The United Auto Workers union has given the final OK to a new four-year contract with General Motors.
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Meanwhile, the GM decision comes almost a month after the Detroit automaker and the UAW agreed to a tentative deal and after a two-week review into why a majority of skilled trades workers voted “no” on the deal.
The UAW-Ford deal comes after a resurgence in auto sales and profits.
Nationwide, 51.4% of workers voted to ratify the contract, according to the UAW worldwide.
Later in the evening, it became a clean sweep as the UAW announced workers had narrowly ratified a pact with Ford Motor Company.
Negotiations with GM were in limbo because the proposed contract was rejected by skilled trades workers. It applies to more than 52,000 autoworkers at GM and was ratified Friday after changes were made to address the concerns of the skilled trades workers.
UAW President Dennis Williams and Cindy Estrada, vice president of the union’s GM department, asked the company on November 13 to extend a deadline for notifying the company until the close of business November 20. “UAW-Ford members have delivered job security and strong economic gains for their families and communities”.
The agreement guarantees legacy workers hired before 2007 a three percent pay increase in the first and third year of the contract and a four percent lump-sum bonus in the second a fourth year of the contract.
A rejection can be overridden by the union by skilled trades workers, but it cannot shift contract elements that apply to any or all members. The margin of victory was a slim 1,100 votes of the 40,000 cast on the new contract. “We used to have 97 percent of the market and now we’ve got 47 percent, so it’s not like it was”, said Bernie Ricke, president of UAW Local 600, which represents workers at the F-150 plant in Dearborn.
Kristin Dziczek, director of the labor and industry group at the Center for Automotive Research, said the overall cost of the two FCA deals was virtually identical, but that the second agreement gave workers less job security in exchange for letting Tier 2 workers eventually earn more money. “Don’t tell us the company can’t afford it”, said Gary Walkowicz, a bargaining committee member from Local 600 in Dearborn, who has openly opposed the deal. The GM agreement ratified by the UAW on Friday is expected to raise labor costs to $60 from $55 during the same time period.
The contract creates or keeps 8,500 jobs, and calls for raises for all workers, including a path to top wages for entry level employees.
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The contract included bonuses of as much as $10,250 for each worker in 2015 and profit sharing annually as well as other types of bonuses annually following that.
