PARMA, Ohio — As the strike between General Motors and the United Automobile Workers begins its second week, U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown visited workers at the picket lines in Parma.
“The UAW’s tradition is that we benefit at the table but so do other workers and even non-union workers and so do communities, because as their living standards go up, so does everybody’s,” he said shortly after arriving at the plant's south entrance around 11:15 am.
Brown’s political capital is tied to union workers, a constant theme of his policy proposals and speeches. He’s visited picket lines before to draw attention to them. He said it’s not about him but the workers.
“What we do is stand at picket lines and stand with the workers and help them with health care and government issues and let them know we have their backs,” he said.
Now in day eight, the strike is hitting workers hard, they say. Not only are they giving up healthy pay checks, but they have been forced to pick up expensive temporary health care.
The autoworkers union and General Motors management continue to meet every day and remain stuck on the company’s use of temporary workers, caps on profit sharing and healthcare, a union official familiar with negotiations told 3 News.
The last GM strike 12 years ago lasted two days. Autoworkers said Monday they don’t expect a quick resolution, so they are looking to others for help on the picket line.
“My father is a retired UAW worker, so my bread and butter and livelihood came from UAW,” said Davida Russell, president of the Ohio Association of Public School Employees of Northeast Ohio who showed up Monday to support the picket. “I’m here on my lunch break to try to get my time in and let them know they have sisterhood here.”
Brown echoed that message.
“You all have a lot more support out there than you know from a lot of people and not just from Democratic elected officials but from the public,” he said. “One of the only good things that comes out one, y you are going to get a good contract, but other thing is other unions are noticing to stand with you like steelworkers.”
Though plant is idle, the striking workers continue to come to Parma every day. Some drive from as far away as Mansfield and even Dayton.
Workers walked off their jobs early on Sept. 16, paralyzing production at about 30 manufacturing sites in nine states.
Already the strike forced GM to shut down two Canadian factories that make engines, older-model pickup trucks and two car models. If the strike drags on much longer, GM likely will have to close more factories in Mexico and Canada because engines, transmissions and other components are built in the United States. Companies that supply parts to GM also will have to start cutting production.
Consumers this week will start to see fewer trucks, SUVs and cars on dealer lots. Cox Automotive said that GM had stocked up before the strike with a 77-day supply of vehicles. But before the strike, the supply of larger SUVs such as the Chevrolet Tahoe already was below the industry average 61 days' worth of vehicles.
Workers also will feel pressure. They got their last GM paycheck last week and will have to start living on $250 per week in strike pay starting this week.
The union wants a bigger share of GM's more than $30 billion in profits during the past five years. But the company sees a global auto sales decline ahead and wants to bring its labor costs in line with U.S. plants owned by foreign automakers.
The top production worker wage is about $30 per hour, and GM's total labor costs including benefits are about $63 per hour compared with an average of $50 at factories run by foreign-based automakers mainly in the South.
Issues that are snagging the talks include the formula for profit sharing, which the union wants to improve. Currently workers get $1,000 for every $1 billion the company makes before taxes in North America. This year workers got checks for $10,750 each, less than last year's $11,500.
Wages also are an issue with the company seeking to shift compensation more to lump sums that depend on earnings and workers wanting hourly increases that will be there if the economy goes south.
They're also bargaining over use of temporary workers and a path to make them full-time, as well as a faster track for getting newly hired workers to the top UAW wage.
GM has offered products in two of four locations where it wants to close factories. It's proposed an electric pickup truck for the Detroit-Hamtramck plant and a battery factory in the Lordstown, Ohio, area, where it is closing a small-car assembly plant. The factory would be run by a joint venture, and although it would have UAW workers, GM is proposing they work for pay that's lower than the company pays at assembly plants.
This is the first national strike by the UAW since 2007, when the union shut down General Motors for two days.
“We have been preparing our members for that for a year,” said Al Tiller, a 22-year GM employee and shop chairman for the United Automobile Workers Local 1005. “We are prepared to go six months to a year. We are going to do what it takes. This isn’t just a fight for the UAW. It’s a fight for our communities. It’s a fight for the entire middle class.”
Tiller said union members will be picketing outside the Parma plant 24-hours a day until the strike ends. GM employees about about 1,000 hourly workers at the plant.
The big issues, said Tiller and others, are wages, health care and the use of temporary workers. Tiller said the union workers deserve more of the profits GM has made since the Great Recession, in part to concessions made by workers.
“How can you make record profits and not give us back what we gave up to save your company,” Tiller said. “That’s what we are fighting for.”
GM said in a prepared statement that it's sharing the wealth, injecting $7 billion into plants and jobs and salaries. It offered to give $8,000 to each employee when a new contract is approved.