneously.
The UAW previously conducted a walkout at GM facilities in 2019, with 48,000 workers participating. The 2019 strike lasted six weeks.
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Comments
It’s not even the CEOs, it’s the Blackrocks and Vanguards of the world that are the problem.
Greed? The UAW has extorted enough money from the automakers and their workers to be able to pay strikers for months and months to not work and not worry about it. I’d love to know how much is in the UAW coffers.
Not to mention there are plenty of employees in other fields who work way more physical labor for more hours a day (twelve) and don’t get retirement benefits or the many other benefits the autoworkers get (and the ones they were offered), have to deal with seasonal unemployment, etc. including people who are single parents without the help of the other parent in the children’s lives. If UAW employees want upper-management pay, they should become upper-management employees. Sounds like they think CEOs don’t do anything but eat bon-bons when they’re this jealous of other people’s jobs and abilities. And they don’t understand the money is being put into the EVs the government is forcing upon everyone, among other things. UAW are greedy, led by a greedy narcissist out to make a name for himself.
gm, Ford and the UAW have nobody but themselves to blame for the EV mandates. The UAW always supports the person with the “-D” behind their names, and the execs are no better. gm and Ford management have been kissing Bidnen’s and Newsome’s behind realizing that clueless, woke, virtue signaling career politicians like these are what is destroying American industry.
@Greed Shawn can come out of this strike looking like a hero or a zero.
850 million.
In this country the UAW has the right to strike for whatever they want and for as long as they want without outside interference (government). Likewise, the automakers have the right to hold out as long as they want to as well for what want. That’s the basic definition of collective bargaining. It’s a delicate balancing act because the union holds the better short game cards but company has better long game cards. As long as national security interests are not harmed, everyone else should stand down and mind their own business.
Well said! We can start with all the whiners who never worked a day on a Big 3 assembly line, but can tell you exactly how little amount of manual labor is being done on one daily because they “read it on the internet”.
We all know who the whiners are. It’s low skill labor demanding high skill pay. Mix with UAW corruption it’s like a kindergarten class running the school.
If the product wasn’t so mainstream, no one would care.
I say find new none union workers. Cut the fat. Cut the uaw and improve the products.
Or cease to be a company.
This is the exact reason that they are only striking in “some” of the plants. They don’t have the coffers (or aren’t willing to part with them) to pay 146,000 workers, for an entire “UAW” strike, for very long…if at all. I’m sure they figure if they only cause the closure of some…not all union plants…they can stay on strike for a longer period of time. It must be horrible to be a worker waiting for the whim of Fain to take their income away (yes, I know they get a pittance from the UAW but not enough for a family to live on). He is playing with all of their lives, and I’m sure they’re not too happy about it. Asking for 40 hrs of pay, for working 32 hours a week is just a bargaining ploy. He knows there is no way anyone will agree to it, so he’ll look like he is acting in good faith, when he takes it off the table. The percentage of the raise is the biggest bargaining chip. It makes you wonder how much Fain will make out of this. Last year’s president (Raymond Curry) made 267K.
@ Mr. Mike. they have enough money for 11 weeks, 500 bucks a week to every worker and health insurance paid. So, when their “coffers” start to run out of money, their demands will start to lessen. Shawn can come out of this looking like a hero or a zero.
Well if you want CEO pay then go and do what you need to do to become a CEO.
You start on the line like Mary did. She worked checking panels and hoods for approval for assembly.
She was accepted to the Ketterling University. She worked and went to school and earned an Engineering degree. Yes while working the line.
She then held different jobs in plants around the country and in engineering positions, admin positions and worked her way up to a plant manager.
During this time she attended Stanford and got a masters in business administration. Yes while still working for GM.
She then move to work in more engineering and even human resources.
n February 2008, she became vice president of Global Manufacturing Engineering. In July 2009, she advanced to the position of vice president of Global Human Resources, which she held until February 2011 when she was named executive vice president of Global Product Development. The latter position included responsibilities for design; she worked to reduce the number of automobile platforms in GM. In August 2013, her vice president responsibility was extended to include Global Purchasing and Supply Chain.
