Whether General Motors CEO Mary Barra shakes hands with UAW President Shawn Fain if union workers ratify their tentative labor agreement remains a question, the Detroit Free Press learned Saturday.
Fain declined to shake hands with Barra and the other Detroit Three automaker CEOs at the start of talks in the summer, and now Barra has indicated perhaps it’s best to close without a ceremonial handshake, according to one of about two dozen people in the room Oct. 30 when the tentative deal came together.
That was around 4 a.m. and everyone was exhausted, said the source, who was not authorized to speak publicly. GM had about eight top negotiators and others in the room, while the UAW had more than a dozen, the source said.
While the leaders were signing the agreement at Solidarity House on Jefferson Avenue in Detroit, Fain was reading through boilerplate language, the terms, all the key points, the source said. That final review took 20 minutes or so, and everyone in the room was ready to be done, the source told the Free Press.
Fain rattled on about protocol and next steps and the general membership ratification vote and the handshake ceremony after ratification. The room was silent and tense.
The agreement with GM came less than 48 hours after the union struck the automaker’s critical Spring Hill Assembly plant in Tennessee.
As Fain referred to the upcoming handshaking ceremony, Barra cut in and said something to the effect of, “Maybe we don’t do that,” the source in the room told the Free Press.
Fain broke the silence, and burst out laughing while everyone else in the room watched uncomfortably, the source told the Free Press.
Fain responded, “Sounds like a plan to me.”
The source in the room who spoke to the Free Press said the incident was so unusual that they wrote it down at the time.
A second source with knowledge of the exchange told the Free Press on Saturday that they, too, recalled that Fain suggested he and Barra “get together for the handshake” after ratification. And Barra said something along the lines of, “You didn’t do the traditional handshake at the start and I don’t think we need one at the end. … It is a practice that we don’t need to continue.”
Then Barra stood up, looked at all the UAW negotiating committee members one by one, and said, “We’ll see you back at the plant.”
The first source told the Free Press, “She was visibly not happy.”
On Saturday, GM declined to provide comment around the interaction between the two parties reaching a tentative agreement.
The UAW also declined to comment.
Replay: UAW President Fain to reveal details of GM tentative deal
Barra expressed irritation during negotiations, and she accused Fain of engaging in “theatrics” rather than brokering a contract.
Last month, the company told investors that the targeted strike was costing GM $200 million a week in lost production revenues. In 2019, the UAW strike on GM lasted 40 days.
Ford Motor Co. declined to comment and Stellantis could not be reached Saturday to comment on whether they planned to move forward with the traditional handshaking ceremony after ratification. A UAW source said the two automakers have not indicated plans otherwise. Bill Ford, executive chair of Ford, said Oct. 16 during the strike that UAW negotiations may be contentious but that the UAW and automakers succeed or fail together and things will return to normal at Ford.
More: There’s a reason UAW pushed so hard for Ford deal first, analyst says
More: Meet the Detroit Free Press autos team covering the UAW strike
Contact Phoebe Wall Howard: 313-618-1034 or [email protected]. Follow her on X, the site formerly known as Twitter @phoebesaid.