Pay Cuts Will Affect 25% of GM Workforce

New 'non-core' classification nearly halves $51/hour pay

By Kevin Spak, Newser Staff

Posted Oct 4, 2007 11:19 AM CDT

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Pay Cuts Will Affect 25% of GM Workforce — In a photo provided by General Motors Corp., assemblyman Marion Glasscoe works on a 2008 CTS at the Lansing Grand River Assembly plant in Lansing, Mich., Thursday, Sept. 27, 2007. If 74,000 United Auto Workers ratify a groundbreaking new contract with GM, its provisions likely will save the company... (Associated Press)

UAW’s new contract with GM will mean lower wages for a quarter of union employees, Bloomberg reports. The 16,766 jobs labeled “non-core” in the deal would drop to $28 an hour, down from $51 an hour. “This is the beginning of the end of the well-paid UAW workers and probably the well-paid manufacturing worker in America,” said one labor professor.

Current workers' pay won't be cut, but a “special attrition” program will encourage them to leave or retire. GM will also bring outsourced work in-house at the new non-core rates. So far, six UAW locals have approved the deal. Investors meanwhile continue to reward GM for closing the labor gap with Toyota and Honda, as its stock rose again yesterday. (More General Motors stories.)

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