UAW Leader Slams Stellantis for ‘Lowball’ Bargaining Demands
Union president says car company is asking for too many givebacks as auto-industry labor talks heat up During a livestream event, United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain tossed bargaining proposals from Jeep maker Stellantis into a trash can. Photo: Bill Pugliano/Getty Images By Ryan Felton Updated Aug. 8, 2023 7:20 pm ET The United Auto Workers president took aim Tuesday at Jeep maker Stellantis, criticizing the car company for demanding concessions at the bargaining table that he described as a “slap in the face” to union-represented auto workers. The move marked an unusually public escalation between the UAW and the global automaker, only weeks after negotiations for a new four-year labor contract began in late July. Shawn Fain, the newly elected head of t
During a livestream event, United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain tossed bargaining proposals from Jeep maker Stellantis into a trash can.
Photo: Bill Pugliano/Getty Images
The United Auto Workers president took aim Tuesday at Jeep maker Stellantis, criticizing the car company for demanding concessions at the bargaining table that he described as a “slap in the face” to union-represented auto workers.
The move marked an unusually public escalation between the UAW and the global automaker, only weeks after negotiations for a new four-year labor contract began in late July.
Shawn Fain, the newly elected head of the union, said Stellantis is pressing for a number of givebacks, including on medical benefits and workers’ profit-sharing bonuses. He also said, during a Facebook livestream event with union members, that Stellantis wants to introduce new wage levels, while the UAW is trying to eliminate pay tiers altogether.
To punctuate his frustration, he made a show of throwing the company’s proposals into a trash can.
Stellantis didn’t have an immediate comment Tuesday on Fain’s remarks.
The UAW is also negotiating new labor agreements with General Motors and Ford Motor. The current contacts, set to expire Sept. 14, cover about 146,000 blue-collar workers at the Detroit car companies’ U.S. factories.
Since forming in 2021 through the merger of Fiat Chrysler and PSA Group, Stellantis has consistently posted profit margins in North America that have surpassed those of GM and Ford.
Photo: Charles Rex Arbogast/Associated Press
For its part, the UAW has in recent weeks presented the automakers with its own demands, including some that seek to significantly advance worker pay and regain benefits lost in previous rounds of talks. Among them is a desire to increase wages at least 40% during the life of the next contract, a boost that would be the largest in recent memory.
“I’ve been shocked to see how one company in particular is trying to lowball and undercut us,” Fain said in a Facebook livestream. “My message to Stellantis is very simple: Quit with the games,” he added.
The UAW has historically zeroed in on one automaker as a so-called strike target to negotiate with first and then picket if a deal can’t be reached. Once an agreement is completed at the first company, the union will typically use it as a template for deals with the other two car companies, a process known as pattern bargaining.
So far, Fain has said all three car companies are being targeted, but he has been unusually outspoken about his gripes with Stellantis, saying its robust profits in North America have come off the backs of workers. Since forming in early 2021 through the merger of Fiat Chrysler and PSA Group, the carmaker has consistently posted double-digit profit margins in the region that have surpassed those of rivals GM and Ford.
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Stellantis, in a statement last week, said that it intends to fairly reward its unionized workers for their contributions and that it is critical to find common ground so it can continue to invest in its factories and support U.S. jobs.
A nearly three-decade UAW member from Kokomo, Ind., Fain in March became the first challenger to the union’s ruling party to be elected president in more than 70 years. Fain positioned himself as a reformist candidate aiming to root out union corruption and promised to not cede concessions to car companies when the UAW’s contracts expired.
He has taken a more militant approach in his dealings with his automakers and has made clear he is willing to strike.
Fain, 54 years old, also has historical ties to the unionized membership at Stellantis, having started out as an electrician at Chrysler and taking on various roles at the UAW, including representing workers at the company’s Kokomo plant.
In recent years, Stellantis Chief Executive Carlos Tavares
has been aggressively moving to rein in costs as the company starts to build more electric cars.The carmaker indefinitely closed an assembly plant last December in Belvidere, Ill., infuriating the union, which is seeking to secure future work for its members. In the spring, Stellantis also offered buyouts to thousands of salaried and hourly workers in April. It hasn’t said how many employees took them.
Stellantis executives have said the company needs greater flexibility during the electric-vehicle transition and must work to address a high rate of unplanned absenteeism at its U.S. factories.
Other tension points have flared between the two leaders. Fain criticized Tavares last month for not attending the first day of negotiations between the UAW and Stellantis, in what he called “the most critical set of bargaining in this company and our workers’ history.”
Tavares later responded that Fain was posturing and said he trusts his leadership in North America to lead the talks. “I will be where I think will be the most useful to the organization, to our employees,” Tavares said.
Write to Ryan Felton at [email protected]
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