DETROIT — The United Auto Workers announced Monday that it reached a tentative deal with General Motors, capping a whirlwind few days in which GM, Ford and Stellantis agreed to generous terms that would end the union’s six weeks of targeted strikes, pending approval of the rank and file.
The deal UAW President Shawn Fain closed on his 55th birthday is modeled on the ones agreed to with crosstown rivals Ford and Jeep-maker Stellantis, and would give workers higher raises than they’ve received in years. If approved, it would also claw back some concessions the UAW agreed to almost two decades ago, when the automakers were in desperate financial shape.
Analysts say Fain’s combative stance with the companies paid off for the workers, winning them pay and cost-of-living raises that would top 30% by the time the contracts expire in April 2028. Workers would get an immediate 11% pay bump upon ratification.
But analysts say the deals run the risk of forcing the automakers to raise prices beyond those charged by competitors with nonunion factories. And they come at a time when the auto industry is trying to fund a costly and historic shift away from the internal combustion engine to electric vehicles.
“The three tentative agreements show the UAW’s power and the car companies’ weakness,” said Erik Gordon, a business and law professor at the University of Michigan. “The companies are trying to figure out how to transition to EVs without losing too many billions of dollars, and now face a huge bump in labor costs for the products that will finance the EV transition.”
Fain, the first UAW president directly elected by members in the union’s 88-year history, campaigned against the union establishment by telling workers the companies are the enemy and the UAW would be at war with them. He decried what he called corporate greed, outrageous CEO salaries and a system where the union acted as a business partner with the automakers.
“We wholeheartedly believe that our strike squeezed every last dime out of General Motors,” Fain said in a video Monday on X, formerly Twitter.
Fain said the agreements are large enough for the UAW to use them to recruit new members at nonunion factories owned by Tesla, Toyota and others.
“One of our biggest goals coming out of this historic contract victory is to organize like we’ve never organized before,” Fain said Sunday night while announcing details of the contract with Ford. “When we return to the bargaining table in 2028, it won’t be just with the Big Three.”
The GM pact came after the UAW added another plant to the list of those on strike against the company, ramping up the pressure to bargain on the last Detroit holdout. About 4,000 workers at GM’s Spring Hill, Tennessee, complex — the company’s largest — walked out Saturday night, threatening production of four vehicles and parts that supply nine other factories as far afield as Mexico.
Seeking to bring the talks to an end and facing an estimated $200 million per week in losses, GM CEO Mary Barra went to the union’s Detroit headquarters to finalize the deal.
It came during a furious few days of agreements that still need to be ratified by 146,000 UAW members at all three companies. Ford agreed to a new contract last week and was followed by Stellantis on Saturday, which raised the pressure on GM to settle for essentially the same terms.
Union members could still vote down the deals, and there is some sentiment for holding out to get more. But the contracts seem likely to bring labor peace to the domestic auto industry.
Fain, though, didn’t get everything he wanted. He started off seeking 40% raises and even asked for a 32-hour work week for 40 hours of pay.
Mike Huerta, president of a striking UAW local in Lansing, Michigan, was hesitant to celebrate the deal before seeing more information, saying “the devil’s in the details.”
“Our bargainers did their job. They’re going to present us with something and then we get to tell them it was good enough or it wasn’t,” said Huerta.