AFT’s Weingarten Writes to AFT Pension Trustees, GM and Stellantis to Expose Financial Risks of Failing to Bargain with Autoworkers

WASHINGTON—American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten today sent a letter to the union’s pension trustees, who oversee hundreds of millions in GM and Stellantis stock, urging them to expose the financial and reputational risks of the automakers’ continuing failure to bargain a fair contract with their workers.

In separate letters to General Motors CEO Mary Barra and Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares, copied to the AFT Trustee Council, Weingarten called out the significant investment risks the labor dispute poses to AFT members invested in the firms and told employers to settle their strike with the United Auto Workers quickly and justly. Ford has recently made progress at the table, Weingarten noted.

“As I am sure you are aware, there is significant research showing that companies that prioritize constructive labor relationships and sound labor practices make for more stable—and more profitable—investments over the long term,” Weingarten wrote to the automakers. “Companies that fail to ensure fair working conditions for their workforce face financial, legal and reputational risks, which in turn puts our members’ retirement assets at risk.”

AFT members are invested in funds totaling an estimated $4.2 trillion, including over $660 million in GM stock and hundreds of millions of euros in Stellantis stock. AFT Trustee Council members oversee funds in California, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, New Mexico, New York, Ohio and Rhode Island, worth a combined $777 billion. The council helps educate and support trustees who safeguard the retirement security of the 1.7 million AFT members and their families.

Weingarten called on trustees to highlight the strike-related investment risks at each pension fund and direct staff to investigate these significant issues and report back on their findings:

“Trustees have a fiduciary duty to ensure funds are managed in the long-term, risk-adjusted best interest of our members as plan participants. GM and Stellantis’ refusal, to date, to bargain in good faith with the UAW presents investment risks that may ultimately have a detrimental effect on our members’ retirement savings.”

Weingarten, who stood with UAW workers on a Stellantis picket line in Toledo, Ohio, last week, noted that over the last decade, automakers have seen their profits—and CEO pay—soar, yet the workers whose labor made the companies profitable have experienced real declines in wages and benefits. Now, those companies’ bottom lines are at risk too, because of their continued intransigence at the bargaining table.

The GM letter can be read here, the Stellantis letter here and the AFT Trustee Council letter here.