The failure to eliminate two-tier wages was a key reason UAW members rejected a four-year tentative agreement with Fiat Chrysler, Dino Chiodo, president of Unifor Local 444, said Wednesday.
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Earlier Wednesday outside Chrysler’s Sterling Heights Stamping plant, a Chrysler worker said while a strike is now possible, he does not believe it would be a positive step. “It stays in place”.
The proposed Fiat Chrysler pact would have narrowed the pay gap between top tier and lower tier workers to about $5 an hour, but not eliminated it.
David Muller is the automotive and business reporter for MLive Media Group in Detroit.
Plant-level union leaders were summoned to Detroit for a meeting Thursday to decide the next move. It’s considered a rebuke of their union leaders who supported the deal.
A UAW spokesman said the union wouldn’t disclose the vote count until after an assembly plant in Belvidere, Ill. completes voting this evening.
Rejection of the deal, which was initially reached on September 16, could ultimately result in a less desirable contract for the union, Art Wheaton, professor of labor at Cornell University, told Bloomberg. They would earn between $17 and $22 per hour while axle operators would earn between $17 and $22.35 per hour, the Free Press said.
FCA workers not striking but idled by a strike at one plant would be eligible for unemployment and supplemental benefits that yield laid-off workers nearly full pay during the time they are idled. “The intention of this contract is to make two-tier permanent”, he said. That strategy keeps most of the workers on the job (and getting paid) while still putting big pressure on the automaker.
“That’s a definable difference”, said Chiodo. We have heard that Ford is going to be next.
“The other option is to go back to the bargaining table and see what we can do”, he said.
“They may need an outlet [strike] to get that anger out”, she said.
“Don’t get me wrong, this contract is better than the one we had last time”, he said. The UAW over the last number of years have worked co-operatively to put together deals to satisfy workers and were affordable for the companies.
On Tuesday afternoon, the union gave Ford notice that it intends to strike at an F-150 pickup truck plant in Claycomo, Missouri, near Kansas City starting this weekend.
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A general strike of FCA could easily cost the carmaker $500 million a week in lost vehicle production, about half of the amount a weeklong strike would cost GM or Ford, said a source familiar with Detroit 3 production.
