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    U.A.W. Expands Strike to a Ram Plant in Michigan

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    The United Automobile Workers union called on 6,800 workers to walk off the job at a large factory that makes one of Stellantis’s most profitable vehicles.In a major escalation of its six-week strike at the three large U.S. automakers, the United Automobile Workers union on Monday told 6,800 workers at a large Ram pickup truck plant in Michigan to walk off the job.Union workers at the Sterling Heights plant, which is owned by Stellantis, the parent of Ram, Chrysler and Jeep, joined the strike on Monday morning. Shutting down production at the plant, the largest Stellantis factory in the United States, suggests there are still big gaps in contract negotiations between the automakers and the U.A.W., which is seeking raises of 40 percent over four years, better retirement benefits and other changes.The union’s strategy in this strike is a departure from its past practice of striking all locations of one automaker before beginning negotiations with the next automaker. This time, the union started with a strike at one plant at each of the three carmakers — Ford Motor, General Motors and Stellantis — and has expanded them to other factories and warehouses to increase the pressure on companies that it said were not doing enough to improve their offers.The new approach has kept the automakers off balance because they don’t know when or where the union will walk out next. It is also a way for the union to play the companies off one another. The union’s president, Shawn Fain, has offered side-by-side comparisons of the three companies’ offers on wages, retirement benefits and other negotiating terms in online videos.On Friday, General Motors put forward a more lucrative contract proposal. By calling for the strike at the Sterling Heights plant, the U.A.W. is trying to pressure Stellantis into at least matching the terms that G.M. offered.“Stellantis has the worst proposal on the table regarding wage progression, temporary worker pay and conversion to full-time, cost-of-living adjustments, and more,” the U.A.W. said in a statement on Monday.In its offer, G.M. proposed raising workers’ wages by 23 percent over four years. That would lift the wage for all full-time workers from $32 an hour to more than $40, giving them a base pay of about $84,000 a year, not including overtime or profit-sharing bonuses.The walkout at the Ram plant is the first escalation in the strike since the U.A.W. called 8,700 workers to leave their jobs at Ford’s largest plant, in Louisville, Ky., on Oct. 11. That plant produces the Super Duty version of the popular F-series pickup trucks and the Ford Expedition, a full-size sport utility vehicle.In a statement, Stellantis said the company was “outraged” by the expansion of the strike, noting that it made a comprehensive new proposal to the union on Thursday morning and was waiting for a counterproposal from the U.A.W.“Our very strong offer would address member demands and provide immediate financial gains for our employees,” the company said. “Instead, the U.A.W. has decided to cause further harm to the entire automotive industry as well as our local, state and national economies.”U.A.W. members were already on strike at one other Stellantis plant, a factory in Toledo, Ohio, that makes the Jeep Wrangler and the Jeep Gladiator. The union has also struck 20 Stellantis spare-parts distribution warehouses around the country.Where Autoworkers Are Walking Out More

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    For Bill Ford, ‘Every Negotiation Is a Roller Coaster’

