![]() ![]() On September 17, GM stopped providing health insurance to 55,000 union members, forcing the UAW to pay for COBRA. A two day difference between contract expiration and the beginning of a strike is unusually short, but likely motivated by the prolonged negotiations between management and the union. ![]() The contract between the UAW and General Motors expired September 14, and the strike began at 11:59pm on Sunday, September 15, 2019. Though GM has since received large tax breaks and returned to profitability, worker compensation remained stagnant, and the UAW took umbrage with the company's decisions to shutter American facilities and move some jobs abroad. ![]() Motivations ĭuring the Great Recession and economic uncertainty that followed, unionized automotive workers accepted concessions to allow GM and other companies to recover. The last strike coordinated by the UAW targeting General Motors occurred in 2007. This strike constituted the first major labor action in the American automotive industry in a decade. The new contract includes agreements that "in-progression" workers now get a faster path to top pay: four years from $17 per hour to $28 per hour rather than eight, $75,000-85,000 assistance packages for workers at the three closing plants, and 4% lump sum wage payments in the first and third years with 3% base wage increases in alternating years. The strike lasted six weeks, and ended when GM conceded to union demands on wage growth and health care costs because the new contract allows GM to close three factories: the Lordstown Assembly plant, the Baltimore Transmission plant, and the Warren Transmission plant. Demands by workers included increased job security, gateway for temporary workers to become permanent, better pay and retaining healthcare benefits. The 2019 General Motors strike began September 15, 2019, with the walkout of 48,000 United Automobile Workers from some 50 plants in the United States. ![]()
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