ABOUT 146,000 United States car workers are set to go on strike on Friday if the “big three” car makers fail to agree to a new contract.

The United Auto Workers (UAW) union is demanding that General Motors, Ford and Stellantis meet their calls for a pay raise to keep pace with the soaring cost of living and the restoration of concessions the workers made years ago when the companies were in financial trouble.

New UAW president Shawn Fain said that his members would take strike action at any of the three companies that have not reached an agreement by the time its contract with the union expires at the stroke of midnight on Thursday.

The UAW is seeking a 46 per cent increase in general pay rates over four years which would see an increase for top of the scale assembly plant workers from $32 (£25.53) an hour to around $47 (£37.50).

The UAW also wants an end to varying tiers of wages for factory jobs, a 32-hour working week for 40 hours of pay and the restoration of a defined benefits pension scheme for new employees, who are on a separate scheme.

It also wants a return to cost-of-living pay increases each year, alongside other benefits workers once enjoyed.

Mr Fain has acknowledged that the union’s demands are “audacious.” But he has argued that the vastly profitable car companies can afford to raise workers’ pay significantly to make up for what the union gave up to help the companies withstand the 2007-09 financial crisis.

Both sides began exchanging wage and benefit proposals last week, but there appears to have not been enough progress to ward off a national strike by UAW members.

A contract offer from Ford proposed a cumulative 10 per cent pay raise over the course of the four-year contract, plus several lump-sum payments, including $6,000 (£4,788) to cover inflation. 

GM has also offered 10 per cent, with similar lump sums. Stellantis (formerly Fiat Chrysler) offered 14.5 per cent wage increases over four years, without lump sums in the wage package. But it proposed lump sums to cover inflation. 

All three have rejected the shortened work week that the UAW requested.

On Friday, the union president said that the company offers were not enough and that he had thrown them away as rubbish. 

But Mr Fain said that he met GM and Ford on Sunday and was set to meet Stellantis on Tuesday.