Gulf News (Detroit) - United Auto Workers vice-president Joe Ashton, who negotiates with General Motors, said he wants to raise the $14-an-hour entry-level wage for union members at assembly plants in talks this year.
The pay for new employees, about half of what senior workers get, is "not a middle-class wage," Ashton said in an interview after GM announced it will invest $69 million (Dh253 million) and add 2,500 jobs to start making two new models at the Detroit plant that builds the Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid.
The UAW's push in this year's labour talks would seek to partially pull back on a concession made four years ago before the automakers have had a chance to hire many workers under the lower wage. The union is not seeking to eliminate the entry-level wage, which is paid to 3 per cent of its members at the three largest US car companies, Ashton said.
"In negotiations, there will be some conversations about moving these people up," Ashton said. "We're not looking to make these plants uncompetitive. It's no good making $28 or $38 an hour if you don't have a job."
Balancing priorities
The union must balance priorities in negotiations between keeping costs low to secure new jobs and getting back some concessions made in recent years as GM and Chrysler Group were headed into bankruptcy, said Harley Shaiken, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who specialises in labour.
"The companies will resist it," Shaiken said. "It was one of the most painful concessions that the union made. They felt they had no alternative." UAW workers in US automaker plants earned $13.30 an hour in 1985, according to the Centre for Automotive Research.