When Barra took over as chief executive of General Motors in January 2014, she became the first female head of an automobile manufacturer.
Now she is at the top where she has to deal with everyone that is not happy. The workers, The share holders, The government, the unions, the board and more. She is the one that has to do the dirty jobs no one wants.
All this while she missed her kids growing up and in her case she saved her marriage while most go through 2-3 marriages because they are never home with jobs that call for 24/7 work.
That money she is making is not doing her much good as she has little time to enjoy it so it is a blessing and curse.
Life of a CEO is not easy, fun and you have to have pretty thick skin.
But in the big picture her pay would cover only a very small part of the union demands and the cost of EV programs being forced on GM that are running into billions of dollars.
So look if you want the big money put in the time, put in the work, get the schooling and education. Also recall most executives also have to relocate several times around the world and not always great places to earn their next job.
Mary just did not come in on a white horse with a fairy god mother to this job. She did it the hard way and she is a smart lady.
If you note in the past many GM leaders never lasted more than a year or two before the board removed them or they just could not take the pressure. Most accepted Union demands that contributed to GM going broke. Remember when it was cheaper in the 90’s to build cars that were not selling than to lay off the workers. Back then you could get big discounts just to move the cars and most rental lots were full of unprofitable GM cars.
By looking at the strikers I see few that look like they are willing to do what it takes. So go back to putting the screw A in Hole B and shut up. The rest of us out here would be grateful for a 21% raise.
Ditto
Or if you don’t like how much the CEO is paid, and you own stock in the company, file suit for mismanagement of funds, as those dollars don’t come back into your pocket
To me the big elephant in the room? The fact that the UAW is calling the people their negotiating with essentially pigs. Since when has that ever gone well with a negotiation??? Tends to Hardline the other team in their demands. The UAW might actually bust itself up before this is all said and done.
Obviously, you are not a negotiator.
I have been at the negotiating table and watched as union negotiators sold out our employees because they had too much on their plate at the time.
She is as smart as a dead insect.
Well that is smarter than you….
If a dead insect can earn 28M a year that’s what I want to be!
“Dirty jobs that no one wants to do” boy you are so far up her behind its embarrassing. Like you said imagine working 2 jobs, 16 hrs a day, missing your kids lives, to barely make ends meet. Thats what alot of these temp workers do, but please tell me how hard the ceo has it. You’re so out of touch with reality. No one is asking for ceo pay just a good wage from a very wealthy company.
Not to mention the CEOs- like gm’s case- are often the ones that make the decisions that screw things up in the first place. There is a reason why gm has only a third of the market share it had 40 years ago, and Ford less than half.
Bs. A 36 hour work week, a 36% pay increase. Not sure how the UAW expects the big three to compete in the auto market. Fulfilling their insane demands will only put money into Toyota, Tesla etc coffers
32 hr work week will never happen, its just a negotiating tactic.
@C8.R
Your comment is spot on. Today, the majority of people especially the younger generations feel they are entitled. They don’t want to work hard or advance their education to get ahead. Our educational K-12, colleges, politicians, and media are grooming our kids to be socialists and have the government control every aspect of their lives. This is America, the land of opportunity. There are millions of jobs available that are not being filled because of all the free handouts and checks our government distributes. No one controls your life except you, You control what’s best for you and your family, not the corporation or government. If you are not happy, change jobs otherwise stop complaining and blaming others for your unhappiness.
You and DrPiz should not spin to use her to deflect from company criticism. I have a close relative with a better engineering background than Barra’s that unsuccessfully applied. He’s from outside the Michigan circle, and a generation younger and couldn’t check the right diversity box. Barra did work her way up, but came from a GM family. Sacrificing family time is very voluntary after reaching a high income. Good for her for making it work out. Hopefully she can relate to regular Joe’s that work to not sacrifice family life.
