win back concessions

[ironman2012]

Hi,

The man behind this strike is the president of the United Auto Workers union, Shawn Fain. He was elected this year on promises to end corruption and win back concessions given to automakers.

(This transript comes from npr.org The UAW held talks with GM and Ford over the weekend but the strike persists on September 18, 2023.)

Does "concession" mean "something conceded by a government or a controlling authority, as a grant of land, a privilege, or a franchise"?

Shawn said "We lost - we sacrificed cost-of-living allowance ...we lost retirement security, ..., job security." So I wonder if I can undersand "concessions" as "benefits they lost or sacrifices they made".

Thanks in advance!

 

[lingobingo]

“Concessions given to automakers” no doubt means concessions given to the workers, which were then withdrawn. In that transcript, Fain specifies a couple of them:

We lost - we sacrificed cost-of-living allowance. You know, we lost retirement security, you know, job security.​

 

[kentix]

something conceded by a government or a controlling authority

There are two controlling authorities in this scenario. One is the automakers, Ford and GM (and Chrysler). And the other is the auto workers union, the UAW (the United Auto Workers).

Their relationship is governed by a series of contracts negotiated between the union and each automaker. Pay, working hours, working conditions, retirement benefits, health benefits and everything else is specified in each contract and is binding on both sides. The previous contracts expired on September 14.

The way I interpret what was said is that Fain believes that the last time the union was negotiating a contract with the automakers, they made concessions to the automakers on their demands in order to get an agreement. In other words, they accepted less than their initial proposals in response to the automakers proposals. Just like almost all contract negotiations, it's likely both sides didn't get everything they wanted and met somewhere in the middle. Fain is basically saying that in the new contract they want the things they agreed to give up last time to be included this time. Of course, it's possible they might have to give up something else before the automakers will agree to that. Both sides are trying to make the best deal for themselves. In a negotiation, anything one side gives up is a concession to the other side.

The (partial) strike happened because the two sides didn't come to a new agreement by September 14.

[Edited for clarity and more info]

 

[User With No Name]

The way I interpret what was said is that Fain believes that the last time the union was negotiating a contract with the automakers, they made concessions to the automakers on their demands in order to get an agreement. In other words, they accepted less than their initial proposals in response to the automakers proposals. Just like almost all contract negotiations, it's likely both sides didn't get everything they wanted and met somewhere in the middle. He is basically saying they want a new agreement where the things they agreed to give up last time won't be omitted from the contract this time. They want the automakers to agree to put them in the contract again. This time, they want that concession from the automakers. It's possible they might have to give up something else before the automakers will agree to that. In a negotiation, anything one side gives up is a concession to the other side.

Very nice explanation.

 

[kentix]

Another key point is that Fain was not leading the UAW during the last contract negotiations. As the text says, he only became leader this year. He disagrees with the concessions the last group of UAW leaders made when negotiating the previous contract. He is trying to undo their compromises in the new contract.