Talks with then troubled automakers in 2007 divided workers into two groups with different wages, but now thousands of more recent hires are preparing to make their case for equal pay: ‘The auto industry has bounced back’
Thirty-one-year-old Jennifer Sanders is proud to be a fifth-generation member of the United Auto Workers, but like many millennials, she is frustrated that hers is the first generation to take some major steps backward on pay and benefits compared with those who went before.
After three and a half years working at the General Motors assembly plant in Orion Township, a Detroit suburb, Sanders makes $17.53 an hour as part of a lower, second tier of auto workers. In contrast, workers in the top tier – those hired before 2007 – generally earn $28 an hour, two-thirds more than Sanders and enough for a solid middle-class life.
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