GM matches Ford's wage hike to UAW in bid to end US auto strike
By Joseph White and Abhijith Ganapavaram
DETROIT (Reuters) -General Motors raised its offer to striking auto workers on Friday, matching Ford (NYSE:F)'s proposed 23% wage hike and other benefit improvements, hours before union chief Shawn Fain was scheduled to speak on negotiations.
«We have made substantial movement in all key areas in an effort to reach a final agreement with the UAW and get our people back to work,» GM said in a statement as the strike entered week five.
«The majority of our workforce will make $40.39 per hour, or roughly $84,000 a year by the end of this agreement’s term,» it said.
Shares in GM rose 1.4% in afternoon trade and those in Ford were up 1.1%.
More than 34,000 union members working at the three automakers are on strike since the walkouts began on Sept. 15.
GM's latest offer shows the Detroit automakers converging on similar offers that would raise hourly pay for UAW workers by some 30% over the life of the deal, including cost of living payments. Ford, which has had the best offer among the three, has said it is at the limit of what it can pay and remain competitive.
The union, waging its first simultaneous strikes against the Detroit Three automakers, opened bargaining with a demand for a 40% wage hike. The demand included a 20% immediate increase, elimination of different pay scales among UAW workers and restoration of defined benefit pension plans. The union also demand that battery plant workers be covered under union agreements.
The GM offer «suggests we may be in the endgame,» said University of California Berkeley labor professor Harley Shaiken. «In effect Ford has set the dimensions of the pattern, but GM is contributing to that. We've got a ways to go, but there's clearly
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