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    As a 25-year-old junior executive at the car company that bears his last name, William Clay Ford Jr. had a bracing introduction to labor negotiations when a union official demanded that he stand up and vouch that he was made of the same stuff as his great-grandfather Henry Ford.Mr. Ford, now the company’s executive chair, harked back to the moment in an interview this week about how he and his company are navigating one of their most difficult labor negotiations in decades.The United Automobile Workers union has shut down three Ford plants, including its largest, and other plants and distribution centers at General Motors and Stellantis, which owns Chrysler. The union’s new president, Shawn Fain, has said he is prepared to call workers out at more plants if his demands for big raises, better benefits and job security are not met. He has referred to the companies as “the enemy,” and has said the union is fighting “corporate greed” and standing up to the “billionaire class.”In a speech this week, Mr. Ford said the strikes were helping nonunion automakers like Tesla, Toyota and Honda. Mr. Fain responded that workers at those companies were future U.A.W. members.In an interview after his speech, Mr. Ford said he had been counseling his executives not to let Mr. Fain’s words get to them and focus on getting a deal done. Mr. Ford also recalled his first difficult conversation with a union official.In 1982, Mr. Ford said, his father invited him to sit in the room for talks with the U.A.W. As a newcomer, he was not allotted a seat at a table where about 50 union negotiators sat on one side and an equal number of Ford executives on the other.Sitting against the wall, he was approached by an older union representative. “You, stand up,” the man said. “What are you made of? I knew your great-grandfather and your grandfather. I knew what they were made of. What the hell are you made of?”Mr. Ford said he had replied sheepishly that he had never known his great-grandfather and grandfather but that he shared their values. Similar confrontations followed daily — “I lived in terror of going to work,” Mr. Ford said.Then about a week later, the union officials invited him to a local bar. “Come with us,” Mr. Ford said they had told him. “You passed the test.”This interview was condensed and edited for clarity.Have you been involved in any talks that are comparable to the current negotiations?No, but every negotiation is different, and every leader is different. What I keep saying to our executives is: ‘Don’t take this personally. A lot of it is theater. The most important thing is get the deal done. The rhetoric doesn’t matter.’ Every negotiation is a roller coaster. Some are not pleasant, and some sting. Don’t overreact. And when it’s all over, we are still one team again, and have to go forward.Are you going to be on the same team at the end of these talks?I believe we will. I know many on their negotiating team personally, and some of them, I play hockey with them and consider them very close friends.You’ve said the real competition is not U.A.W. vs. Ford but the U.A.W. and Ford against Toyota, Honda, Tesla and the Chinese automakers. Do you think the union’s leadership agrees with that?I hope so, because if they don’t, it will be catastrophic. They can have disagreements with us and bargain hard, but we are not the enemy. I will never consider our employees the enemy. I think the employees know who the real competition is, and they will come together with us when this is over. We made a conscious decision to add jobs here in America when our competitors were moving production to Mexico.Would the offer you have on the table now put Ford at a significant disadvantage to other automakers?It certainly won’t be an advantage. We could live with the deal we have proposed, but just barely. If you go beyond that, we are going to have to start making hard decisions in terms of investments and future products.Shawn Fain has said the workers have fallen behind while the automakers and executives like Jim Farley, Ford’s chief executive, and Mary Barra, G.M.’s chief executive, have prospered. How do you respond?Everyone’s going to have their own viewpoint on executive compensation, and I totally get that. But I also know what the market is for top talent. You have entertainers and athletes who are making more than Jim Farley and Mary Barra. But that’s what the market is, and the company with the best talent wins, period.There were some years in the lean years when I took no pay, and I would do it again if I had to.You have three plants shut down by the strike. How is that affecting your operations?It’s messy, and it’s going to become messier. The most immediate effects will be on the suppliers. The supply base is very fragile. It barely survived Covid, and is not all the way back, so a prolonged strike will start collapsing the supply base, and then making anything in this country will be difficult.Manufacturing is a matter of national security, and we saw that during Covid. And I hope with all my heart we never get into another war, but if we did, this industry would be critical to defending our nation, as it was in World War I and World War II. Other industries can make small numbers of things. The auto companies can turn that into tens of thousands of things.“I never thought I would see the day when our products were so heavily politicized, but they are.” — William Clay Ford Jr.What’s your outlook on the U.S. economy?I think it’s fragile. Inflation is taking its toll. The consumer is still spending, but we’re watching it very carefully. On the other hand, there’s still strong employment, and we are seeing our sales hold up. There are conflicting signals, for sure.Let’s talk about electric vehicles. About 18 months ago, you launched the F-150 Lightning pickup. It seemed like electric vehicle sales were going to take off. But now Ford is slowing production of that truck. What happened?E.V. sales are still up 50 percent this year, so sales are growing very fast. But we’ve also seen a politicization of E.V.s. Blue states say E.V.s are great and we need to adopt them as soon as possible for climate reasons. Some of the red states say this is just like the vaccine, and it’s being shoved down our throat by the government, and we don’t want it. I never thought I would see the day when our products were so heavily politicized, but they are.The other is prices. Electric vehicles are expensive. We know prices will come down, and as that happens, we will have a bigger ramp-up of E.V.s. Keep this in mind: The most valuable company that our industry has ever seen is Tesla, and it’s growing. That’s a very instructive point when people say E.V.s are not desired.Are you concerned about some of Donald Trump’s comments? He just came into Michigan and said that the transition to electric vehicles is going to result in almost all auto production moving to China.I don’t want to personalize this, because, frankly, we have to pick a path forward and our lead times are longer than political lead times. So we can’t overreact to one bit of rhetoric or another. We have to deal with the most likely scenario, and how we can create the most value for our company, so we are pushing ahead with E.V.s because we do believe they have great application for a lot of people. And once people drive E.V.s, they will see that it’s a great experience.Electric vehicles are expensive. Did Tesla’s price cuts have a big effect on your business?That’s what we have seen with every new technology that has been adapted. You come down the cost curve pretty quickly as batteries get better.With our first-generation E.V.s, the Lightning and the Mustang Mach-E, they were done with a lot of internal combustion engineering in them. The next generation, which will start coming quite quickly, was developed with a clean sheet of paper. When you do that you can really start taking cost out, and then you can start pricing them accordingly.Tesla has been leading the price cuts, because they can with their scale. That’s something we are actually counting on in the future. And we will have products that compete and make money in that world. More

