GM, Stellantis offer 23% raises in new proposals to UAW

General Motors and Stellantis on Friday proposed raising top wages for UAW members to more than $40 per hour by 2027. GM also offered "substantial" improvements on other issues as it aims to end the strike now entering its sixth week.

GM said its latest offer "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." The offer would boost wages 23 percent for most employees, to $40.39 per hour by the end of the contract, including 10 percent in the first year, GM said. Wages for temporary employees would increase 26 percent to $21 per hour.

A source familiar with contract talks said it was GM’s seventh proposal and its first since Oct. 5, and follows an offer from the UAW to GM this week.

Stellantis also has proposed a 23 percent increase, UAW President Shawn Fain said on a Facebook broadcast Friday, the 36th day of the union’s strike against the Detroit 3.

Friday's offers match the 23 percent raises that Ford Motor Co. already had proposed. Ford and GM previously had offered wage increases that topped out at $39.24 by the end of the next contract.

Fain didn’t add more plants to the strike Friday, but he said the work stoppage would continue because “these extremely profitable companies have more to give.” He described the latest GM and Stellantis offers as “serious movement” and reiterated that the union could decide to expand the strike whenever it feels the companies are not bargaining productively.

“The bottom line is we’ve got cards left to play, and they’ve got money left to spend,” Fain said. He added that the union wants “not just a good contract, not just a record contract, but a contract that turns the tide.”

GM's offer would reinstate cost-of-living adjustments to employees with seniority starting in the first year of the contract, which the company said would increase pay by more than 30 percent when combined with wage increases.

The automaker said all active full-time temporary employees with at least one year of seniority would be converted to permanent full-time status upon ratification and going forward, with profit-sharing payments available to temps who have worked at least 1,000 hours.

GM said it offered a faster path to reach top wages under its latest proposal — all employees with seniority status would achieve the top wage under the life of the deal. Fain said during his broadcast that GM has offered a three-year wage progression for current workers but proposed retaining a four-year grow-in period for new hires. GM did not confirm the timetable.

"The offer on the table is the most significant that GM has ever proposed to the UAW and recognizes our team members for all their dedication and contributions," GM said in a statement. "It is time for us to finish this process, get our team members back to work and get on with the business of making GM the company that will win and provide great jobs in the U.S. for our people for decades to come."

Fain revealed a few additional details about the companies’ latest offers. Stellantis has matched GM and Ford with a proposal for a 23 percent wage gain, he said. Ford and Stellantis have offered to bump 401(k) plan contributions up to 9.5 percent, from 6.5 percent today.

 He also blasted Ford Executive Chair Bill Ford’s comments earlier this week that the two sides needed to come together to focus on their common enemy: nonunion automakers.

"The days of the UAW and Ford being a team to fight other companies are over,” Fain said.

Fain said Oct. 6 that GM had agreed to put electric vehicle battery production under the national contract, though neither the union nor the automaker has provided details.

“We believe we have met our commitment to provide historic improvements in wages and benefits and have also addressed the future of EV battery manufacturing,” Gerald Johnson, GM's executive vice president of global manufacturing and sustainability, said in a video posted Thursday, the day before the company’s latest offer.