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UAW Aims to End Two-Tier Wages

The United Auto Workers union board "hates" the two-tier wage system it agreed to in 2007 and intends to eventually abolish it, a high-level union official tells reporters.
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The United Auto Workers union board "hates" the two-tier wage system it agreed to in 2007 and intends to eventually abolish it, a high-level union official tells reporters.

Norwood Jewell, a UAW regional director who has been nominated to head the union's General Motors and Chrysler departments next year, hints the issue will come up when the next ground of contract negotiations with Detroit's Big Three carmakers begins in 2015.

Under the two-tier system, new hires earn about $16 per hour compared with $28 for veteran union workers. Roughly one in five Big Three union workers are paid lower-tier wages.

Carmakers demanded the two-tier schedule as an essential step in equalizing their ability to compete with non-union factories operated in the U.S. by foreign vehicle manufacturers. Jewell says the key to ending the system will be UAW success in organizing non-union auto workers in the South.

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