General Motors employees voted overwhelmingly in favor of a deal struck by the United Auto Workers union and company executives. Nearly 48,000 workers who were on strike will return to work on Saturday.
The vote ends a painful work stoppage that has lasted six weeks, costing GM nearly $2 billion in lost production and employees nearly $1 billion in lost wages.
Last year, GM announced that the Detroit-Hamtramck plant would close in January 2020. This came after the plant was expected to close sometime in 2019. The fate of this plant was originally announced along with the closures of three assembly plants and two other facilities in the U.S. and Canada.
General Motors traded at $33.97 as of 12:50 p.m. ET Tuesday, up roughly 0.1% year-to-date. Shares have fallen 7.6% since the strike began on September 16.
It's also sad to see that although there were some benefits to the workers at the end of the strike, they weren't able to get one of their main goals. The workers got an increase in pay, more jobs, an option to become a permanent employee after being temporary for 3 years, and keeping their healthcare costs the same. However, the union negotiators were unable to get GM to move their factory in Mexico to Ohio, due to the cheap cost of labor in Mexico.
ReplyDeleteSource: https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/10/25/20930350/gm-workers-vote-end-strike
Unfortunately, this strike seems like a loss for both GM and its workers. While the workers were able to negotiate a slightly higher salary, with wage increases of three percent, they were able to negotiate the same salary increase in 2015, without going on strike. While permanent workers were granted signing bonuses of $11,000, this sum of money is really only enough to cover the costs of foregoing pay during the strike. However, one bonus of the strike is that GM is investing 1 billion dollars to two different factories, keeping jobs afloat for GM laborers.
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