U.S. Trade Head to Meet With UAW This Week Over New Trade Deal

Matt Posky
by Matt Posky

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer will be in Michigan this week to meet with union leaders from United Auto Workers in a bit to gain their approval for the Trump administration’s new North American free trade deal. Lighthizer is scheduled to meet with union officials in Dearborn on Tuesday to answer questions about the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) while simultaneously drumming up support.

The USMCA deal suggests increasing existing requirements for North American content for vehicles, stipulating that 40 percent of a vehicle’s overall content be manufactured in areas paying at least $16 an hour, while also encouraging Mexico to tailor its labor rules to allow unions to wield legitimate collective bargaining powers.

According to Reuters, Lighthizer said that the USMCA was “clearly better than” the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) at at a congressional hearing from last week, adding that Congress would have “no credibility at all” with China or “on any deals with your other trading partners” if it didn’t pass.

From Reuters:

Many Democrats argue the agreement needs improvements to ensure that higher labor and environmental standards can be fully enforced before they can support it. The pact has been billed as requiring Mexico to change its labor laws to allow unions with true collective bargaining power a fairer chance to form, a provision aimed at pushing up Mexican wages.

And many Republicans, as well as companies and farm groups, say the administration must agree to drop tariffs on aluminum and steel imports from Canada and Mexico before the agreement can move to a vote.

The American Automotive Policy Council announced it was supportive of USMCA and urged Congress to get the ball rolling on turning it into law on Friday. But the UAW, has been more tentative in its backing. In November, UAW President Gary Jones said the trade proposal didn’t go far enough to discourage companies like General Motors from relocating production to take advantage of lower labor costs in other parts of the world.

“Before the ink hit the paper, General Motors has already signaled that the ‘New’ NAFTA (known as USMCA) is not strong enough, as it stands today, to deter them from moving products and taking advantage of low cost labor,” Jones said. “Quite simply, the ‘New’ NAFTA needs more input and more work. We were hopeful that this new agreement would rein in the corporate greed that has bled manufacturing in the United States. Unfortunately, as GM’s idling of plants in Ohio, Michigan and Maryland this week showed — the ‘New’ NAFTA, as it stands now, is not strong enough to protect American workers.”

The UAW supports provisions to improve working conditions and wages in Mexico, citing violence against strikers and unfair wages for auto workers it believes stems from a “lack of basic rights.” While altruistic on its surface, critics have claimed that the UAW knows doubling the average wages of Mexican auto workers (they currently stand at around $8 an hour) would make it a less tempting option for domestic automakers looking for a place to manufacture new product — giving Canada and the United States a presumed advantage.

However the UAW also has suggestions of its own, likely to be discussed with Lighthizer on Tuesday. Among them is a push to take the proposed $16 minimum wage regarding regional content requirements to $24 an hour for final assembly, engines, transmissions, axles, vehicle frames, battery systems, and R&D — with remaining components and materials being set at $17 an hour.

[Image: General Motors]

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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  • Luke42 Luke42 on Mar 04, 2019

    Good luck selling the Trump administration's kneejerk policies. I find that what this administration's credibility rarely survives contact with details and/or knowledge of a specific domain. I'm a techie and an armchair economist, and Trump's gang knows far less about either domain than I do. If you learned everything you know from Fox News, Trump makes a lot of sense. As soon as you add in some other information source, such knowing your own industry, there are a lot of "hey, wait a minute!?!!!" moments whener you listen to Trump or any member of his administration speak. The auto workers do live their industry. I'm sure a Trump administration person will say something that seems completely ridiculous to them if they let that guy speak long enough. So, as much disdain as I have for Trump, I can honestly wish them good luck in overcoming this credibility problem -- because they'll need to up their game to sell this, and the Trump administration's really needs to up their game before they bumble in to another trade war, or a nuclear war, or whatever. America needs them to up their game, so that we can make good decisions as a nation. Good luck, guys! America needs you guys to get your stuff together... Please!

  • Roader Roader on Mar 04, 2019

    It's easy to be critical when you're poor: GDP per capita (PPP)(US$) United States 59,495 Germany 50,206 Australia 49,882 Canada 48,141 United Kingdom 43,620 France 43,550

  • Wolfwagen Is it me or have auto shows just turned to meh? To me, there isn't much excitement anymore. it's like we have hit a second malaise era. Every new vehicle is some cookie-cutter CUV. No cutting-edge designs. No talk of any great powertrains, or technological achievements. It's sort of expected with the push to EVs but there is no news on that front either. No new battery tech, no new charging tech. Nothing.
  • 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.
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