Individual auto workers' pay varies depending on their tenure at a car manufacturer. Under the industry's tiered wage system, more recent hires start at lower rates of pay than longer-tenured workers. Top-tier workers — meaning anyone who joined the company in 2007 or earlier — make roughly $33 an hour on average, contract summaries for the Big Three show. Those hired after 2007 are part of the lower tier and earn up to $17 an hour based on a buildup of 6% annual raises under the last contract.
Expert weighs in how UAW strike could have economic impact 05:10 Unlike top-tier employees, lower-tier employees don't receive defined benefit pensions, and their health benefits are less generous. UAW members want the two-tiered pay system abolished , arguing that it reduces lower-tier coworkers to the equivalent of second-class citizens.
Adjusting for inflation, autoworkers have seen their average wages fall 19.3% since 2008, according to Adam Hersh, senior economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. That's because autoworker "concessions made following the 2008 auto industry crisis were never reinstated," Hersh said in a recent blog post, "including a suspension of cost-of-living adjustments."
Ford CEO Jim Farley earned $21 million in total compensation last year, the Detroit News reported, while Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares made $24.8 million, according to the Detroit Free Press (Stellantis, which was formed in 2021 in a merger between Fiat Chrysler and European automaker Groupe PSA, owns Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and RAM, along with major foreign brands including Citroën, Peugeot and Maserati.) GM CEO Mary Barras earned nearly $29 million in 2022 pay, Automotive News reported. Overall CEO pay at the Big Three companies rose 40% from 2013 to 2022, according to EPI. Barras makes 362 times more than the typical GM worker, while Tavares makes 365 times more, according to company filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Farley at Ford makes 281 times more, filings show.
The most recent data available on Fain's salary with the UAW is from 2022, prior to his election as president, according to the U.S. Labor Department. Last year, he earned $160,130 as an administrative assistant for the union, a union filing shows. Prior UAW President Raymond Curry earned $267,126 that year.
Khristopher J. Brooks is a reporter for CBS MoneyWatch. He previously worked as a reporter for the Omaha World-Herald, Newsday and the Florida Times-Union. His reporting primarily focuses on the U.S. housing market, the business of sports and bankruptcy.
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