The US carmaker General Motors is struck for the first time since 2007 nationwide. According to the union, the strike involved around 48,000 hourly workers and began on Sunday at midnight. The US auto union UAW had called for work to be discontinued because collective bargaining with the management has so far been inconclusive. "We're not doing it lightly," said UAW Representative Terry Dittes in Detroit. "That's our last resort." A prolonged labor dispute could cause GM to cut production in North America.
The talks should be continued on Monday. Both sides argue about various issues such as wages, health care, temporary work, job guarantees, possible plant closures and profit sharing. The union wants to enforce that plants in Ohio and Michigan are not closed. In addition, the UAW argues that workers earned higher pay after years of record profits.
GM's employees last entered a two-day strike in 2007 during collective bargaining. Even more painful, however, is the labor dispute in 1998 in Flint, Michigan, which took 54 days and cost the leading US automaker more than $ 2 billion.