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    Bill Ford Says U.A.W. Strike Is Helping Tesla and Toyota

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    Mr. Ford, the executive chairman of Ford Motor, said nonunion automakers would make gains against Michigan automakers because of strikes by the United Automobile Workers union.The monthlong strike by the United Automobile Workers and the union’s demands for substantial pay and benefits increases risk damaging the U.S. auto industry, hurting its ability to compete against nonunion foreign rivals, the executive chairman of Ford Motor said on Monday.The fight should not be seen as the U.A.W. against Ford, or its crosstown rivals, General Motors and Stellantis, said William C. Ford Jr., the great-grandson of the company’s founder Henry Ford, noting that at times U.A.W. officials have referred to the automakers as the union’s “enemy.”“It should be Ford and the U.A.W. against Toyota, Honda, Tesla and all the Chinese companies that want to enter our home market,” Mr. Ford said at the company’s Rouge plant in Dearborn, Mich.“Toyota, Honda, Tesla and the others are loving the strike, because they know the longer it goes on, the better it is for them,” the executive chairman said. “They will win, and all of us will lose.”Mr. Ford’s remarks alluded to a period several decades ago when the U.A.W. won increasingly rich contracts that were later seen by many industry experts as having hobbled the three Michigan automakers in the face of competition from Japanese and European carmakers. Ford came to the brink of collapse, and G.M. and Chrysler — now part of Stellantis — had to seek bankruptcy protection after the 2008 financial crisis.“Ford’s ability to invest in the future isn’t just a talking point,” Mr. Ford said. “It is the absolute lifeblood of our company. And if we lose it, we will lose to the competition. Many jobs will be lost.”In a statement, the U.A.W. president, Shawn Fain, said Mr. Ford should “stop playing games” and meet the union’s demands, or “we’ll close the Rouge for him.” Mr. Fain added that the U.A.W. was not fighting the company but “corporate greed.”“If Ford wants to be the all-American auto company, they can pay all-American wages and benefits,” Mr. Fain said. “Workers at Tesla, Toyota, Honda and others are not the enemy — they’re the U.A.W. members of the future.”Ford, G.M. and Stellantis have been negotiating new labor contracts with the U.A.W. since July. Over the past month, the union has called on workers at a few plants to go on strike. The action has idled three Ford plants, two G.M. factories and one Stellantis plant. Workers at 38 G.M. and Stellantis spare-parts warehouses are also on strike.The strategy is intended to increase pressure on the companies to meet the union’s demands for significantly higher wages, shorter working hours and expanded pensions, and to end a system that pays new hires just over half of the top U.A.W. wage of $32 an hour.The companies have offered wage increases of more than 20 percent over the next four years and certain other measures in line with the union’s demands, but the U.A.W. is pressing for greater concessions.Last week, the union called for a strike by 8,700 workers at Ford’s Kentucky truck plant in Louisville, the company’s largest.Ford executives said last week that the company had made a record offer to the union and that sweetening the deal would hurt the automaker’s ability to invest in electric vehicles and other new models and technologies.Mr. Ford, who has had a role in every round of negotiations with the U.A.W. since 1982, said the talks had reached “a crossroads” and warned that labor contracts that burdened the automakers with heavy costs could affect the U.S. economy.“The price of failure should be clear to everyone,” he said. “Let’s come together and reach an agreement, so we can take the fight to the real competition.” More

