Detroit – The United Auto Workers’ chief negotiator with Stellantis NV expressed hope that a deal could be reached this week “if we keep pushing and keeping our heads down.”
The Detroit-based union’s unprecedented strike against all three Detroit automakers entered its 24th day on Sunday. Among the Detroit Three’s 146,000 workers, 25,300 members are on strike nationwide.
Despite the optimism, gaps remain between the sides, said John Morgan, the union’s lead negotiator at Stellantis, head of the People Who Work subcommittee and an operations committee member at Local 7, which represents workers at the Jefferson North Assembly Plant in Detroit. Some of the union’s high-profile demands on the automaker have been withdrawn, including a demand for a 32-hour work week.
But other initiatives to balance work and private life are also still being discussed, said Morgan. At Stellantis, intermittent absences, particularly under the Family and Medical Leave Act, were the focus of many conversations. FMLA requires employers to provide unpaid leave for qualified medical and family reasons.
The company wants to provide or provide a bonus for “presenteeism,” or good attendance, but Morgan said the union is opposed to measures aimed at reducing FMLA absences, which they say could have a negative impact on workers who show up.
“Don’t punish the people who come to work,” he told the Detroit News during a rally in Detroit focused on unskilled workers. “There are already mechanisms in place for them to respond to FMLA abuses. Why don’t you use these?”
As an example, he cited the company’s ability to investigate circumstances in which he believes FMLA is being used improperly.
Stellantis declined to comment on the status of negotiations, other than a letter sent to employees Friday by Mark Stewart, chief operating officer in North America, in which he spoke of “good momentum,” but acknowledged that “gaps still need to be closed”.
Additional workers
According to a previous proposal to the union, the number of planned and unplanned absences, including lateness, at Stellantis in 2022 was approximately 23%. To compensate for these absences, the company uses lower-paid assistants.
They start at $15.78 an hour and have higher health care expenses than their full-time counterparts and no dental or vision insurance. Stellantis’ workforce has the highest proportion of adjunct or temporary workers among the Detroit Three at 12%.
Mubarak Mozeb, 32, of Hamtramck has been a laborer for three years at the Jefferson North assembly plant on Detroit’s east side, where the Jeep Grand Cherokee and Dodge Durango SUVs are made.
He said he often works 60 hours a week at the factory and then works five to six hours more on home renovations, equipment maintenance or working at a restaurant to make ends meet. However, he said that he was not supposed to work at JNAP for the last three weeks.
“Many workers like me jump from paycheck to paycheck,” he said. “Many of us jump from job to job. Imagine working 10 hours in a factory, driving downtown to the bus tables until one in the morning, and then having to decide whether it’s worth going to sleep because you’re going to get up for the next shift in three hours. “
Other support staff also said they were scheduled for fewer hours. Unless a deal is reached that doesn’t convert additional players, Tenisha Hodges, 45, of Detroit will join JNAP for three years in January. She said she wasn’t scheduled to work last week and was scheduled to work three days this week, even though she had a full-time schedule before her contract expired.
“When I started making $15.78 an hour, I worked 10 hours a day, and then I left at 3 a.m. to do Amazon Flex for another five hours,” she said. “When you come into the factory, you have the idea that things are going to do well financially… only to realize that things are not what they used to be.”
Ann Arbor native Ben Duell Fraser, known as rapper Canuck, performed his song “No Justice, No Jeeps” at the rally. He said he has also seen a decline in shifts among his additional colleagues at the Mack assembly plant next to JNAP, which also builds Grand Cherokees. He noticed that supervisors were filling in for some of his tasks in the paint shop because there weren’t enough people who knew the work.
“They are vital,” he said, “and supplements have the worst of it: They work the hardest and are treated the worst.”
Stellantis is recalling full-time employees at its U.S. manufacturing operations from a reverse layoff that affected hundreds of employees in the spring, according to a statement from spokeswoman Jodi Tinson.
“As a result,” the statement said, “the company will schedule additional employees in accordance with the terms of the company’s 2019 collective bargaining agreement.”
JNAP had been in “critical status” since early July, which was set to expire on October 2nd. This allows the company to operate facilities seven days a week and with overtime for a specific period of time.
Morgan said critical status is a policy that “we are trying to remove completely” from the contract.
“They should work with the local union” on the decision to work overtime, he said. “Our members want to spend time with their families. Especially since COVID, they want that.”
UAW President Shawn Fain, returning Sunday morning from a rally in Chicago where Ford Motor Co. employees are striking, said Friday that all three Detroit automakers had committed to reassigning unskilled and temporary workers, but details were not disclosed. Ford’s proposal is the most generous, with a wage of $21 an hour, an extension of profit sharing to them and a requirement to convert current temporary workers to full-time with at least 90 days. GM and Stellantis offered a starting wage of $20 an hour.
Financial security
Another key topic in the discussions was product allocation, said Rich Boyer, UAW vice president for the Stellantis division. Stellantis has been pursuing the possibility of closing or selling 18 facilities, from its Auburn Hills headquarters, which it could lease back, to Mopar parts distribution centers across the country that it wants to consolidate and make more efficient.
The company said the Mopar consolidation would not result in a decline in jobs, but Boyer said two weeks ago that about 5,400 jobs across the company could be at risk. There has been some movement, he said, without providing details, particularly around powertrain workers and investments in battery trays and other EV components.
The union is also calling for a solution to the former Jeep Cherokee plant in Belvidere, Illinois, which the company shut down in February due to the cost of electric vehicles. Boyer previously said one proposal would include building a battery factory there, resuming operations at its stamping plant and opening a Mopar distribution center there.
“I want a vehicle in Belvidere,” Boyer said Sunday.