Sacrificing family time is NOT voluntary for CEOs etc. Their jobs are 24/7, on call on vacation or in the hospital or at kids’ plays/games/recitals or wherever. It is a harsh life, and their kids feel the effects of it, and money and things do not make up for the loss of the time with and attention from their parents. Reason why some of the kids have major mental health issues/do crazy stuff. Even the CEOs don’t get to enjoy life as much as a lower earner does as their lives revolve around their jobs.
It’s a life, not a job. Not for me. I’d rather retire early with just enough.
I’m not going to doubt your description. CEOs that retire after a couple years may be the sane ones. They have that option is what I meant. Not all pitchers are starters. Some relievers are great.
Good lord C8.R, you’re not as young as you think you are. You’re going to throw your arms out of socket waiving those pompoms. I hope Mary signed her book, To My #1 Fan. I hate to see the truth get in the way of a good story which is why it’s so fun to read your endless drivel. I may be a few blocks behind the Mary Barra bandwagon. My fear is she’s nothing more than Roger Smith in a pantsuit. Keep ‘em coming, everyone can use a good laugh during these tense negotiations.
I don’t feel badly for any of the big three and their execs who seem to be making questionable decisions anyhow. If you took just the top three execs from each company, cut their pay by one million a year (total compensation) and gave that savings out to the workers, it would give them a heck of a good pay increase for each worker. And it wouldn’t even touch the profits of the companies! I have little love for any of these execs who are trying to push everyone into what they want us to buy (stupid SUV’s or trucks) and then they can’t even fully paint the majority of them. Instead we get ugly black plastic all over because they don’t want to spend a little extra to fully paint them. We keep getting less and less noise insulation, hard black plastic all over the interiors with few color choices and cheap tablets stuck to the dash instead of real controls and gauges. All while charging us more and more.
Give the workers a proper wage!
Wow Dan, those comments just support how clueless you are.
Maybe you should try a simple calculation. So pull a total of $3m from the executives. Spread that $3m out to 146k union employees. The comes out to $20/person per year.
GM has already offered their union members an increase that far exceeds that and it’s not good enough. Yet you’d think they’d be happy with a $20 annual increase.
So sorry my calculations didn’t meet your standards GMC Fan. First, I was trying to make a point. Second, I have no idea how many union workers there are in total (I’ll assume your 146K is accurate and for all three companies?). Thirdly, if you did that with the top 3 at all three companies, that’s not 3 million, but 9 million. But that isn’t really the point.
So let me once again make my point perfectly clear for you and the others who just can’t wait to pick a fight.
The top execs at all three companies make WAY WAY WAY too much money. The companies need to cut that pay way back and give it to the workers (union or not). That’s just a good start. Then they can begin to share the massive profits more fairly with the workers. There. Is that a little more simple for you?
Maybe you should read the article above and you’ll figure out where the 146k union member number came from.
I’m afraid you did make a point 😞 the pro UAW side can’t do math.
FYI, that 9 million now makes an extra 60$/year.
Or read.
The execs are doing jobs you could never do, yet you think you have the right to say how much money they should make? TRY to wrap your mind around the amount of work and difficulty of that work that it takes to run a huge company like GM, Ford, and Stellaris. You and the UAW workers have no clue. And the UAW workers don’t get paid exec salaries because they don’t do exec jobs. People get paid for their jobs’ work. If they want more money, there are plenty of ways they can get more by working towards a different position, choosing a new job/career, going to school, starting their own business, etc. instead of whining about a very good offer they were given not being enough.
Or they could make more money by, get this, collective bargaining! Wow what a concept. Ill never understand how people can side with a corporation rather than your fellow man. Wild! Must be envy.
CEOs are your fellow man. Their net worth does not make them any more or less of a human being than the employees. These UAW employees are greedy to call $82,000 plus lots of benefits insulting, especially for their kinds of jobs (they’re paid more than others in those jobs), but plenty of people do not make that kind of pay. Anyone who sides with them are the wild and crazy ones.
