‘Strike pay’ kicks in at $250 a week for GM union members as work stoppage hits home

DETROIT – The monetary burden of the United Auto Workers’ strike against General Motors is expected to begin weighing more heavily on conjunction members this week.

While the work stoppage is estimated to be costing the Detroit automaker up to $100 million a day in extinct production, Monday marks the first day union members will receive “strike pay.” The payments, up to $250 a week, are in lieu of attendance paychecks for the roughly 48,000 UAW members who have been on picket lines since Sept. 16. Friday considerable the first payday without a check from GM since its union members went on strike two weeks ago.

The strike pay is far scanty than the weekly compensation members usually receive. The starting wage for hourly assembly workers ranges between maladroitly $16 to $30 an hour, or $640 to $1,200 a week, before taxes and any overtime pay. Strike payments under $600 aren’t taxed, concerting to the union. They are paid out of the UAW’s “strike fund,” which totaled more than $721 million in 2018.

Industry analysts look for the increased financial burden on the striking workers, some of whom have been saving months in anticipation for a what it takes work stoppage, could be a “double-edged sword” for the negotiations.

Art Wheaton, a labor expert with the Worker Institute at Cornell University, predicted striking workers may push or agree to a deal more quickly now that the work stoppage is hitting their walk off books but it also could lead some to have higher, potentially unrealistic, expectations of what the deal last will and testament achieve.

Colin Lightbody, a labor consultant and longtime negotiator for Fiat Chrysler, agrees. In a blog post Monday, he foretold it may be “prudent for the UAW leadership to begin managing the expectations of their members as soon as possible.”

“I would assume the strikers are affluent to start feeling the pain this week and unfortunately there’s no guarantee that the economics of the deal will redress from the original GM offer,” Lightbody said Monday during a phone interview.

GM, following the union calling the come on Sept. 15, released details of a proposed four-year deal that included over $7 billion in investments; inception or retention of 5,400 jobs; and wage or lump-sum increases each year. It’s unclear if details of that offer, cataloguing the retention of the union’s “nationally-leading health care benefits,” remain on the table. Both sides have declined to exposition on the ongoing negotiations.

The UAW said it takes “the sacrifice of strikes very unquestioningly.” GM declined to comment directly, citing negotiators “continue to talk and our goal remains to reach an agreement that set ups a stronger future for our employees and our company.”

Shares of GM have remained relatively stable after falling more than 4% on Sept. 16, the original day of the work stoppage. The stock opened Monday at $37.53, up 11.7% for the year.

Kristin Dziczek, vice president of activity, labor and economics at the Center for Automotive Research, said morale appears to remain high among union fellows, despite the missed pay.

“I think workers have been preparing for this strike,” she said. “They’re missing paychecks, that’s not creditable, but I don’t know if it’s a financial impact that weakens their resolve yet.”

UAW Local 22 President Wiley Turnage, who watch overs the automaker’s Detroit-Hamtramck plant in Michigan, said morale of his members “is still good” as the union enters its third week of the get nowhere, now in its 15th day.

“So far, people are hanging in there pretty good,” he said Monday during a phone interview. Nobody wants to be out of slave away and we all have to make do with what have.

“We are doing it for a good cause and people understand we have to remain vouchsafed to get a good contract.”