The comments came after GM made a last-minute attempt Friday to stop the strike from expanding its full-size SUV plant in Arlington, Texas. The company agreed to include workers at its joint ventures that make batteries for electric vehicles in its framework agreement with the UAW.
Details on what the inclusion would look like remain sparse, and GM’s statement on Friday did not acknowledge the move. Neither Morgan nor Boyer had seen the details of the agreement.
GM’s Ultium Cells LLC plant in Warren, northeast Ohio, is operational and organized by the UAW. Stellantis and Ford do not yet have U.S. workers in this category. They will build battery factories in the future, although the union would still have to organize them.
Still, “You can negotiate anything,” said David Nacht, an employment lawyer in Ann Arbor. “Given that there is a Democratic administration in the state and federal governments that is aligned with the UAW and electric vehicles, unionization of battery plants (at the Detroit Three) is inevitable. It is a Kabuki dance of the broader economic, political and structural environment.”
Morgan and Boyer said they were optimistic that Stellantis would adopt the pattern.
“It’s huge,” Morgan said of GM’s move, adding of Stellantis: “They have to follow.”
As for other issues, such as the desire for pensions for workers hired after 2007, the demand is “very tough,” Morgan said. Stellantis said it has offered more than $1 billion in retirement funding contributions and “significant improvements” to its 401(k). Ford said it increased 401(k) contributions. Previous GM offers included payments to active and retired UAW members.
“There are improvements to the 401(k),” Morgan said. “Retirement provision is important. There are ways to accomplish this (with a 401(k)), but you need to do your homework.”
On this topic, Boyer told the rally participants: “Ten hours a day you get injured, your hands hurt, your feet hurt, your elbows hurt, your shoulders are shot and you say you don’t deserve a pension.” Yeah right. You deserve that and more.”
GM’s move on Friday really suggested that the three companies were “all within reach” of agreements with the UAW, said Marick Masters, a management professor at Wayne State University.
“You have already received a good contract,” he said as he looked at the proposals. “If they can get close to 30% (wage increase), including COLA, a little more for the retirees, that electric vehicle stuff and the right to strike (on plant closings), I don’t know what else the union could keep out for.”
The union’s targeted “insurrectionary strike” at all three Detroit automakers began on September 15 with strikes at GM’s Wentzville, Missouri, midsize truck and commercial vehicle plant, Ford’s Bronco and Ranger Michigan assembly plant in Wayne, and the Stellantis Jeep Wrangler and Gladiator factory in Toledo, Ohio.
Since then, the UAW has expanded the strike to 38 GM and Stellantis parts distribution centers across the country, most recently to Ford’s Explorer and Lincoln Aviator plants in Chicago and GM’s Chevrolet Traverse and Buick Enclave plants in Delta Township outside Lansing.
The striking workers will receive $500 weekly from the union’s strike and defense fund. In response to the work stoppages, GM also laid off 2,175 employees at supplier plants and sites that use components at striking plants. Ford also laid off 1,800 workers. Stellantis has also laid off several hundred employees. These workers will also receive $500 per week if they do not receive unemployment benefits, the union said.
The strike fund was more than $825 million before the strike. It remains “healthy,” said Margaret Mock, the UAW’s secretary-treasurer, although she couldn’t provide exact numbers.
“We’ll be fine,” she said, telling striking workers: “We know it’s hard,” but a move like GM’s on Friday “signals that our strength is in holding the line.”
A few dozen UAW members and their supporters attended the Auxiliary Workers rally at Manz Playfield near the Detroit Assembly Complex, which also included JNAP and Mack. Attendees also included members of the Detroit City Council, including President Mary Sheffield and UAW Region 1 Director LaShawn English.
Event organizer Lynda Jackson, Local 7 recording secretary, said the event was intended to address feelings of division among workers of different classes.
“As part of the first Stage 2, I felt that wedge,” Jackson said. “In every contract negotiation there are efforts to divide us. We want them to know they are not alone in this.”
Mack Trucks pact rejected
Also on Sunday, the UAW said it would strike at 7 a.m. Monday against Volvo Group-owned Mack Trucks Inc. after about 73% of members in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Florida rejected a tentative agreement, raising expectations of union members signaled expected gains in a contract. 3,900 Mack Trucks employees are taking part in the discussions.
“I am excited to see UAW members waiting for a better offer at Mack,” Fain said in a statement, “and willing to stand up and leave the job to win him.”
In a statement, Mack President Stephen Roy said the company was “surprised and disappointed that the UAW has chosen to take a strike, which we believe is unnecessary. “We have clearly demonstrated our commitment to negotiating in good faith by reaching a tentative agreement that has been approved by both the International UAW and the UAW Mack Truck Council.”
The tentative agreement varied depending on the location and order. However, for many Mack employees, this included a pay increase of about 19%, including a 10% increase upon ratification, over five years, an additional year over their previous contract. There was a ratification bonus of $3,500 and an increased 401(k) contribution. It shortened the time to peak wage by one year to five years.
There are no plans to reinstate pensions, adjust the cost of living or shorten the workweek, according to some of the union’s demands to the Detroit Three. Ford and Stellantis have agreed to reinstate COLA, which was suspended in 2009. Fain suggested Friday that GM was close to doing so.
“The UAW called our tentative agreement ‘a record deal for the heavy truck industry,’” Roy added, “and we trust other stakeholders will recognize that our market, our business and our competitive environment are very different from those of passenger vehicles – Manufacturers differ.”
On the other side of the northern border, the Canadian auto union Unifor released a video with President Lana Payne
It’s ahead of that union’s Monday evening deadline to reach an agreement with GM. Unifor last month ratified a three-year contract with Ford with wage increases of 10% in the first year, 2% in the second year and 3% in the final year. There was also COLA, reducing the time it takes for a mid-career employee to reach the top pay scale from eight to four years.
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