As Fiat Chrysler and the UAW pledged Thursday to continue talking, the company appeared to blame entry-level workers for the membership’s rejection of a four-year tentative contract.
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About 40,000 union Fiat Chrysler employees have been working under a contract extension since September 14.
The rejection is especially a big loss of UAW president Dennis Williams.
Plant-level union leaders were summoned to Detroit for a meeting Thursday to decide the next move.
US automakers General Motors (NYSE:GM) and Ford (NYSE:F) had strong sales last month as lower gas prices boosted demand for SUVs and trucks, but Volkswagen (OTCPK:VLKAY) is clouding the industry with its emissions scandal.
“Last month’s sales strength was broad based with five FCA vehicles setting September sales records and two others posting their best monthly sales ever”, Reid Bigland, head of sales for FCA United States, the unit formerly known as Chrysler, said in a statement Today.
“We will gather the issues together, notify FCA that further discussions are needed”, Williams said in his statement.
“In four years, we could fight for more”, she said.
“That make-out fest that Williams and Marchionne did – that was quite impressive for the corporate world – but not for the guys that bleed blood and sweat and give their bodies up in the plant”, Tony Leonard, who works at the company’s Warren Truck plant, said earlier in September. Although he is paid at the higher hourly rate, McCarthy said there “wasn’t any light at the end of the tunnel” for the second-tier workers.
“I said from the start they would be the toughest and the highest probability of a strike”, said Kristin Dziczek, director of the Labor & Industry Group at the Center for Automotive Research. “A hundred of dollars a week is (not enough money) from the strike fund. So, we’ve got to do what’s best and what’s right”.
To be sure, as US unions have lost members and gained more global competition, they have tended to call fewer strikes. That helps the UAW limit strike benefits it would need to pay.
“My issue with the tentative agreement is back in 2011 there was talks about a cap of 25 percent on Tier 2 workers after the life of the contract”, said Vuli.
After months of fighting to keep the Jeep Wrangler, many workers felt the rug had been pulled out from under them two months ago when word came out that Fiat Chrysler was looking to move the Jeep Cherokee out of the Toledo Assembly Complex to a plant in Illinois.
The UAW has traditionally negotiated similar contracts with all three automakers to prevent their employers from suffering competitive disadvantages. “You sit down, listen to the membership and try to figure out is it just misunderstandings… and then go back to the drawing board”.
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The proposed agreement would have narrowed a pay gap between first tier workers who make around $28 per hour and second tier workers whose wage is capped at about $19 per hour.
