GM Throws Entry Level Workers a Bone...$16 per hour versus $14 (no more food stamps at $16)

Starting pay will increase to about $16

an hour from $14 and rise to about $19

an hour from a previous maximum of $16...

WOW...at $16 per hour, one only needs to

figure out how to work 562,500 hours in a

year to equal CEO Dan Akerson's $9 mil

compensation package. That's progress, as

before the raise, one needed to work

642,857 hours...If Mr. Akerson worked

24/7 for an entire year, his hourly rate

is $1,027.

Bloomberg
By David Welch
September 17, 2011

General Motors will increase entry-level pay by $2 to $3 an hour as part of a tentative agreement on a new four-year contract with the United Auto Workers, said two people familiar with the accord.

Starting pay will increase to about $16 an hour from $14 and rise to about $19 an hour from a previous maximum of $16, said the people who asked not to be identified disclosing details before they have been presented to union members for ratification. UAW President Bob King had said getting those workers a middle-class lifestyle was his highest priority.

“This is a wage gain in an economy that is cratering in some places,” Harley Shaiken, a labor professor at the University of California at Berkeley, said in a telephone interview today. “It’s an important symbol.”

GM will also pay a record $5,000 signing bonus if a majority of the 48,500 hourly workers vote to ratify the accord, the people said. That would cost the Detroit-based automaker $242.5 million. The accord also includes new jobs and better profit-sharing, the union said. Ratification votes will probably be held within 10 days, GM said.

The new entry-level wage will get workers close to the average manufacturing wage in the U.S., Shaiken said. In August, it was $18.90 an hour, according to the Commerce Department.

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