Who won the GM, UAW negotiation? Former Ford CEO answers
Former Ford Motor Company CEO Mark Fields spoke on FOX Business' "Maria Bartiromo's Wall Street" about the United Automobile Workers' strike against General Motors.
Fields called the contract the UAW and GM signed "important."
GM STRIKE TO END AS UAW MEMBERS RATIFY NEW CONTRACT: IS FORD NEXT?
"If I had to categorize it as a boxing match, I'd call it a draw."
"The UAW won on economics," Fields told Bartiromo. "It's a very generous package. GM won on being able to reduce their cost structure by closing plants, but also, more importantly, being able to retain their capacity down in Mexico and their ability to allocate product over time."
GENERAL MOTORS TAKES $2.9B HIT FROM UAW STRIKE
Rank-and-file members of the UAW agreed to end a strike against GM by voting to approve a new contract on Oct. 25. Roughly 57 percent of UAW members voted to ratify the contract.
Unionized GM workers are expected to receive an $11,000 ratification bonus as part of the deal. Temporary workers will receive $4,500. The agreement calls for 3 percent wage increases or 4 percent lump-sum payments in the first four years of the contract, as well as profit-sharing and a pathway for temporary workers to become full-time employees.
UAW BOARD APPROVES PAY INCREASE FOR STRIKING WORKERS
GM also affirmed plans to invest more than $7 billion in its U.S. operations.
"Essentially, what they've been able to do is lock in business, lock in wage increases, and ensure that their health care doesn't go up in an environment where the market is slowing down, and that is a big win for the UAW and their workers from an economic standpoint," Fields said. "And for GM that ... it will increase the competitive labor cost gap versus the foreign non-union makers here in the U.S. It's absolutely going to do that."
WORKERS AT LARGE GM PLANT IN MICHIGAN APPROVE CONTRACT
GM said the UAW strike had a big impact on business at the end of summer, and the pain isn't over.
The labor action, which stalled production for six weeks, erased about $2.9 billion in 2019 net income, or $2 a share. In the third quarter alone, the strike wiped out about $1 billion of profit, or 52 cents a share or earnings.
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FOX Business' Evie Fordham, Thomas Barrabi and Jonathan Garber contributed to this report.
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