#Uaw

With last week’s tentative agreement between the United Auto Workers and General Motors, the end of the now six-week-long strike seemed closer than ever. GM hourly workers in the U.S. have until the end of the week to decide whether to approve the contract deal; if it gets the thumbs-up, the strike’s over.

Amid all of this labor news came a couple of tidbits, both of which stand to make the UAW happy. The first involves a resurrected nameplate built in Mexico, the other, a defunct GM brand that didn’t survive the company’s recession-era bankruptcy.

Buried beneath all of the pay and benefit details contained within the tentative UAW-GM labor agreement is a property sale. No, Ford’s not buying back the Renaissance Center.

A property situated on the banks of the Detroit River hosts the GM Center for Human Resources — the jointly operated training center funded with automaker cash, and one that’s become quite notorious of late. Given that the center sits at the heart of a federal corruption probe, the automaker feels it’s probably a good idea to ditch the property.

As the UAW-GM strike closes out its fifth week, workers now hold the power of determining when it will end. Late Thursday, the UAW National General Motors Council recommended ratification of the tentative agreement forged a day earlier, tossing the ball into the workers’ court.

While the strike continues, some members claim they’ll reject the contract unless GM reopens mothballed assembly plants — an unlikely scenario, given that the suddenly thrifty automaker has already reversed course on the closure of Detroit-Hamtramck. That plant is now tapped for GM’s Ford-fighting electric pickup.

After reaching a tentative agreement with General Motors on Wednesday, the United Auto Workers has released a summary of the proposed labor contract.

Contained within are wage hikes for GM autoworkers, lump sum increases, a generous signing bonus, the removal of caps on profit-sharing payouts, and a health care plan that maintains the status quo. It would also keep one previously doomed assembly plant open.

What we don’t know, at this point, is when the ongoing strike will end.

After 31 days on the picket line, UAW-affiliated General Motors workers could soon be back in the business of building vehicles. Wednesday morning, the United Auto Workers and GM announced that their bargaining teams had reached a tentative agreement — one the UAW says includes “major gains” for its members.

All signs earlier this week pointed to a looming deal. On Tuesday, GM CEO Mary Barra and President Mark Reuss sat in on negotiations, while the UAW called its local union leaders to Detroit for a Thursday meeting.

Now in its fifth week, the strike by UAW-affiliated workers that darkened General Motors plants across the continent and reportedly cost the company $2 billion may soon achieve results.

Late Monday night, numerous media outlets reported that local union leaders were being called to Detroit for a Thursday meeting. This morning, word arose that GM CEO Mary Barra and President Mark Reuss had taken a seat at the bargaining table.

Few expected the labor action by U.S. General Motors workers to last this long, but no one expected reaching a collective agreement to be easy, either. As the the strike by UAW-affiliated GM workers enters its fifth week, picketing workers can expect an extra $25 a week from the union’s strike fund.

GM, on the other hand, can expect its dealers to face increased difficulty in sourcing certain replacement parts, while others worry about the prospect of subpar inventory.

Our last update on the GM-UAW strike revolved around union reps playing hardball on issues like health care, wages, temporary employees, skilled trades, and job security. The United Auto Workers sent General Motors’ proposals back, holding its nose in disapproval.

With the strike now roughly one month deep and looking like it may disrupt the automaker’s well-laid plans, GM is firing back by suggesting the workers’ union is intentionally wasting everybody’s time. The company’s latest contract offer was issued Monday, with the union having yet to offer any formal feedback. Chief Executive Officer Mary Barra even joined negotiations on Wednesday in an effort to speed up discussions. But the UAW has said it will only issue a counter proposal after five separate committees address a “series of issues” and the automaker publicly furnishes its suggestions.

“We object to having bargaining placed on hold pending a resolution of these five areas,” Scott Sandefur, GM’s vice president of North American labor relations, wrote to UAW Vice President Terry Dittes on Thursday. “As we have urged repeatedly, we should engage in bargaining over all issues around-the-clock to get an agreement.”

As the GM-UAW strike enters its 17th day, it seems the union representing 48,000 of the automaker’s U.S. workers isn’t about to agree to any concessions.

Earlier this week, the General Motors bargaining team slid an offer across the table, hoping to restore labor peace and flip the switches at its darkened plants. The UAW promptly slid it back.

The strike by UAW-affiliated General Motors workers, now in its third week, is piling up costs for the automaker. It’s also hiking financial pressure on the UAW, which just started paying out $250 a week to roughly 48,000 picketing workers in the United States.

As bargaining teams negotiate behind closed doors to reach a tentative contract agreement, the growing financial consequences of the labor action is hitting GM in another way: it’s now impacting GM’s stock price.

As reports point to progress in efforts by General Motors and the UAW to reach a tentative collective agreement and resolve the now 12-day-long strike, the automaker has removed a contentious element of the drama. Announced Thursday, GM will resume covering workers’ health benefits.

GM withdrew the coverage early into the strike, forcing hourly workers to go through their union to fund temporary COBRA plans. As one would expect, GM’s about-face hasn’t left UAW all smiles.

As the strike by General Motors workers in the U.S. enters its 11th day, bargaining teams from the automaker and UAW could be close to reaching a tentative labor agreement. Recent reports claim negotiations have ramped up in the past day or two.

UAW Vice President Terry Dittes acknowledged the progress in a letter to members Wednesday night, which should bring some comfort both to workers and dealers facing a dwindling supply of replacement parts.

General Motors seems ready to wait out any resistance to its contract offer by UAW-represented workers, though a prolonged strike could still hurt the company. With the strike by GM workers in the United States now entering its second week, the automaker’s vehicle inventory is healthy enough to weather days and weeks of picketing, but the same cannot be of the personal finances of many striking workers.

At this point, no one’s predicting a quick resolution.

The first strike action by unionized General Motors workers since before the recession has entered its fifth day, with bargaining teams from both sides claiming progress on a number of issues. That said, reaching a tentative deal reached before the weekend is a long shot.

With American GM plants free of workers, the shutdown of the automaker’s manufacturing landscape has sent shock waves across the border and into Canada, where many workers are now “enjoying” a unexpected late-summer vacation.

Plenty of workers at General Motors’ Oshawa, Ontario assembly plant soon won’t have much to do, as the UAW’s strike against GM impacts pickup production in Canada. The facility, due to stop producing vehicles by the end of the year, will temporarily lay off over a thousand workers, the automaker’s Canadian arm announced Wednesday. That’s more than half the plant’s workforce.

Elsewhere in the province of Ontario, the strike has stemmed the flow of components and could soon lead to other layoffs. Unifor, the union representing Detroit Three auto workers in the country, added its voice to the fray this week, hinting that next year’s Canadian bargaining talks could end with the same outcome.