Hope You're Handy: Chicago Mechanics Are Still on Strike

Matt Posky
by Matt Posky

Mechanics at roughly 130 new car dealerships in Chicago went on strike Tuesday morning. According to the Automobile Mechanics’ Union Local 701, nearly 2,000 grease monkeys threw in the towel before also tossing a wrench into dealer maintenance schedules — leaving customers to fend for themselves.

On the first day of the strike, Mark Bilek, senior director of communications for the Chicago Automobile Trade Association, issued a statement that most affected dealerships would remain open with partially functional service centers. “They may not be performing complex repairs, but oil changes, stuff like that, it’s business as usual,” said Bilek in a statement.

However, the union stated that wouldn’t last for long if demands were not met. It has been bargaining with the New Car Dealer Committee since June, citing uncompensated time, unacceptable schedules, unsatisfactory pay, and no opportunities for career progression as its chief complaints. Deadlocked since negotiations began, the union decided to halt all work at the beginning of August — despite Bilek’s assurance that customers could still get their oil changed or tires rotated.

Sam Cicinelli, directing business representative for Local 701, issued a counter statement to the Chicago Tribune specifying that routine services were off-the-table on Tuesday afternoon. “They’re not doing that,” he explained. “There’s nobody that’s in there to do oil changes or anything of the sort.”

The situation did not improved as the week progressed. David Sloan, president of the Chicago Automobile Trade Association, specified no moves had been made by dealerships to speed up negotiations and union members are actively picketing outside most of the affected stores.

“Dealerships are trying their best to keep things going,” Sloan told Automotive News. “They’re rescheduling some bigger jobs but trying to keep smaller jobs continued. They’re making the best of a bad situation.”

Mechanics are hoping for an assurance of 40 hours per week and pay less dependent upon productivity, claiming there isn’t always a vehicle waiting for them in the service bay. The union calls the pay structure “draconian” and accuses it of “prohibiting [its] ability to attract young, aspiring mechanics to enter the auto repair profession.”

So far, dealers have offered a 5 percent annual pay increase over the next three years to bolster incentive-based pay. Sloan said workers “overwhelmingly” rejected the proposal.

Presently, neither side has expressed any idea as to when the strike might conclude.

The gripe from workers is that, once again, the majority of the proposed increase is dependent upon the work that is done or currently available, which doesn’t provide them with a predictable income.

Brian Ilic, a mechanic on strike with Local 701, said dealer management made their offer to the union on July 31st, the same day the previous contract expired. “I feel they thought if we were given a last minute decision we would take the subpar offer and not strike,” he said. “None of the industry problems we asked to address were even addressed. Most were what seems like just rejected with total disregard,” Ilic continued. “I think they felt if they threw money at it, we would be happy.”

The consensus between Ilic and the rest of the striking mechanics seems to be that the Automobile Trade Association has ignored their requests for a 40-hour week and focused on incentive-based pay increases that would be difficult to take advantage of, especially in an era where cars need less routine maintenance and dealers continue keeping hours low. Extended warranties on vehicles that need less work overall means more of the wrenching done at dealerships is paid at automaker rates, rather than higher customer-pay rates. “This makes the incentive rate harder to achieve,” Ilic concluded.

However, Sloan says the incentive-based payment system exists for a reason. “It’s in the best interest of the dealers to reward their most productive technicians,” Sloan said. “They have to keep their most productive technicians busy and keep their service department running efficiently.”

Well, how efficiently are they running right now?

Matt Posky
Matt Posky

A staunch consumer advocate tracking industry trends and regulation. Before joining TTAC, Matt spent a decade working for marketing and research firms based in NYC. Clients included several of the world’s largest automakers, global tire brands, and aftermarket part suppliers. Dissatisfied with the corporate world and resentful of having to wear suits everyday, he pivoted to writing about cars. Since then, that man has become an ardent supporter of the right-to-repair movement, been interviewed on the auto industry by national radio broadcasts, driven more rental cars than anyone ever should, participated in amateur rallying events, and received the requisite minimum training as sanctioned by the SCCA. Handy with a wrench, Matt grew up surrounded by Detroit auto workers and managed to get a pizza delivery job before he was legally eligible. He later found himself driving box trucks through Manhattan, guaranteeing future sympathy for actual truckers. He continues to conduct research pertaining to the automotive sector as an independent contractor and has since moved back to his native Michigan, closer to where the cars are born. A contrarian, Matt claims to prefer understeer — stating that front and all-wheel drive vehicles cater best to his driving style.

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  • Erikstrawn Erikstrawn on Aug 05, 2017

    Eighteen years ago I was a technician at a Japanese-brand dealership here in Oklahoma City. The guys in my shop were rabidly anti-union, but every few months the dealership would try to make us accept 3.5 hours on timing belt replacement (4.0 hours) to try and get customers in the door. The same guys who were anti-union would gather together and make sure we were all behind sticking to 4.0 hours. A union by any other name... Our top technician was excited when he finally cleared $50K in one year. He was good enough that he went to the manufacturer's world technician competition in Tokyo and won it. At the time the dealership was charging $75+ a flag hour, and he was making about $25. As a beginning technician I was making $13. Almost all the work coming in the door was warranty, but the top technicians were getting fed what little customer pay work there was. The little customer pay work I got was from the used car lot, but there were several occasions where the used car manager would launder work through a customer's name to get the manufacturer to buy "goodwill" work (warranty work after the warranty expired). That meant my pay for a job would get cut in half. The truth is most dealer technicians are young kids hired out of vo-tech with promises of six-figure paychecks. Most make $25-50K and get out within four years. The experience level compared to an independent shop is tiny. The fortunate thing is they typically only see one brand of car and know the major problems with that one brand.

    • See 6 previous
    • Mopar4wd Mopar4wd on Aug 07, 2017

      @gtem The split in techs is real and has happened in other industries as well. I'm seeing more and more guys in the local dealers bays with a a small van labeled with trade names for Diagnostics or Air bag repair or A/C. Never used to see that, became very big in the last 5-10 years. A family friend does auto A/C work in Boston out of a van he says more then half his work are with new vehicle dealers he said he used to work mostly with local independents but more and more the dealers are calling him. The marine industry is the same. Still lots of guys doing everything but more and more guys pic out a specialty like electrical or electronics. A friend of mine who does plumbing says he's seeing it too.

  • MeaMaximaCulpa MeaMaximaCulpa on Aug 06, 2017

    I have that exact same Bburago F40, well my is in a bit worse shape due to a somewhat unsuccessful reassembly.

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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