Financial analysts are predicting significantly reduced profit-sharing checks for UAW members who build cars for American automakers, including GM. The predicted cut to bonuses is a consequence of the trade agenda of President Donald Trump, which includes a 25-percent tariff on car imports and potential reciprocal tariffs on top of that.
“If you’re an (hourly) autoworker, you should assume this tariff effort will cost you $1,000 to $5,000 in profit-sharing for this year,” Anderson Economic Group CEO Patrick Anderson told the Detroit Free Press. “There are also reductions that will happen to bonuses and earnings that go to salaried workers and executives. There’s going to be reductions in earnings to suppliers, too.” Andersen went as far as to say tariffs could be so costly for automakers that it drops profit-sharing to zero.
However, UAW president Shawn Fain remains supportive of the new tariffs and optimistic about what they could accomplish for American workers like GM employees. “The Big Three, and the rest of the automakers, have had record profits for the past 15 years,” Fain said in an email to the Free Press. “They haven’t used that to reinvest in plants. They haven’t lowered their prices for consumers. They haven’t given that back to the American taxpayers. And they sure as hell haven’t passed those profits along to the workers who make these companies run. What they have done is paid it out to Wall Street to the tune of $367 billion in stock buybacks and over $1 billion in CEO pay.”
“Now they want us to be all worked up about profit-sharing checks or 401(k) plans so we can help them defend this system that ultimately benefits corporate America, not the American worker,” Fain continued. “Suddenly, we hear people crying about the disruption in our economy. Meanwhile, the factory workers of this country have had nothing but disruption for decades.” He went on to cite that the Big Three have shut down over 60 production facilities in the last 20 years, “killing hundreds of thousands of jobs.”
President Trump announced on Wednesday a 90-day pause on most reciprocal tariffs first announced on “Liberation Day.” However, the new 25-percent tariff on automobiles imported to the United States is still in effect.
