UAW workers appear to have rejected Fiat Chrysler contract

United Auto Workers union members have rejected a proposed contract with Fiat Chrysler in a rebuke of union leaders who had praised the deal.

In Toledo, meanwhile, 87 percent of production workers and 80 percent of skilled trades employees -the largest margins to date – voted against the agreement.

Workers at an assembly plant in Belvidere, Ill., were to be the last to vote on Wednesday, but by the newspaper’s calculations, the deal mathematically could no longer pass.

At UAW Local 1700 in Sterling Heights, 72% of production workers and 65% of skilled trades workers who cast ballots voted against the contract, according to a person briefed on those results.

A few Toledo workers have rallied against the deal. At the end of a contract, UAW leaders typically push hard to negotiate a deal with one of the three Detroit automakers – and then use that deal as a “template” to forge agreements with the others. “But the last time we were coming out of the recession, so you really can’t use that as a benchmark”.

Workers wanted an end to the divisive two-tier wage system that pays entry-level workers far less than legacy workers, said Dave Cole, chairman emeritus of the Center for Automotive Research. There’s non-union people in there, they’re making sub-standard wages.

“My guess is that they’re going to put Chrysler aside”, Pannebecker said.

How much the two sides could accomplish at the bargaining table is unknown, Mr. Masters said.

News of the company’s plans to move the Cherokee came after officials from Toledo and the State of Ohio spent more than a year putting together a land and incentive package to persuade the automaker to keep the Wrangler there. The company, though, has announced no such plan and the tentative agreement contains no language on it, except to say there will be $5.3 billion in investments in its plants. “Reading the tea leaves, my bet is the UAW will go to Ford”.

The rejection is almost unprecedented in today’s modern automotive industry, outside of a special situation in 2009 when Ford Motor Co. workers overwhelming voted against a deal during mid-contract bargaining following the bankruptcies of Chrysler (now known as FCA US) and General Motors. “They will have to sweeten the deal because the bulk of their most profitable vehicles – Jeep and Ram – are built in the U.S. They can’t afford a strike and lose production of those two vehicles; they make a ton of money for FCA”.

But, “That is a huge risk because Fiat cannot afford to pay the wages and benefits that Ford can”.

“I don’t think [Mr.] Marchionne will match what Ford and GM offer”.