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BUSINESS Thursday 3 OcTOber 2019
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AP source: UAW rejects GM offer

over pay, temporary workers

By TOM KRISHER
DETROIT (AP) — General
Motors offered striking
union members wage in-
creases or lump-sum pay-
ments in all four years of a
proposed contract, as bar-
gainers seek a deal to end
a walkout that’s in its third
European Commissioner designate for Jobs Nicolas Schmit sits week.
prior his hearing at the European Parliament in Brussels, Tuesday, But union bargainers re-
Oct. 1, 2019. jected the offer because
Associated Press
it took money from other
EU jobs chief nominee: places to fund profit-shar-
ing, and it didn’t give tem-
no plan for common porary workers a clear path In this Sept. 30, 2019, file photo a UAW flag flies near strikers out-
to a full-time job, accord-
side the General Motors Orion Assembly plant in Orion Town-
ing to a person briefed on
minimum wage the negotiations. ship, Mich. Associated Press
Still, the offer, made late
Monday, is likely to be the on the talks said much of full-time status, the person
By SAMUEL PETREQUIN wants to create "a Euro- framework for whatever what the union objected said. Full-time workers on
Associated Press pean frame for minimum agreement is reached to to, including proposed the picket lines say they
BRUSSELS (AP) — The of- wages." end the strike by 49,000 concessions, has been want to see temporary
ficial set to become the According to the Eurostat workers that has halted removed or is being bar- workers get permanent
European Union's employ- agency, 22 out of the 28 production in the U.S. and gained. That person said jobs.
ment chief has no plan to member states had nation- severely cut output in Mexi- health care, a key sticking For workers who were hired
create a minimum wage al gross minimum wages co and Canada. Both sides point with union members, before 2007, the Monday
that would apply in every as of January 2019, rang- were still talking Wednes- would remain the same as night offer includes 2% rais-
country of the 28-nation ing from 286 euros ($311) day. it is now. The person, who es in 2020 and 2022, as well
bloc. in Bulgaria to 2,071 euros “It’s not insulting,” Art also didn’t want to be iden- as a 2% lump sum payment
Laying out his priorities dur- ($2,255) in Luxembourg. Wheaton, an auto industry tified because the talks are in 2019 and 3% in 2021.
ing a hearing by European Monthly minimum wages expert at the Worker Insti- confidential, did not know Workers also would get an
lawmakers, Nicolas Schmit are generally below 600 tute at Cornell University, the status of other provi- $8,000 ratification bonus,
said Tuesday he will fight for euros ($653) in eastern said of the offer. “It’s not sions that were being dis- and a cap would be lifted
the implementation of min- countries and above 1,400 close enough to ideal, but cussed Wednesday. on profit-sharing.
imum standards aimed at euros ($1,524) in the north- they’re still talking.” Among the union’s big Full-time workers hired after
tackling revenue disparities western nations. After GM presented the problems with the Monday 2007, who now are paid
across the EU, but insisted Schmit also gave guar- offer, bargainers for the offer is a provision requiring less than older workers,
minimum wages can't be antees to well-off coun- United Auto Workers union temporary workers to be would get the same prof-
the same everywhere. tries including Sweden made a counter offer that employed for three uninter- it-sharing and ratification
Schmit, who has been or Denmark with no mini- is now the subject of bar- rupted years before they bonuses. But they wouldn’t
picked to take on the jobs mum wage scheme that gaining, according to the automatically become full- get pay raises other than
portfolio in the next Euro- they would not be forced person, who asked not to time. It’s unlikely the work- the steps on the pay scale
pean Commission sched- into changing their mod- be identified because de- ers would not be laid off negotiated in the last con-
uled to take office on Nov. el based on collective tails of the talks are private. in three years, making it tract, the first person said of
1, said "by no means" he bargaining.q But another person briefed almost impossible to reach the Monday night offer. q