Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is supporting autoworkers who are striking against General Motors.
The Democrat on Monday visited United Auto Workers members picketing outside the Lansing Grand River plant, blocks from the state Capitol building. Photos her office posted to social media showed her shaking hands and delivering doughnuts.
Spokeswoman Tiffany Brown says Whitmer is closely monitoring the strike and supports working peoples' rights to negotiate together for better wages, benefits, working conditions and more time to spend with their families.
RELATED: UAW says GM should have made latest offer sooner
RELATED: No Deal: Auto workers strike against GM in contract dispute
More than 49,000 unionized GM workers walked off their jobs just after midnight Monday.
Whitmer says she is hopeful that the UAW and GM can negotiate and ratify a new contract quickly, because getting autoworkers back on the job as quickly as possible is important to Michigan's economy.
Here are the main areas of disagreement:
- GM is making big money, $8 billion last year alone, and workers want a bigger slice. The union wants annual pay raises to guard against an economic downturn, but the company wants to pay lump sums tied to earnings. Automakers don't want higher fixed costs.
- The union also wants new products for the four factories slated to close. GM currently has too much U.S. factory capacity, especially to build slower-selling cars.
- The companies want to close the labor cost gap with workers at plants run by foreign automakers. GM pays $63 per hour in wages and benefits compared with $50 at the foreign-owned factories. GM's gap is the largest at $13 per hour, according to figures from the Center for Automotive Research.
- Union members have great health insurance plans and workers pay about 4% of the cost. Employees at large firms nationwide pay about 34%, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Automakers would like to cut costs.
RELATED VIDEO:
Other headlines on 13 ON YOUR SIDE:
►Make it easy to keep up to date with more stories like this. Download the 13 ON YOUR SIDE app now.
Have a news tip? Email news@13onyourside.com, visit our Facebook page or Twitter. Subscribe to our YouTube channel.