The United Auto Workers union is getting closer to reaching a tentative agreement between each of the big three automakers — following a six-week strike.
The tentative agreement comes just two days after the union had expanded a strike against General Motors, America’s largest automaker, right after reaching tentative agreements with Ford and Stellantis.
What the UAW deal with GM looks like
Here’s what we know about the deals reached between General Motors, which is similar to the deals between Ford and Stellantis, according to CNN.
- Immediate 11% raise in top hourly wage rates.
- Additional pay raises totaling another 14% throughout the 41⁄2 years of the contract.
- A return of the cost of living adjustment that helps protect workers from impacts of inflation rates.
“We won things nobody thought was possible,” UAW President Shawn Fain told The Wall Street Journal.
At Stellantis, the “workers get cost-of-living pay that would bring raises to a compound 33% with top assembly plant workers making more than $42 per hour,” The Associated Press reported.
What do the increases mean? It “could lift members’ pay more than 30% over the life of the contract,” and will make the biggest impact on less senior employees, providing them pay raises “as much as 150%,” per CNN.
“I think it’s great,” President Joe Biden said Monday morning as he was boarding Air Force One, The New York Times reported.
How will the United Auto Workers agreements impact car sales?
Executive analyst Karl Brauer at iSeeCars.com told the Times it will likely provide a minimal impact on immediate car sales, but it could have bigger impacts long term.
“This is going to make cars more expensive,” Brauer told the Times.
Ford executives said that “the UAW contract would add $850 to $900 per vehicle in additional costs,” WSJ reported.
“We have to identify efficiencies,” Ford Chief Financial Officer John Lawler said, per WSJ. “We have to increase productivity. It is a record contract.”