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    Doctors at Allina Health Form Union

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    The physicians, at Allina Health in Minnesota and Wisconsin, appear to be the largest group of unionized doctors in the private sector.In the latest sign of growing frustration among professionals, doctors employed by a large nonprofit health care system in Minnesota and Wisconsin have voted to unionize.The doctors, roughly 400 primary and urgent-care providers across more than 50 clinics operated by the Allina Health System, appear to be the largest group of unionized private-sector physicians in the United States. More than 150 nurse practitioners and physician assistants at the clinics were also eligible to vote and will be members of the union, which will be represented by a local of the Service Employees International Union.The result was 325 to 200, with 24 other ballots challenged, according to a tally sheet from the National Labor Relations Board, which conducted the vote. In a statement, Allina said, “While we are disappointed in the decision by some of our providers to be represented by a union, we remain committed to our ongoing work to create a culture where all employees feel supported and valued.”The doctors complained that chronic understaffing was leading to burnout and compromising patient safety.“In between patients, your doctor is dealing with prescription refills, phone calls and messages from patients, lab results,” said Dr. Cora Walsh, a family physician involved in the organizing campaign.“At an adequately staffed clinic, you have enough support to help take some of that workload,” Dr. Walsh added. “When staff levels fall, that work doesn’t go away.”Dr. Walsh estimated that she and her colleagues often spend an hour or two each night handling “inbox load” and worried that the shortages were increasing backlogs and the risk of mistakes.The union vote follows recent walkouts by pharmacists in the Kansas City area and elsewhere over similar concerns.A variety of professionals, including architects and tech workers, have sought to form unions in recent years, while others, like nurses and teachers, have waged strikes and aggressive contract bargaining campaigns.Some argue that employers have exploited their sense of mission to pay them less than their skills warrant, or to work them around the clock. Others contend that new business models or budget pressures are compromising their independence and interfering with their professional judgment.Increasingly, doctors appear to be expressing both concerns.“We feel like we’re not able to advocate for our patients,” said Dr. Matt Hoffman, another doctor involved in the organizing at Allina. Dr. Hoffman, referring to managers, added that “we’re not able to tell them what we need day to day.”Consolidation in the health care industry over the past two decades appears to underlie much of the frustration among doctors, many of whom now work for large health care systems.“When a physician ran his or her own practice, they made the decisions about the people and technology they surrounded themselves with,” Dr. Robert Wachter, chair of the department of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, said in an email. “Now, these decisions are made by administrators.”Doctors at Allina say that staffing was a concern before the pandemic, that Covid-19 pushed them to the brink and that staffing has never fully recovered to its prepandemic levels.Relatively low pay for clinical assistants and lab personnel appears to have contributed to the staffing issues, as these workers left for other fields in a tight job market. In some cases, doctors and other clinicians within the Allina system have quit or scaled back their hours, citing so-called moral injury — a sense that they couldn’t perform their jobs in accordance with their values.“We were promised that when we get through the acute phase of the pandemic, staffing would get better,” Dr. Walsh said. “But staffing never improved.”Allina, which takes in billions in revenue but has faced financial pressures and recently eliminated hundreds of positions, did not respond to questions about the doctors’ concerns.Joe Crane, the national organizing director for the Doctors Council of the S.E.I.U., which represents attending physicians, said that before the pandemic, he would receive about 50 inquiries a year from doctors interested in learning more about forming a union. He said he received more than 150 inquiries during the first month of the pandemic. (Mr. Crane was with another physicians’ union at the time.)Mr. Crane, citing the siloed nature of the medical profession, said that unionization among attending physicians had nonetheless proceeded slowly, but that the victory at Allina could create momentum.In March, more than 100 doctors voted to unionize at another Allina facility, a hospital with two locations. Dr. Alia Sharif, a physician involved in that union campaign, said doctors were under pressure there not to exceed length-of-stay guidelines for patients, even though many suffer from complex conditions that require more sustained care.Allina is appealing the outcome of that vote to the National Labor Relations Board in Washington; a board official rejected an earlier appeal.Even as rates of unionization have languished among attending physicians, they have increased substantially among medical residents. A sister union within the S.E.I.U., the Committee of Interns and Residents, has added thousands of members over the past few years.Dr. Wachter said this could herald an increase in unionization among doctors outside training programs. “When these physicians finish training and enter practice, they are more comfortable with a world in which unionization doesn’t automatically conflict with their notions of being a professional,” he wrote. More

