Metalworkers Declare Strike At General Motors Factory After Three Years With Salary Increases Below Inflation

While General Motors Keeps Profiting, Metalworkers’ Salaries Lose Purchasing Power. For Three Years, Adjustments Have Been Below Inflation

Last Wednesday (29), metalworkers at General Motors in São Caetano do Sul approved a strike state at the factory. The reason is the automaker’s attempt to postpone the salary adjustment and reduce workers’ rights. The category’s base date is September 1st, and workers want an adjustment proposal that meets their needs.

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The metalworkers also advocate for job stability for all injured workers. Currently, only those hired before 2017 are entitled to this benefit. GM wants to maintain the exclusion of new hires from this clause and, on top of that, reduce the stability period for existing employees.

In Economic Terms, GM Workers in São Caetano Do Sul Demand the Following Items

• Salary adjustment based on the INPC accumulated over the last 12 months;
• real increase of 5%; Minimum Wage adjusted by the INPC from 2016 to 2021;
• meal voucher of R$ 1,000 for workers included in the new scale and R$ 500 for others;
• Profit Sharing (PR) of R$ 18,000 with an advance of R$ 10,000;
• advance of half of the 13th Salary/2022 for February 2022;
• inclusion of a clause regarding home office;
• payment of a five-year bonus of 5%; return of salary scale adjustments every 6 months and a Christmas basket.

Additionally, they demand the maintenance of social clauses included in the current Collective Labor Agreement (ACT), particularly Clause 42, which ensures job security for workers with occupational diseases, and the base date in September. It should be noted that the strike at GM was declared after 7 long rounds of negotiations between the union and company management.

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“This fight is for all GM workers in Brazil. The proposal from the São Caetano unit is inferior to what was agreed upon in other plants. If the factory does not present a decent proposal, the São Caetano comrades will stop, and they will have our full support,” said the Union’s Secretary-General, Renato Almeida.

Metalworkers Reject General Motors’ Counterproposal

In terms of salary adjustment, the company presented as a counterproposal the full inflation compensation to be applied to salaries on February 1, 2022, plus 50% of the INPC for the period, to be applied in February 2023, a meal voucher of R$ 350 for employees with salaries up to R$ 4,429, and its implementation in February 2022, plus a bonus of R$ 1,000 to be paid in October 2021.

The rejection of the counterproposal was already anticipated, according to Aparecido Inácio da Silva, known as Cidão, president of the Metalworkers’ Union of São Caetano do Sul, since “even if the difficulties due to the pandemic are acknowledged, the workers need their salaries adjusted in accordance with the accumulated inflation, currently at 10.42%, plus a real increase, given that their purchasing power has been eroded by the soaring cost of living resulting from rampant inflation,” he declared.

GM Keeps Profiting

While General Motors keeps profiting, metalworkers’ salaries lose purchasing power. For three years, adjustments have been below inflation. In the second quarter of this year, the group recorded a net profit of 2.8 billion dollars, reversing all losses attributed to the pandemic.

The Union and the CSP-Conlutas extend their full support and solidarity to the struggle of the metalworkers in São Caetano.

“With rising prices and rampant inflation, debts don’t wait and can’t be divided. It’s absurd for GM to have the audacity to want to apply the inflation of the base date only next year. We are united in this struggle and will stand by the comrades in São Caetano,” says Luiz Carlos Prates, known as Mancha, a leader of the National Executive Secretariat of CSP-Conlutas.