So you attempt to make a point but fail to do research and up embarrassing yourself. And to top it off, you get offended and accuse people of picking a fight with you when all they did was show you how wrong you were.
Whoops GMC Fan, looks like the old abacus let you down. Let’s not forget reading and comprehension are both skills. Dan B. did say the top three executives from each company which would bring the grand total to 9 million. Now each employee gets $60.00 per year, not bad!
Remember when the Mafia controlled the Unions? Now the Democrat Party controls them. Definitely a similarity. They need to go back to work. If GM doesn’t want to pay them what they want then they can go work somewhere else. That’s how it works.
Who controls corporations? Let me give you a hint, they’re worse than the mob. Workers can do whatever the hell they deem necessary to win this fight, thats how that works.
Chevyguy – nobody controls the corporations, the corporations control the world. Like I said, if they don’t pay then leave. GM can’t build vehicles without people. Eventually they will have to pay what the market dictates.
Workers are dictating what the market pays, thats how that works.
The big three would have a lot more money to give raises if they weren’t losing billions on the EV projects the democrats are forcing them to develop. Also, what about the pay of the union higher up’s? They should have their headquarters in a strip mall on a not so great part of town and driving cheap little econoboxes, if they really cared how the union dues were spent. We will be back in a position where the domestics can’t compete without government support (like the other automakers get).
Really? So let’s take your back-woods way of looking at it and apply to the real world. So if GM, Ford and Stelantis ignored the direction that the industry is taking (no matter if you like it or not) and just kept pumping huge gas swelling SUV’s and trucks, how would that turn out when the rest of the world and industry has left them in the dust? Chances are, there wouldn’t be any need for workers. Union or not. Execs or not. They would be history because you and your right wing nut friends are too afraid to change.
I’d say pretty good. BEV’s don’t do well in the dust of the apocalypse.
After all that’s what the WEF and Alexander Dugan people want
Consumers have the right to have a choice, not be forced to buy EVs because the government says so. (Same with stoves, fireplaces, light bulbs, etc.) EVs are not environmentally-friendly and the grid is not ready for everyone to have one, not even close nor will it be in twelve years. EVs are not good for many uses, either. Change is not the issue; choice (a.k.a. freedom) is. And that freedom goes for the auto makers, too; EVs will only be popular when nobody has another choice, otherwise the auto makers would do just fine if they chose not to make everything an EV, and if they didn’t do fine, that’s also their choice. The government is supposed to be here for the people, not to overstep like they have been.
It is not so much the EV models it is the time line they have.
The time line is short and expensive. Also you can not set time limits on technology breakthroughs. Some come easy some not.
Right now charge times are long, batteries are still expensive and even at 2035 we will have over priced under developed cars.
Best to just help the industry developer the tech better. Get it cheaper and let buyers chose EV on its own merit vs forcing it on many who don’t want it.
Even if other countries get ahead we would still have cheaper transportation. Open our own oil and prices would favor us.
Contrary to the alarmist we are not going to run dry on oil soon.
I disagree on both. Batteries can never truly have the energy density as fuel. A battery must be a reversible reaction, while a fuel undergoes complete enthalpic destruction. A BEV 50 years from now will be better than today fuel engines for sure, but the fuel engines of the future will be as well. We already have test engines beating 50% efficiency, test diesel’s approaching 60. An ice engine 50 years from now will blow away a solid state BEV
It’s not the way the industry is moving, it’s the way they are being pushed by the current administration.
What are the odds we’ll see another bail out for legacy US auto again in the next five years?
And they will get an even icier reception than they did in 2008 with gm importing all of their CUVs from low-wage countries.
Here’s a crazy idea, the UAW should make the negotiations a live stream event or at the very least take minutes and document what was discussed during these meetings and make the available to public.
This way anyone can see what is Actually happening.
