UAW president Fain sees movement from Detroit Three despite 'inadequate' Stellantis offer

United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain said Friday the Detroit Three automakers are showing signs of movement toward the union's demands less than a week from the current contracts' expiration date.

His comments came hours after Jeep maker Stellantis NV submitted its first economics counterproposal to the union's demands from last month that included a 14.5% wage increase. Fain also shared that Ford Motor Co. had made updates to its proposal, including offering a cost-of-living wage adjustment, a shorter progression to the top wage and a cap on the use of temporary employees.

"I want to be clear: This is movement," Fain said during a Facebook livestream. "We went from 9% to 14.5% at Stellantis. That's happening because we're putting on pressure.

"But I want to be clear about something else, too. A 14.5% increase over four years is deeply inadequate. It doesn't make up for inflation, it doesn't make up for decades of falling wages and it doesn't reflect the massive profits we've generated for this company."

During his address, Fain shook his head while donning a "Don't want to strike, but I will" button in front of a full office trashcan labeled "Big Three Proposals."

Stellantis' counterproposal is above the wage increases offered by its crosstown rivals. Ford Motor Co. last week offered a 9% wage hike that it has since raised to 10%, and General Motors Co. on Thursday proposed a 10% boost. It, however, remains a far cry from the UAW's requested 46% increase (40% without compounding).

Unlike the GM and Ford counters, Stellantis doesn't include additional lump-sum payments as part of its wage proposal. There are about 145,000 UAW members at the Detroit Three, including roughly 43,000 at Stellantis.

Stellantis' proposal would bring the maximum wage for production operators to about $36.37 per hour by the end of a new agreement, up from the present $31.77. Stellantis declined to provide a breakdown of when the increases would occur.

A flyer from the union also said that for UAW-represented salaried workers, the proposal offers only lump sum payments and no wage increases.

"This is a responsible and strong offer that positions us to continue providing good jobs for our employees today and in the next generation here in the U.S.," Mark Stewart, chief operating officer for Stellantis in North America, said in an email to employees on Friday. "It also protects the Company’s future ability to continue to compete globally in an industry that is rapidly transitioning to electric vehicles."

Meanwhile, "COLA is back," said Fain, announcing that Ford's latest offer included a cost-of-living wage adjustment. He, however, also characterized the formula as "deeply inadequate," saying it would provide no increases for 10 of the past 13 years and is projected to add no raises over the next four years.

Ford's original proposal featured lump-sum bonuses with an initial first-year payment of $6,000. Another $6,000 would've been spread throughout the contract life. By incorporating an adjustment for inflation in workers' wages instead, the benefit has the potential to compound.

Offers from Stellantis and GM looked similar to Ford's first proposal. Stellantis suggested a one-time $6,000 inflation protection payment in year one and $4,500 in inflation protection payments over the final three years of the contract. GM offered an initial $6,000 and another $5,000 over the contract life.

Ford also moved on the UAW's request for a shorter progression timeline to the top wage. Its latest proposal suggests five years instead of the current previous years. Its offer before that had stood at six years — the same offered by GM and Stellantis. The union wants workers to be at top wage after just 90 days like it was until the mid-1990s.

The companies, meanwhile, have rejected the union's demand for all workers to receive a pension and health care in retirement.

All three companies have proposed increasing the starting pay for temporary and supplemental employees to $20 per hour, up from as low as $15.78 per hour at Stellantis. Ford's latest offer includes an 8% cap on temps, but Fain was critical that none of the proposals create a pathway for temps to full-time positions.

The union also has requested more paid time off, the right to strike in the event of a plant closure, and for what it calls the Working Family Protection Program that would effectively bring back what was known as the jobs bank where laid-off workers got paid for doing community service.

Fain described a proposal from Ford that he says would allow the company "unilaterally" to outsource work at any time. The Dearborn automaker also included a two-week parental leave; the company currently offers only maternity leave to hourly employees. Stellantis and GM have offered to make Juneteenth a paid holiday.

Ford spokeswoman Jessica Enoch, in a statement earlier on Friday, said the Blue Oval remains "committed to creating opportunity for every UAW worker to build a great career and become a full-time permanent Ford employee with good middle-class wages and benefits."

In a statement, GM spokesperson David Barnas said: “Our offer has been developed considering everything in our environment, including competitor offers and what is important to our team members. It includes well-deserved wage improvements that far exceed the 2019 agreement. We still have work to do, but we will continue to bargain in good faith with the UAW and work towards an outcome that recognizes the vital role of our team members in GM’s success.”

The results continue to show the parties have a large gap they must close in the coming days to avoid a work stoppage, said Marick Masters, a management professor at Wayne State University.

"They’re still very far apart," he said. "They'll need an unexpected breakthrough to avoid a strike."

On the surface, a 14.5% pay increase to get over $37 per hour would be a positive outcome if it was paired with a cost-of-living wage adjustment, said Lynda Jackson, 36, of Detroit, a team leader at Stellantis' Jefferson North Assembly Plant in Detroit and 13-year UAW member. But given that a late-July proposal from her employer suggested workers sharing a larger portion of health care costs, she would want to see a more complete picture.

"The 14.5% increase," she said, "doesn’t mean anything if we can't see what it is you're trying to take away."

She also wants to see workers like herself receive a pension like the workers before her did and for supplemental workers to have job security.

"I kind of feel like they threw something together because of the unfair practice charge the UAW put on them. Like, 'Hey, we offered them something.' There wasn’t a whole lot of substance."

With less than a week before the 11:59 p.m. expiration time on Thursday, Stellantis is the final of the Detroit Three automakers to submit its proposal after the UAW provided its demands last month. Last week, the UAW submitted unfair labor practice charges against Stellantis and GM with the National Labor Relations Board, because it still had not received an economic counterproposal from those two companies.

Fain this week said the union will strike any of the companies with which it doesn't have a tentative agreement by the time the current contract expires. He confirmed on the livestream that the union could strike all three, if needed.

The cost of that could be substantial. Estimates from the East Lansing-based Anderson Economic Group, a consulting firm that also does business with the automakers, suggest a 10-day strike at all three could represent a total loss of $5.6 billion to the economy.

CEO Patrick Anderson has called a potential UAW strike of all three Detroit automakers an "extremely risky" proposition for the union. But with less than a week to go before the deadline, he wrote in a note Friday that the group believes a strike against at least one of the companies is likely.

"The difference between the automakers and the unions on wages is a gap that could be closed," he wrote. "The differences involving non-wage demands are a gulf, not a gap." Non-wage demands such as restoration of a cost-of-living adjustment and defined benefit pension plans, he believes, "raise the risk of a contract that causes a bankruptcy-level risk for the automakers when a future downturn occurs."

bnoble@detroitnews.com

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jgrzelewski@detroitnews.com

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