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    U.A.W. Says Auto Strikes Will Become More Unpredictable

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    The United Automobile Workers union refrained from expanding the strikes at Ford, General Motors and Stellantis but said it could do so at any time.Four weeks after starting limited strikes against three large automakers, the United Automobile Workers is shifting to a more aggressive strategy, suggesting that work stoppages could spread to more plants and possibly go on for some time.In an online video, the union’s president, Shawn Fain, said on Friday that he would no longer wait to announce expansions of the strikes on Friday, as he had been doing. Further actions could come at any time.“We’re not messing around,” Mr. Fain said. “The companies are now on notice. If they’re not willing to move, we are going to give them a push.”The union began its strikes on Sept. 15 when workers walked out of three plants, owned by General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis, which makes Chrysler, Jeep and Ram vehicles. It has since expanded the strike in stages, in a bid to increase the pressure on the companies.Stellantis said on Friday that it was temporarily laying off an additional 700 workers at two plants in Indiana that supply transmissions and castings for a Toledo, Ohio, Jeep factory that has been idled by the U.A.W. strikes. Stellantis has laid off more than 1,300 workers in total in response to the union’s strikes.Ford has laid off more than 1,900 workers as a result of the strike, and G.M. about 2,300. Ford said about 90 of its parts suppliers had laid off about 13,000 workers.Stellantis also said its negotiations had made progress in talks with the U.A.W. this week. The company said it hoped “to reach an agreement as soon as possible to get everyone back to work.”The U.A.W. and the automakers have been negotiating new labor contracts since July.On Wednesday, the U.A.W. unexpectedly told workers to walk out of Ford’s Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville. It is the company’s largest and the producer of its highly profitable Super Duty version of its F-Series pickup trucks.Ford has said the Kentucky plant typically produces a new truck every 37 seconds, and generates $25 billion in revenue, about 16 percent of the company’s annual total.All told, the strike has halted operations at three Ford plants in Michigan, Chicago and Kentucky; two G.M. plants in Michigan and Missouri; and a Stellantis plant in Ohio. U.A.W. members are also on strike at 38 G.M. and Stellantis spare-parts warehouses across the country.About 34,000 of the 150,000 U.A.W. members employed by the three companies are now on strike.The U.A.W. has demanded substantial wage increases and improvements in other areas of its contract, like retirement plans. The union also wants an end to a system that pays new hires a little over half the top U.A.W. wage of $32 an hour.The union is also concerned about the possible loss of jobs as automakers ramp up production of electric vehicles. The companies have offered wage increases of more than 20 percent over four years and to reduce the time it takes a new worker to rise to the top wage to four years from eight.On Thursday, Ford officials said the company had reached its limit on what it could offer the union without hurting the company’s business and its ability to continue heavy investments in electric vehicles. “Any more will stretch our ability to invest in the business,” Kumar Galhotra, president of the Ford division that makes combustion engine vehicles, said on a conference call on Thursday.Apart from the car companies, U.A.W.-represented workers went on strike this week at Mack Trucks. Its members voted this week to authorize a strike against General Dynamics, an aerospace and defense contractor. The U.A.W. also represents about 1,000 workers who have been on strike at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan for a month. More

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    Ford Says It Won’t Raise Its Contract Offer to U.A.W.