Greed is killing the world! Especially here in the USA. Everyone wants more for working less. Look how fat Americans have become. In a few hundred years we’ll look like a new breed of Orangutans! From the President on down everyone’s trying to screw their fellow man. As a society we are finished. Now if you don’t want to work for it then just steal it from your neighbor! Get off your fat @sses and stop being jealous of everyone else!
Unions are dinosaurs and they know it. They add zero value to the industry and just cost the consumers more money.
This strike shines a spotlight on what a greedy pig Mary Barra and most CEOS and executives have been.
As a stockholder of GM, Mary has done an absolutely disgusting job. Share price is hovering about the same price as the IPO of 13 years ago
Mary must go
Last week everyone hated Mary and all the executive’s decisions that they make.
Today everyone defends them as if last week’s glorious decisions did not exist.
Hey…next time you see a price hike, or your favorite model getting discounted, or cheapening of a product, while still making record profits. Think who executed those goals. Hint, it’s not the person putting a dashboard in a vehicle.
Non-union US producers, Toyota, Honda, Tesla, BMW, Hyundai, Kia, Subaru, Mercedes, are watching as Detroit and the UAW rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Current estimates list the average Detroit UAW worker as making $66 dollars an hour including benefits. The estimate for Tesla workers is $45 an hour. With the new contract, UAW workers could go as high as $88 per hour. This does not take in to consideration the huge legacy costs Detroit has for retired UAW workers.
Want to discuss the impact of the new contract on Detroit being competitive in the marketplace?
It does not matter where you work. The bigger the corporation, the more massive the mistakes. I do like that they’re trying to link assembly line pay to the CEO. Their pay is out of line with what Alfred Sloan used to make. I realize that assembly line work is not easy and most people hate it. Back in the old days they would never quit because they could not get a job making the same or more. The big three can simply not allow themselves to be dragged back into a huge contract, like the 70’s. Global competition, hell domestic car manufacturing, won’t allow it. I live in OKC and grew up near the GM plant and the air force base. Used to drive me crazy that my neighbor drove a floor scrubber at and made almost 80k a year. This was 20 years ago. Drove me nuts that as a mechanic I had 40k in tools, 600 hrs. in training, and struggled to make near that without the benefits. Now Boeing has moved a bunch of their corporate jobs here and I know quite a few who work there and make 65-80k a year with at least a bachelor degree. A guy that I know was a welder in skilled trades and makes more in retirement than he did working 40 hours a week. Doesn’t sound economically sound.
@dan Backwoods? I’m a tech that is certified to work on this crap and I can do math. Pretty sure and EV is worthless in the majority of the world. Try charging one of those in Africa. Not to mention the extraordinary weight of EV’s. Tires do not last nearly as long and pot holes are hell on Tesla’s. Nobody besides a dealer can really work on them, so no more independent shops. I also wonder how many techs will have to die before we realize this might not be a great idea.
These comments are sad. It seems everyone is anti-workers now.
Anti UAW.
Bet their offer would go up if it included the UAW dissolve or lose relevance. Then they could save money and the workers would get paid more.
The UAW could use the fund to better educate the work force, like technical degrees, so they become better prepared. They complain about the price of the cars rising 34% in the past 5-10 years, but never complained when GM decided to kill each and every sedan and small cars or better, how to make cars less expensive with better quality while maintaining a decent salary.
On the other end, the BMW CEO (who is the owner of BMW) had a bonus of $3M. Mr. Toyoda got $2M. So the UAW has a point here.
VW owns BMW.
@dave, No sir!! I is one!! I am w0rried the UAW will strangle them. Then we will use tax money to bail out the big three and the unions with our tax money, Meanwhile all my GM world class certification will get me is a different job.
People are migrating to SUV’s because you have better visibility, sit up higher, and have more interior space. The manufacturers like them because they perform better in the ever increasingly high crash standards (not a bad thing). Just part of the evolution of the automobile.