GM Said to Raise UAW Entry-Level Wage by $2 to $3 an Hour in New Contract

[Bozita]

Source: Bloomberg

GM Said to Raise UAW Entry-Level Wage by $2 to $3 an Hour in New Contract
By David Welch - Sep 17, 2011 3:14 PM ET


General Motors Co. (GM) will increase entry-level pay by $2 to $3 an hour as part of a tentative agreement on a new four-year contract with the United Auto Workers, said two people familiar with the accord.

Starting pay will increase to about $16 an hour from $14 and rise to about $19 an hour from a previous maximum of $16, said the people who asked not to be identified disclosing details before they have been presented to union members for ratification. UAW President Bob King had said getting those workers a middle-class lifestyle was his highest priority.

“This is a wage gain in an economy that is cratering in some places,” Harley Shaiken, a labor professor at the University of California at Berkeley, said in a telephone interview today. “It’s an important symbol.”

GM will also pay a record $5,000 signing bonus if a majority of the 48,500 hourly workers vote to ratify the accord, the people said. That would cost the Detroit-based automaker $242.5 million. The accord also includes new jobs and better profit-sharing, the union said. Ratification votes will probably be held within 10 days, GM said.



Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-17/gm-said-to-increase-entry-level-uaw-wage-by-2-to-3-an-hour-1-.html

[rucky]

1. Wow

go GM!

[whosinpower]

2. OH MY GOD

Eric Cantor must be absolutely ballistic. The auto bailout.....not only did it pay off....but more workers are being hired - AND WITH A 5 000 BONUS?

Heads are exploding right now.

[Lugnut]

3. This is great news!

Good job, UAW!

[tropicanarose]

4. Excellent. GM is getting stronger and they are passing along the wealth to the workers.

[onehandle]

5. I'm shopping for a GM car. Glad to help. nt

[Pale Blue Dot]

6. Anything about health and other benefits? nt

[FarLeftFist]

7. 40/hr week=an extra $120 in their pockets. NICE!

[awoke_in_2003]

8. very good...

go Labor

[Greybnk48]

9. Some good news at last!! Good for GM!! n/t

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

10. Did they scrap the B-Scale?

[IamK]

13. the B scale is the starting wage

it will never be scrapped, the future autoworker is $16 an hour and crappy benifits...

[southmost]

11. great news !!!

[IamK]

12. GM is happy...

GM wanted a cost neutral contract and apparently got it... any UAW gains are at the expense of other benifits...Anymore, a union win is holding on to what you have I guess... the UAW is a shell of what it used to be... When you agree not to strike in the beginning, you get what the company gives you. Why even have a union?

[IamK]

15. the UAW is on it's last leg....

Non union workers at US Honda & Toyota plants now make more than UAW workers with similar seniority (of course they have less seniority since the plants are new)...it's only a matter of time until the tier B people are in the majority and the union has done nothing for them...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/25/uaw-contract-negotiations_n_936873.html

The contract talks are not expected to be particularly divisive -- at least, not in the traditional sense: Industry management and union leadership are increasingly speaking from the same script, intent on preserving the peace that has fostered the turnaround. But beneath that dynamic, many union members are seething, as reflected in conversations with dozens of workers in recent weeks. And that anger threatens to weaken further the power of the UAW, whose influence has been waning within the industry for decades.

"You could get rank-and-file rebellions inside the UAW to take control," said Jonathan Cutler, a sociologist at Wesleyan University and author of "Labor's Time: Shorter Hours, the UAW, and the Struggle for American Unionism." "But the other option is that the union collapses, because there's no point in paying union dues if the union's main job is to sell you the car-makers' line, only with the union label."

TWO CLASSES OF WORKER

The sense of grievance among autoworkers in large part stems from concessions accepted by the UAW in recent years, as the industry has grappled with declining sales and the government has stepped in to rescue major automakers. The concessions in essence created two separate classes of autoworkers via a two-tier wage system -- a term now underlined by many workers as the source of enduring unhappiness.

Under the two-tier system, workers with seniority have generally been able to preserve their pay scale, with basic wages of about $28 an hour. But new hires can now be paid half as much, at a wage officially referred to as "entry rate" because workers are theoretically able to move up through the wage levels as senior workers retire. And at one plant in Michigan, 40 percent of the workforce became vulnerable to demotion to the lower tier of pay, prompting many to accept transfers to other plants -- often far from their families -- to avoid pay cuts.

[Omaha Steve]

14. GM, UAW agree on profit-sharing in new contract

Source: AP-Excite

By DEE-ANN DURBIN and TOM KRISHER

DETROIT (AP) - The United Auto Workers union won $5,000 signing bonuses and the possibility of sweeter profit-sharing checks as part of a new four-year contract with General Motors Co. (GM), two people briefed on the talks said Saturday.

The deal, which was reached late Friday, also includes a $2- to $3-per-hour pay raise for entry-level workers over the life of the contract and guarantees more union jobs, the people said.

Both persons asked to remain anonymous because the details of the contract haven't been reviewed by all local union leaders.

The GM deal will serve as a template for contracts that still must be negotiated with Chrysler Group LLC and Ford Motor Co. (F) (F) (F) It would set the pay and benefits for 112,500 U.S. auto workers. It also sets the bar for pay and benefits at nonunion auto companies and other industries across the country.

Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20110917/D9PQHDG80.html

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In this May 24, 2011 file photo, an assemblyman works on the line building Chrysler 200 vehicles at the Sterling Heights Assembly Plant in Sterling Heights, Mich. People briefed on the matter on Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2011 said Chrysler, Ford, and the United Auto Workers remain far apart in labor talks just a week before the current contract expires. Another person says General Motors has been talking pay for about two weeks and is closer to an agreement. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio, File)