Statement from UAW President Shawn Fain on Corporate Greed at GM
This morning, GM announced the largest stock buyback in US automaker history. The company is planning to give another $20 billion in profits to Wall Street while tens of thousands of autoworkers have no retirement security, while plants sit under-utilized, and while the global auto industry overtakes GM. This company has spent $30 billion on stock buybacks and dividends in the past 5 years alone, while kicking and screaming about costs during our 2023 negotiations. We will remember when we are back at the bargaining table in 2028.
Let’s be clear about what stock buybacks really are. They are a form of legalized mass looting, sending billions of dollars generated by the working class directly to Wall Street investors who’ve never seen the inside of a factory.
Why don’t 80 percent of GM’s autoworkers have a pension and retirement healthcare, as they did for half a century? Because someone on Wall Street is collecting their pension check in the form of a goddamn stock buyback. Why is GM nickel and diming their retirees while lavishing shareholders with billions? Because this company has sold its soul to Wall Street.
Who benefits? The majority of stocks in this country are held by the wealthiest one percent. Who’s the largest individual shareholder at GM? CEO Mary Barra, who made $48 million in 2025, a 60 percent raise in a year. And just five Wall Street firms — companies like Blackrock and State Street — will get nearly $7 billion out of this scam.
Corporate America is destroying this country by looting the rust belt to pay off millionaires and billionaires for short term gain, while our factories sit empty and our working class falls further behind. GM hasn’t built a new plant in this country in 20 years. When GM is spending $20 billion buying back their own stock but only half that investing in factories, equipment, and productive capacity, they are choosing Wall Street profits over blue collar America.
When we bargained our UAW contract with GM in 2023, the media and the company acted like it was the end of the world for autoworkers to get a raise. But there’s always tens of billions of dollars for Wall Street. So when we return to the bargaining table with GM in 2028, I want the American public, the American politicians, and the American autoworker to remember this day. If there’s $20 billion for Wall Street, you better believe there’s our fair share for the working class.
