DETROIT _ Negotiations between General Motors Co. and the United Auto Workers resumed Thursday with all unsettled issues at the "main table," as 46,000 hourly GM employees striked for an 11th day.
Bargaining intensified Wednesday when the UAW brought all the unresolved proposals to the main table, Terry Dittes, UAW vice president and director of the GM department said in a letter to local leaders. Talks wrapped up around 7 p.m. Wednesday, but this final phase usually marks when negotiators are prepared to bargain around the clock to reach soon a tentative agreement.
"All unsettled proposals are now at the main table and have been presented to General Motors and we are awaiting their response," Dittes wrote. "This back and forth will continue until negotiations are complete."
The automaker also took steps Wednesday suggesting that the walkout could be coming to an end. In letters to delivery companies charged with ferrying parts between suppliers and GM auto plants, GM told the firms Wednesday to prepare and have empty trailers at the company's facilities that can be loaded whenever work resumes.
But the notices expressed caution: "Although we are not sure as to when the UAW strike will end, it is a good idea to start the conversation of preparedness," wrote Leslie Woods, customer logistics manager for GM Quality Carrier Management for Ryder System Inc. in Novi.
The strike is the UAW's longest against GM since 1970 and the first since the Great Recession and GM's federally induced bankruptcy in 2009. Strikers will start to feel the financial impact of the impasse this week, according to experts.
Strike pay is $250 per week, but it won't be distributed until the 15th day of picketing. The starting wage for temporary production workers at GM is $15.78 per hour, which is about $630 per week.
Experts have differing estimates on how much the strike is costing GM. The East Lansing-based Anderson Economic Group estimated the first week would result in losses of about $25 million total. Wall Street analysts forecast it would cost $50 million or more per day.
The strike has started to affect GM facilities in Ohio and Ontario not represented by the UAW. All told more than 3,200 GM workers represented by other unions have been laid off. On Monday, the automaker notified 525 employees at its DMax Ltd. plant in Moraine, Ohio, that they were temporarily laid off. The plant would not be producing engines for the GMC and Chevrolet pickups there during the strike at UAW-represented GM plants.
