Click on Detroit: Marick Masters on UAW strike
This is the nation's first auto strike in more than a decade as nearly 50,000 UAW workers are going on strike. It will be the largest strike against a U.S. business since 2007. In an unusual turn, GM listed the benefits it offered that the UAW said no to. "Over $7 billion in new plants and product programs that also impact 5,400 jobs new or created," said Gerald Johnson with GM Global Manufacturing. "We think inside that we've also been able to handle unallocated plants in Michigan and Ohio." This all left Wayne State University business professor Marick Masters concerned. "If they hold out stubbornly and just say, 'We're not going to find a common ground,' they're gonna end up hurting each other and doing nobody any good," Masters said. GM also said it had offered top-of-the-line medical benefits, lump sum pay increases in all four years and a signing bonus of $8,000. But one of the things the union is looking for is cost-of-living increases that have been suspended by GM over the past two contracts. The strikes are estimated to cost GM $250 million a day. “This is as big as it gets with the Detroit 3 and negotiations. I think it’s going to be difficult to settle early because of the state of the UAW leadership,” Masters said.
