General Motors made an offer amid labor negotiations with United Auto Workers on Thursday, which union boss Shawn Fain called “insulting.” File Photo by Jeff Kowalsky/EPA-EFE
Sept. 7 (UPI) — General Motors made an offer amid labor negotiations with United Auto Workers on Thursday, which union boss Shawn Fain called “insulting.”
“Today we put an economic offer on the table to the UAW. We wanted you to hear about the proposal directly from us,” said Mark Reuss and Gerald Johnson, the president and executive vice president of GM, said in a statement.
“We understand how important these negotiations are to you and to our long-term success as a company. Our offer has been developed considering everything in our environment, including what is important to our team members and what our competitors are offering.”
The GM executives said the offer includes “well-deserved” wage improvements that they defended as exceeding a 2019 agreement on the matter.
“We still have work to do, but we wanted to make this offer to show our good-faith efforts to keep the process moving,” the executives said.
Under the proposed contract, GM would include a 10% wage increase for most employees, which the executives said marks the highest increase offered during a contract renewal in more than two decades. The union is seeking a 40% wage increase for its 46,000 workers over four years.
“After refusing to bargain in good faith for the past six weeks, only after having federal labor board charges filed against them, GM has come to the table with an insulting proposal that doesn’t come close to an equitable agreement for America’s autoworkers,” Fain said in a statement.
“GM either doesn’t care or isn’t listening when we say we need economic justice at GM by 11:59 p.m. on Sept. 14. The clock is ticking. Stop wasting our members’ time. Tick tock.”
Other offers in the GM proposal include recognizing the new federal holiday Juneteenth as a paid holiday and giving a $5,500 “ratification bonus” to all employees.