UAW's GM strike is longest nationwide walkout at auto company in nearly 50 years
Detroit Free Press Sr. Content Editor Randy Essex discusses the current status and repercussions of the GM UAW strike.
The GM walkout that began Sept. 15 is the longest nationwide strike by the company's workers in nearly 50 years, but it has a long way to go until it exceeds 1970's 67-day record.
The United Auto Workers strike is now in its second week. UAW members in states from Kansas to Kentucky are seeking a bigger slice of GM's profits, new products for manufacturing plants GM wants to close, a path to permanent jobs for temporary workers and other items.
The strike in 1970 lasted from Sept. 14 to Nov. 23 -- for 67 days -- and affected 321,510 GM workers in the U.S. and 22,100 in Canada, according to the Wall Street Journal.
That walkout occurred while GM was one of the biggest employers in the U.S. Now, GM doesn't even crack the top ten.
Lansing State Journal columnist Judy Putnam recalled being a high school student who switched from hot lunches to brown-bagged sandwiches during the strike. Both of her parents were GM employees.
"My parents were loyal workers. They were hardworking and disciplined, rising early to punch those time cards. They were unfailingly prompt and rarely, if ever, did they call in sick," she wrote.
"They weren't particularly political, though my father, a WWII Marine, would talk about the shameful wage disparity between the guys pushing the broom on the shop floor as opposed to the company bigwigs. If that sounds like a socialist’s view, I can assure you that he didn’t view himself that way," Putnam continued.
The 1930s and 1940s also saw months-long, not days-long, strikes from GM workers.
TOLEDO, OH - SEPTEMBER 18: General Motors workers gather on the west side of the GM Powertrain Plant on September 18, 2019 in Toledo, Ohio. GM and the United Auto Workers union, which is leading its first strike against the auto maker since 2007, bar …
Issues that are snagging current 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.
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They're also bargaining overuse 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.
FOX Business' Ken Martin and The Associated Press contributed to this report.