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UAW President Vows to Reinstate Fight for Pensions, Health Care [1]
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Date: 2024-01-22 21:00:42+00:00
The nation’s largest auto union is doubling down on winning equal benefits for active members and retirees after failing to secure pension restorations and lifetime health care in last year’s negotiations with Detroit automakers.
United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain, who spoke Monday at an annual conference for the union’s political arm, vowed to restore benefits retirees lost during the Great Recession either at the negotiating table or through federal government intervention.
“Either the Big Three guarantee retirement security for workers who give their lives to these companies, or an even bigger player does: the federal government,” Fain said to applause at the UAW Community Action Program annual conference in Washington.
The union lost its long-shot bid to reinstate traditional pensions for younger workers and cover medical costs for retirees in talks late last year to end targeted UAW strikes at several Ford Motor Co. , General Motors Co. , and Stellantis NV facilities around the country.
UAW quietly gave many of those benefits up as the automakers teetered on the brink of collapse in 2009, but demanded them back as the companies posted record post-pandemic profits.
Fain, who is nearing his one-year anniversary at the helm of the massive union, has framed the fight for retirement security as a bid to end the automakers’ tiered wage and benefits systems, a common thread that linked several high-profile strikes in 2023.
“One of the core issues in our fight at the Big Three was the elimination of tiers, because we knew a divided membership would remain forever weak,” he said. “And we made unbelievable strides in uniting our membership, but we weren’t able to kill the biggest tier of all—between those who have a pension and post-retirement health care, and those who don’t.”
Fain said health and retirement benefits would remain a top objective for the union well ahead of the next round of contract negotiations set for 2028. UAW’s Community Action Program, which oversees the union’s $12 million-strong political action committee, should lobby for retirement security “for the entire working class,” Fain said.
At its last convention in 2022, the AFL-CIO, of which UAW is a member, adopted a resolution calling for defined-benefit retirement benefits for all American workers.
Yet it’s unclear what Fain’s veiled threat for federal government intervention would mean if the automakers don’t revamp their pensions. Several UAW locals were prime benefactors of the Biden administration’s union-brokered pension bailout, which is presently funneling more than $80 billion in taxpayer dollars to some of the nation’s most underfunded multiemployer plans.
Some lawmakers on Capitol Hill have toyed with legislation that would establish federally sponsored private-sector savings. State and federal social safety nets face an uncertain future as a record number of American workers are projected to retire soon with historically low levels of retirement preparedness.
Fain cited US Census Bureau data that show nearly half of men and women ages 55 to 66 have no retirement savings at all, and nearly a third of Americans fear they won’t have enough to meet basic monthly expenses in retirement.
“When we talk about retirement security, it’s not going to be enough to win at GM, Ford, and Stellantis,” he said. “We have to win everywhere, not just in the UAW, not just in organized labor, but in this nation.”
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[1] Url:
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/uaw-president-vows-to-reinstate-fight-for-pensions-health-care
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