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UAW & GM Reportedly Reach Tentative Settlement
DETROIT – The United Auto Workers said early Wednesday it has reached a tentative contract agreement with General Motors Corp. that could end a two-day nationwide strike.
The union said the deal was reached shortly after 3 a.m. A person briefed on the contract told The Associated Press earlier that the agreement would shift the burden of retiree health care from GM to the union and give workers bonuses and lump-sum payments. The person requested anonymity because the contract talks are private.
The contract must be reviewed by local UAW presidents and will then be subject to a vote of GM’s 73,000 rank-and-file members. The agreement is expected to set a pattern for contracts at Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC.
One Response to “UAW & GM Reportedly Reach Tentative Settlement”
I waited to see how long it would be before someone would post a real-world news story rather than another Bush-bashing posting, more clucking and crowing about Ahmedinejad (anybody PC and anti-Bush of course deserves the right to speak), or more activism (the latest being when there’s no offense, to “solve” that problem conveniently coincidentally by demanding there not be proof required).
The UAW is a dinosaur that is dying and few have sympathy either for the UAW or for the Big Three (there is no widespread support for a bailout of the Big Three, the city of Detroit, or of Michigan, something T-Steel had wondered about openly). But it’s still a story worth noting, given it shows the death of an obsolescent paternalism and entitlement model about as relevent today as old-fashioned Democratic goals for government after World War II (not to mention the loonier radicalism from the Sixties onward). We’re going to see real sustainability problems with our vast welfare system that benefits mainly the middle class, first and foremost being Social Security and Medicare. And that’s before extending the scope of Medicare to more people, the obvious goal that will be sought soon by some in the federal government.