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    The company said it had reached the limit of what it could offer to the United Automobile Workers union, which has expanded its strike to Ford’s largest plant.Ford Motor said on Thursday that it could not improve its contract offer to the United Automobile Workers union without hurting its business and its ability to invest in electric vehicles.The automaker also said the union’s decision to expand its strike to Ford’s largest factory, the Kentucky Truck Plant, would probably hurt workers at other factories and lead to layoffs across the auto industry.“We are very clear,” Kumar Galhotra, president of the Ford division that makes combustion engine vehicles, said in a conference call with reporters. “We are at the limit. Any more will stretch our ability to invest in the business.”The U.A.W. is negotiating new labor contracts with Ford, General Motors and Stellantis, the parent of Chrysler and Jeep. The union’s members have struck selected plants and parts warehouses owned by the three companies. On Wednesday, its talks with Ford broke down, and the union responded by calling on the 8,700 U.A.W. workers at Kentucky Truck to walk off the job.“If the companies are not going to come to the table and take care of the membership’s needs, then we will react,” the U.A.W. president, Shawn Fain, said in an online video after the strike in Kentucky was announced.Production at the plant, in Louisville, stopped Wednesday evening. The factory makes the Super Duty versions of Ford’s F-Series pickup trucks as well as the Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator full-size sport utility vehicles.On its own, the Kentucky Truck plant generates about 16 percent of Ford’s revenue. On a typical day, a new vehicle rolls off its assembly line every 37 seconds.The plant is so large that a prolonged idling will probably cause stoppages and layoffs at up to 13 other Ford plants that make engines, transmission and axles. Factories owned by the 600 suppliers that provide parts for Ford could also have to lay off workers, Mr. Galhotra said.“This goes way beyond just hitting Ford’s profits,” he said.The U.A.W. is seeking a substantial increase in wages as well as a cost-of-living provision, an expanded retirement plan, improved retiree health care benefits and job security as automakers make the transition to producing electric vehicles. It also wants to end a system in which new hires start at a little more than half the top U.A.W. wage of $32 an hour.Ford has offered to increase wages 23 percent over four years, adjust wages in response to inflation and cut the time for new hires to rise to the top wage, to four years from eight.The U.A.W. went into a negotiating session on Wednesday expecting Ford to sweeten its offer, according to the union. Mr. Galhotra said Ford was prepared to discuss adjustments to its existing offer but not to make a completely new proposal.The differences became clear quickly, and Mr. Fain instructed Ford workers at the Kentucky plant to strike, union and company officials said. Mr. Fain and other union negotiators left the meeting minutes after it started.“Unfortunately, we had to escalate our action,” Mr. Fain said in his video. “We came here today to get another offer from Ford, and they gave us the same exact offer as two weeks ago.” More

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    G.M. Reaches Deal With Canadian Union

