FCA Overpaid 24,000 Workers In Unemployment Benefits And Now It Wants Its Money Back

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles has asked 24,000 employees in the United States to repay hundreds of dollars in “overpayment” from supplemental unemployment benefits, The Detroit News has revealed.

A contract ratified between the United Auto Workers union and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles last year requires the car manufacturer to provide ‘SUB pay’ to temporarily laid-off workers that brings their compensation to 74 percent of their usual 40-hour-a-week wages. However, with an additional $600 per week coming from the U.S. government to the unemployed through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, the compensation of workers is already surpassing that 74 percent threshold.

Additional unemployment funds went into effect retroactively from the week ending April 4 when FCA paid out supplemental benefits for a second week after closing North American plants. FCA has since announced that it will withhold some compensation to make up for the overlap.

The excess payout was on average $500 and FCA will get the money back by making $100 payroll reductions per week to workers. Some employees have also paid back the $500 in lump sums. Not everyone is happy about repaying that money, however.

“I feel that is our money,” FCA Sterling Heights Assembly Plant worker La Tonya Washington said. “It’s going to be a challenge for everybody to pay that back. Them taking that back is like a big slap in the face to us.”

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“The $600-a-week in economic support provided as part of the Federally approved CARES Act is an offset to the company-paid supplemental unemployment benefits an employee may be entitled to receive,” FCA said in a statement. “Because the CARES Act benefit was paid retroactively, some FCA employees received an overpayment of their supplemental unemployment benefits, averaging about $500, which they are now being asked to repay.”

The Detroit News reports that employees at General Motors and Ford did not receive any ‘SUB pay’ from their employers once the $600 government payments started.

Washington has joined a number of other FCA employees filing grievances over the matter and believes workers are entitled to the weeks of SUB pay already received.