The United Auto Workers, feeling like they’ve already given up a lot of benefits for the sake of General Motors, are on Day 24 of their strike. Despite lost wages, there appears to be no end in sight. They’re demanding that GM stop importing all cars from foreign assembly plants and kill its eventual transition to an all-electric lineup. According to CarandDriver.com, the union is “seeking ‘job security’ beyond the wage increases, health-care benefits, and protections for temporary workers it outlined in the initial strike. Some 46,000 hourly employees have been out since September 16, which has halted production in U.S. plants.”
(JEFF KOWALSKY |GETTY IMAGES)
Ever since President Donald Trump has been elected into office, he’s been pushing the rhetoric that more production should be coming back to America to provide jobs for “real Americans” and penalizing the companies that continue to outsource their production to new automotive hotbeds such as China, Mexico or Canada. Keeping in line with tradition and keeping as much machinery as possible, workers would also like for GM to slow down the production of electric vehicles. Given the concern for the environment these days, it sounds like a puzzling proposition. GM has planned to create a union-represented battery cell manufacturing plant” in Ohio, which would be the first in the nation. That would create plenty of jobs, but so far, the UAW don’t seem eager to buckle under pressure and have continued to press for their demands.
(Fox Business)
In an effort to curb the anger of the workforce on strike and bring them back to work, General Motors CEO Mary Barra scheduled a meeting with the UAW’s president and vice president on October 10th, 2019, as reported by Automotive News. The CEO of GM has been instrumental in at least trying to pursue an agreement for a month, ever since the last deal between the automotive makers and the union expired. More news will be brought up as soon as we get it here at WLTSAutosports.