United Auto Workers members employed by General Motors said Saturday they would stay on the job even after the expiration of their contract at midnight, without committing to a specific period of time.
The auto workers decided to let the agreement lapse without an interim deal in place after contentious negotiations in which GM has sought to trim labor costs while the union fights for improvements on its most recent contract.
"While we are fighting for better wages, affordable quality healthcare and job security, GM refuses to put hard-working Americans ahead of their record profits of $35 billion in North America over the last three years," Terry Dittes, the union's vice president, wrote in a letterr on Saturday. "We are united in our efforts to get an agreement our members and their families deserve."
UAW leaders are scheduled to meet Sunday morning and haven't ruled out a labor action.
“Nobody wins with a strike,” auto analyst and founder of RebeccaDrives.com Rebecca Lindland told Yahoo Finance. “GM is saying, 'We’re facing competitive pressures.' They have actually found a lot of jobs for workers in those plants that are scheduled to close, so they feel like they’ve done a lot for the union and the union is saying, 'But we want more.'”
Any agreement between GM and the UAW will set the tone for contract negotiations with the rest of Detroit's Big Three manufacturers, Ford and Fiat Chrysler, she added.
Much has changed since the last round of bargaining between the UAW and GM in 2015, with the auto industry among the hardest hit by the Trump administration's trade war with China and the emergence of new industry competitors from Tesla to Rivian and Waymo.
Perhaps the biggest obstacle is GM's idling of four factories in Michigan, Maryland, and Ohio, which the union has vowed to fight at all costs. Members of the labor organization also want a boost in pay that starts at $17 to $30 an hour under the existing contract.
UAW members want to retain their plum health-care coverage, which requires members to pay only 3 percent of their out-of-pocket costs. In comparison, the average member of the U.S. workforce pays 28 percent, and salaried, non-UAW-represented auto workers pay 20 percent to 30 percent, according to the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.
“Healthcare stands alone as not only the most costly benefit on a per-hour basis but also the benefit that has the most substantial year-over-year cost increases,” Kristin Dziczek, a vice president at the Center for Automotive Research, wrote on the organization’s website Monday.