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    General Motors and the Unifor union reached an agreement hours after more than 4,000 workers went on strike on Tuesday.General Motors and a Canadian union, Unifor, reached a tentative deal on a new contract on Tuesday, ending a short-lived strike by more than 4,000 workers that began earlier in the day.The deal includes the same raises and other terms that Unifor had agreed to last month with Ford Motor, including a 20 percent wage increase for production workers over three years and a 25 percent raise for skilled trades workers.The contract must be ratified by Unifor members before it can take effect. Workers at Ford’s Canadian operation have ratified their contract.Work was expected to restart at the three G.M. plants and distribution centers that were struck on Tuesday afternoon.This agreement “recognizes the many contributions of our represented team members with significant increases in wages, benefits and job security while building on G.M.’s historic investments in Canadian manufacturing,” the company said in a statement.The tentative deal was reached after nearly 4,300 Unifor workers walked off the job at midnight on Tuesday at three locations in Ontario: a vehicle assembly plant and stamping site in Oshawa that makes the company’s popular Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck; a plant in St. Catharines that supplies engines and transmissions to G.M. factories around the world; and a parts distribution center in Woodstock.Unifor had been pushing G.M. to accept the same terms as those in the Ford contract, a practice known as pattern bargaining that the automakers and their unions have long used.“When faced with the shutdown of these key facilities, General Motors had no choice but to get serious at the table and agree to the pattern,” Unifor’s national president, Lana Payne, said in a statement. “The solidarity of our members has led to a comprehensive tentative agreement that follows the pattern set at Ford Motor Company to the letter.”Ford’s agreement with Unifor, in addition to wage increases, provides productivity bonuses, higher entry-level wages, improved pensions, cost-of-living allowances and other improvements. G.M. also agreed to convert all temporary workers into permanent employees over the life of the agreement.Workers at G.M.’s CAMI Assembly Plant in Ingersoll, Ontario, are covered by a separate contract and did not go on strike on Tuesday. Unifor represents 315,000 workers in a variety of industries.In the United States, the United Automobile Workers union is on strike at a G.M. pickup truck plant in Missouri, a sport-utility plant in Michigan and parts warehouses around the country. The U.A.W. has also struck two Ford plants. At Stellantis, the maker of Chrysler, Jeep and Ram vehicles, union members have struck one factory and 20 parts warehouses.Altogether, about 25,000 of the 150,000 U.A.W. members employed by the three automakers are on strike. Like Unifor, the U.A.W. is seeking a substantial increase in wages, pensions for a greater number of workers, and a shorter time to move up to the top wage level.Talks began in July, and the strike began on Sept. 15, when the current labor contracts with the companies expired. More

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    U.A.W. Workers at Mack Truck Go on Strike

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    The strike at the truck manufacturer by 4,000 members of the United Automobile Workers comes in the middle of the union’s strikes at three large U.S. car companies.Nearly 4,000 members of the United Automobile Workers union went on strike against Mack Trucks on Monday after rejecting a tentative contract that union’s leaders had worked out with the company.The union informed the truck maker on Sunday that members had opposed the contract by a 73 percent vote, and that a strike would begin at Mack’s factories in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Florida.“The members have spoken, and as the highest authority in our union, they have the final word,” the U.A.W. president, Shawn Fain, wrote in a letter to Mack’s parent company, Volvo Trucks.The two sides have been negotiating for three months over a range of issues including wage increases, cost-of-living allowances, job security, pensions, prescription drug coverage and overtime. The proposed contract included raises of 19 percent over five years and a bonus of $3,500 for ratifying the agreement.Mack’s president, Stephen Roy, said in a statement that the company was “surprised and disappointed,” noting that the U.A.W. negotiators had called the tentative agreement a “record contract for the heavy truck industry.”Commercial truck sales have been recovering slowly from the disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Volvo has forecast about a 10 percent increase in industrywide truck sales this year in North America. Mack has about a 6 percent share of the North American market.The Mack strike comes as the U.A.W. is conducting a strike at plants and distribution centers owned by the three automakers, General Motors, Ford Motor, and Stellantis, the maker of Chrysler, Jeep, and Ram vehicles.The auto strike began nearly a month ago at three plants and the U.A.W. has expanded it in a bid to increase the pressure on the manufacturers. About 25,000 of the 150,000 U.A.W. workers employed by the three automakers are on strike. The stoppage affects two plants owned by G.M., two owned by Ford, and one owned by Stellantis, as well as the 38 spare-parts warehouses owned by G.M. and Stellantis.The automakers have offered wage increases of more than 20 percent over four years. They have also agreed to shorten the time — to four years from eight — that it takes a new worker to rise up from the entry-level wage of about $17 an hour to the highest-level wage of $32 an hour.The union is pushing for greater wage increases, noting that raises over the last 15 years have not kept pace with inflation. It is also demanding the companies provide pensions for more workers, pay the cost of retiree health care, and convert temporary employees into permanent staff. More